Alex Madonna’s Gold Rush Steak House — Restaurant in San Luis Obispo

In short, the food is priced too high for dogs to be allowed at the tables and steaks to be served cold.

My family spent Christmas Eve here for dinner since we were staying at the Madonna Inn. We had reservations, but it took nearly half an hour to be seated.

We were seated in the back of the outer ring of the restaurant, which is not nearly as elegant or aesthetically pleasing as the circular center portion depicted in most of the advertisements (we were given no option). Surrounded by other tables, two of the nearest were inhabited by groups that each had a dog as a guest. Yup, that's right - they struck one of my top pet peeves (pun intended). People were feeding their dogs in their laps off the table. Don't get me wrong, I like pets - but when people are paying $100 a plate for lobster and steak, dogs shouldn't be allowed in the venue imo. I might not have noticed the dogs if it hadn't taken over 30 minutes for our entrees to arrive.

The choice of starters was either salad or tomato basil soup. Everyone at my table opted for the salad but me. I got to say, I really think they missed out. The salads looked like the typical Denny's starter (just normal kind of bag-salad mix with a cherry tomato) -- but the tomato basil soup (though it came in a very small cup - maybe 6oz), was excellent!

I asked for mid-rare rib-eye steak ($40). I received a steak about two temperatures off at mid-well. I think the steak was seasoned a little heavy, but I liked the seasoning flavor so I was okay with it (I just would have liked to have tasted the meat more). The tinfoil wrapped potato that accompanied my meal tripped into one of my nitpicks. When you cook a potato in tinfoil you are in essence steaming the potato, not baking -- you might as well boil it for me if that is the case. I don't like it when places list steamed potatoes as baked potatoes. I also do not like tinfoil being served to me on a $40 steak plate. Can't they have the decency to at least remove it? At a quick BBQ shack, I would just roll with it - but for fine dinning? really?

My wife got the filet mignon rare. It was cooked to about mid-rare and was stone cold. I like to joke that my wife likes her steak still mooing but this one was D.O.A.. It was one of the first things we noticed wrong about the meal (I hadn't yet cut open my steak to see) and we told the waiter who then offered to re-fire it (which would have made it even less rare) so we told him to forget it. Once again, the meat seasoning was nice, but was put on a bit too strong covering the taste of the meat too much.

During the meal I would have given my kingdom for a drink refill. They serve the sodas in small chimney-type glasses and water in these very ridiculous goblets that they also sell in the gift-shops. Neither holds much content, and the long delays between visits from our server meant I went most of the meal with nothing to drink.

Lastly, when it came to dessert the place was out of nearly everything on their dessert menu. All that was left was a few cake selections and ice cream. My father attempted to order a piece of Neapolitan cake and was denied.

Its difficult and awkward sitting through a meal that someone else has paid for (my parent's invited us as a gift) when you aren't enjoying the food. You don't want to complain too much, because you don't want to hurt your hosts' feelings. Its not my parents fault this place was horrible. We had a fun night as a family despite this place, but certainly not because of it. If my parents ever read this, I hope they know how much my wife and I appreciated the gift and how much we love them.

In conclusion, barring some extreme circumstance, I will never eat at this place again. I think there was a Tahoe Joe's down the street that would have given me a better steak meal for half the price - I'd suggest people staying at the Madonna Inn go there instead. I'm guessing the Madonna Gold Rush Steak House will stay in business just because of its proximity to the Inn, but it is not a good...

A fun atmosphere, loved the whimsical decor and I was looking forward to having dinner here after what my friends had said about the Madonna Inn but ended up sadly disappointed. My friends had been out around SLO that day and we had a huge lunch so we weren’t very hungry but we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to eat at the Madonna Inn as we were visiting from out of town and may not have another opportunity. Our waitress greeted us at the table but was dismayed that we all ordered only appetizers, saying “You’re supposed to order an entree, just so you know for next time.” Upon review of both the menu and the website, this policy is not stated anywhere and it’s clear the waitress was just upset that our bill would inevitably be cheaper and therefore she’d receive less tip. The chicken on my Caesar salad was pretty unremarkable for a nearly $30 salad but the portion size was a very generous entree portion. None of the appetizers were appetizer sized so we were actually quite happy we didn’t order a main. My friend had the mushroom appetizer and immediately had to use the restroom for an extended period afterwards. For dessert we ordered the pink champagne cake, which I was very excited to try. The cake was gorgeous but flavorless- considering the price I would expect it to have a nice presentation with a side of berries or ice cream. I don’t mind paying more for better quality but the food wasn’t the greatest and we didn’t appreciate the waitress’ comment especially after realizing the policy either doesn’t exist or isn’t advertised anywhere. That said I would still recommend going because the whimsical decorations and live music were excellent, it was a fun look into the past and we enjoyed the coats in the gift shop. It will likely be a long time before I am able to return but I hope by then the service and food quality is one able to wow the customers the same way...

Second time here, but more disappointing than my first visit. First the good: I got the filet mignon, which had good flavor but was a bit tough, the wine I chose in the end was good, and the food came out as expected and the service was friendly.

Now the bad... I was a solo traveler, and was seated at a terrible tiny table next to a railing when the restaurant wasn't that busy. It's odd that parties of 2 got all the great booths, and I couldn't have had one despite tables being open. Then, I was trying to choose between two wines, and my server knew nothing beyond "people really like that one" about one of them. For a restaurant at this pricepoint, I'd expect actual information about what the wine tastes like, and if you didn't know it, I'd expect you to get the information from someone who does. After trying to google the wines, I asked if I could get a small taste of both of them to decide (since I had nothing to go off of). The server acted like this was an odd request. While he did eventually comply, I was made to feel badly for asking for that. And guess what? I chose the wine he didn't know anything about. When it came time for dessert, I asked about what certain cakes were made of, and again the server didn't know what was in all of the cakes, and didn't offer to find out. For as much as I paid for the meal, I expect better service, and you should consider getting rid of that small table, which felt like an afterthought in a...