The Watering Hole at Kijamii Overlook — Restaurant in San Diego

4 months ago I would have rated this place highly, however after 3 unfortunate visits it is no longer an option for us. We frequent the safari park with our son and have always loved grabbing food and a drink during his midday stroller nap! They used to have an interesting yet reliable menu, good cocktails and excellent service to boot! All for the same price as the other park food ($$), so totally worth it! Since the beginning of the summer however they seem to be cutting costs, first only serving burgers (literally 1 burger option!) and now with a sandwich menu that leaves me wanting more. I tried their nachos today for the first time and they came out with room temp cheese whiz and cold chopped chicken- for $21. No thanks. Thankfully the kind staff replaced that disappointment with a perfectly fine pulled pork sandwich that I’d had before. Clearly they are cutting costs or corners in the kitchen (or it’s coming from higher up) but as a frequent park guest I’m sad to say we’ll be packing our lunch from now on. Hopefully they read this and consider getting that menu back to where it was because the Overlook Watering Hole used to be a highlight...

Lunch with a view in Escondido! We loved the view, and being able to sit down with a nice breeze and misters at a full service restaurant. There was a full bar, too, which was a nice option, though we stuck to beer. Our food was great. The pulled pork sandwich had the right amount of BBQ sauce to pork and roll ratio. The beef and cheese was oozing cheese sauce but not too much. There was just enough excess to dip the chips in. I hadn't had a Beyond Sausage before, but was really happy with my selection. It tasted like Sausage and peppers but wasn't real pork, so I felt better eating it. Especially as we watched the rhinos off in the distance. The rolls were perfect! Not dry or falling apart. The reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because the menu was super limited. Kids menu was Mac & cheese and turkey sandwich. Not sure if that's the menu at other restaurants. I guess we were geared up for a burger or chicken fingers and fries like at the other quick serve restaurants in the Park and those weren't options here. Not a deal breaker. We'll go back for the peace and civility of full service and the break...

The service here is terrible. 1st visit, it took over an hour to get our food. 2nd visit, it took over an hour to get our food, was cold when arrived, and our drinks didn't arrive until the bill came. 3rd visit, we asked to sit by the fire pit that is never on because it was freezing and we had a baby with us and they denied us, stating the firepit was for their upper management group who was visiting. Haha! 4th visit was this last weekend and the host refused to seat us with our reservation because we were a group of 2 but was seating parties of 3 and 4 who were walking up because "we had to wait for a 2 person table" and the only thing available were tables to seat 4. While standing there, we watched 2 parties leave extremely angry because they had been waiting for food for almost 2 hours. They need to close this place until they can figure out...