True Food Kitchen — Restaurant in San Diego

Disappointing. I've heard many good things about True Food Kitchen and had high expectations coming in. Perhaps I went to a wrong location at the wrong time? Who knows.

Our group came on a weekday lunch time and there was not many patrons. It was a slow day. Our server came over, introduced himself and asked if we needed a minute to order our drinks, we did -- most of us have never been here before. He came back a short while later to take our drink orders and we also put in an order for a few appetizers to start with.

It started pretty well. The appetizers came out great and they were tasty. We ordered edamame dumplings (yummy!), guacamole (ok. not great, not bad.) and charred cauliflower (fantastic!) , but our drinks never came. After about half hour, one drink showed up. What happened to the rest? No idea. Our waiter said they are still working on them. Okaaaay... there are only fewer than 5 other tables in the restaurant, but sure. Perhaps they ordered a couple of drinks each and there is only one bartender and each drink has 30 ingredients. In any case, we were starting to get hungry, so we put in our orders for mains.

About 15 minutes later... where's the drinks again? It's been roughly 45 min and no drinks except our one lucky friend who got their drink earlier. We asked our waiter and he said he would check on it and we also asked to get our water refilled. He went to some other tables, to the kitchen and completely forgot to get our water or check on our drinks. Oh wait. Look! Looks like he's heading to the bar now, please, please remember to check. Oh awesome. Now we see some actions happening. Our drinks finally came out. But no water. Don't worry, we just reminded him again. At least we have our drinks now.

We saw him wandered off again, seemingly to have forgotten that we wanted a water refill.

Appetizers were long gone. We put in our food orders a while back and hanger is oncoming.

Approximately 35 min after we put in our food orders, they came out. I got the buffalo chicken sandwich with carrots and the carrots were really good. The main star (the chicken sandwich) was blah. It tasted like heated-up frozen chicken patty with a smear of Frank's buffalo sauce (it probably wasn't, but tasted like it) between pre-frozen buns. It was edible, but "edible" should not be an adjective used to describe restaurant food.

My friends weren't too impressed with their food too (they said it was meh and I also tried their pizza and agreed).

Do you still remember water? Yep. He forgot but we didn't because we're still thirsty. Let's try again and hope that this time he would actually remember. Yes! This time he immediately got the water jug and refilled it. Third time is a charm!

With such underwhelming food and slow service, I'm sure we could have a better...

I’ve been to True Food locations across the U.S. and always loved the experience, but my visit to this location was disappointing. My partner made a reservation to celebrate my birthday, our anniversary, and the New Year—a detail we noted when booking—but none of it was acknowledged. It was his first time at True Food, and I had hyped it up, so the lackluster experience was especially disheartening.

Despite having a reservation, we were seated at a table that didn’t seem prepped for us, though the host kindly let us choose between two. Service was incredibly slow, even though multiple servers were walking around. Our server was polite and attentive to other tables, but interactions with us felt rushed, like a quick “You guys doing alright?” in passing.

I ordered an Iced Matcha Horchata, but it was out of stock for the night, so I went with the Lavender Matcha, which was fine. However, my partner’s drink didn’t arrive until I flagged down our server more than halfway through the meal. We ordered the seasonal Butternut Squash Soup, which tasted more like overly spiced curry, and the poke bowl, which was ruined by overly dry rice. The pizza, thankfully, was as good as always.

Adding to the frustration, our server was difficult to reach and seemed preoccupied. At one point, I noticed her at the bar sipping coffee, which made it awkward to call her over. The payment process was another ordeal—two of my cards initially declined for no reason, leading to an unnecessary call to my bank, only for the same card to work later.

Considering the slow service, missed drink, and inconsistent food quality, I expected a gesture like comping at least that one late drink, but nothing was offered. I left feeling disappointed, especially for my partner, who had gone out of his way to make the evening special. This was not the way I wanted to start the New Year or celebrate a birthday and...

"Response from the owner 5 hours ago Hello Jonas, Thank you for your feedback. We'd love to find how we can get a fifth star from you next time if you're willing to let us know!"

I am compelled to respond to "the owner"'s comment:

There are a few ways in which you could earn a five star rating from this reviewer, including requiring mandatory masking of your staff and patrons (when they are not sitting at their tables), social-distancing protection of guests by spacing seating to at least every other table... in other words, you would go a long way toward earning a top rating by demonstrating your concern for patrons, even when they just don't understand that nearly a million people have died in the US, alone, during this pandemic, and it's not going to get better until and unless Americans stop hiding heads in the sand and/or living in denial. This infectious disease is a killer...a killer...and surely, it's great to be able to return to some semblance of normalcy, opening up eateries and retail establishments, all good. Yes, and let's not - in the process of scrambling to return to eating out, happy hour bar-hopping, flooding into performance venues, et al. - throw caution to the wind (risking health and even lives) by creating super-spreader event opportunities at every turn.

Hey, you asked. I am only just being honest.

The service was pretty fair (though your server failed to mask, "uh...I didn't bring a mask to work...and we don't have any in the back..."), and the green juice concoction I drank for lunch was excellent, packed a real punch and, if I lived local to San Diego, I might have returned for another round. As it is, I live in another State, and rarely visit the West Coast.

Thank you for responding to my original review. I can only hope you were...