201 Main — Restaurant in Salinas

If I could give ZERO stars, I would. This place is TRASH. Worst nightmare of a night I have had in my life yet & I was in the VIP section upstairs in the far back corner of the property. Spilled drinks EVERYWHERE & NO ONE was cleaning them up but myself (so I wouldn't slip and fall) and the place was way too hot even though they clearly had air conditioning (they're probably too cheap to turn it on). At about 1:00am I had walked out by my car to go and flag down my husband, no one was at any of the doors securing them, not a single person at any point of being there had notified me that there was a "dress code" or no re-entering after a point in time. I was outside for about 5 mins flagging down my husband when another security went back to the main glass entrance door to finally secure it. They apparently have a "dress code" even though there was plenty of people who I had seen that where NOT in dress code what so ever and security wouldn't let my husband in because he wasn't in "dress code". I had told my husband to just go home and get his rest, so I ended up getting left outside alone thinking I would be let back in since I had my VIP wristband on. I had nothing but my VIP wristband and luckily I had my credit card on me to identify myself but even then no one would let me in even though my wallet, ID and money where all inside, which I had explained and I was also the designated driver for the main VIP who was celebrating her birthday. Still the very rude security woman who had FINALLY walked up to secure the 201 gate still wouldn't let me in. Now I'm a female only about 4"11 feet tall and I was left in the cold with a bunch of homeless people around me who where literally tripping out like they where on several drugs and a bunch of groups of men eyeballing me, I WAS SO AFRAID. So I checked my pockets for anything and luckily I had found my car keys in my coat and I locked myself in my car. I had finally seen the security who had let me into the building in the first place and explained to him what happened and showed him my VIP wristband and FINALLY by about 1:45am I was let back in. Please don't waist your time coming here unless you want to get locked out of a building in the middle of a cold night, spend that time next to drugged up homeless and groups of men, and I'm talking 5+ big men in several groups looking like they are all going to stuff you in a van to never see the light of day again. I DID NOT FEEL SAFE. ZERO STARS IF I COULD. Also posted a photo of the 201 gate...

Well, tough to only give two stars, but here's why:

Interior: 5 stars. I will go back just to enjoy the ambiance and give the restaurant a second chance in 6 months if they are still in business. I loved the under-lighted onyx bar.

I can see what they are trying to achieve there but:

Wait Staff Professionalism: 0 (zero) stars for knowledge of dishes and sauces and preparation methods. A very young and very polite person but knew absolutely nothing about what was being served (e.g. what the sauces were and various preparations and food names) and had not memorized a thing about the menu –that's the managements fault for allowing an untrained, inexperienced person to be a waiter on a weekend night in an establishment that is apparently trying (and failing) to have a more "San Francisco" or metropolitan sophistication in Salinas. Come on guys, train your staff before you let them loose or pay for some "real" high quality wait-staff to handle the critical front line of your customer interface: Restaurant 101. Honestly, this would sink the place quickly if it was in Carmel and we give thanks we did not choose to drink wine that evening as any request for advice would have been too painful to sit through.

Kitchen Staff and Surf & Turf $40+: Steak was ordered medium and was almost blood rare and crab-stuffed prawns were in the salamander to the point of blackening the top and had a dry and almost deep-fried flavor to them...likely Bubba Gumps...

If i could give zero stars i would. DON'T GO HERE unless you want to pay a pricey entrance charge just to be harrased by security. They have too much security and all of them almost wanting to have confrontations. My friends and I were ALREADY LEAVING since one of our friends had a little too much too drink- i was DD and was sober. Mind you my friend was just being silly and wasnt causing any trouble. We decided we were leaving and that she just needed to go to the bathroom. This short female security followed us into the restroom and through the room towards the stairs. We were CLEARLY leaving and when I asked her why she was following us (incredibly close too btw) she got confrontational started to yell and even put her hands on me just because I told her to give us space and that she didn't need to follow us because we were clearly leaving. Than a slough of like 10 other security swarmed us because they clearly didnt have anything better to do, like you know, make sure people were safe. (I saw a girl fall because the floor was wet and NOT a single security officer approached to see if she was ok even though their was about ten in the room.)It looked like she was trying to get into a fight to the point that another female officer had to get in between us and calm her down. Nope, not okay to treat people like that, especially because we didn't cause any...