Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in San Mateo

I had an absolute terrible experience at the lazy dog location at the Bridgepoint shopping center in San Mateo on August 17th. I ordered Cajun fries and Banana pudding. I don’t know if it was because it was late at night and they were closing in about an hour and a half but the fries were cold. There was a terrible smell coming from the fries and they tasted so bad. It was almost as if they were spoiled, which I don’t know how that’s even possible. I called the store and explained how dissatisfied I was with the fries. The guy offered to remake the fries if I came back in, but at this point, I was almost halfway home And I simply did not want to turn around and Driving additional 16 minutes just to pick up fries. So then The gentleman offered a refund for the fries and mentioned that his manager would have to approve the refund so he said “it should be approved” not really convinced that a refund was on its way soI just left it at that. Since the first time I tried the Cajun fries, I’ve returned pretty much every day for the past week at this point.

The next day I happen to be in the area so I decided to stop in to order two banana pudding desserts, which is absolutely delicious by the way, And I brought up my experience from the night before and a possible refund. And again, I was just checking on the status of the refund. I didn’t expect any sort of further compensation other than the refund. The cashier went to get her manager, Spencer, who could not have been more apologetic and understanding of the situation. Immediately took action and assured me that a refund would be processed. Then he offered to take care of the two banana puddings that I had ordered to which I declined, and I paid full price for. In an effort to go above and beyond, he offered me two coupons for free a starter or dessert to use at a later time.

I come there pretty much every day so I returned back the next day to redeem one of the coupon coupons. I ordered banana pudding and Cajun fries. I asked if I could use both coupons at the same time to which the cashier said no so I said no problem. I handed over one coupon and she looked at it front to back then she went to get her manager. This manager didn’t introduce himself but he comes over and he looks at the coupon and he looks at the computer and then he looks with the coupon again and he says this is for dine only. Hands the coupon back to me and says “sorry man“. Well, I’m definitely not going to dine in for banana pudding and Cajun fries. While I was definitely willing to pay for the two items bed attraction left a bad taste in my mouth. So I decided to leave. While walking toward the door, I went back, placed both coupons on the counter and walked out. I know this may not be a big deal for a lot of people, but for me this entire experience rubbed me the wrong way. I decided to share my experience with the Corporate Office. Left a voicemail message for Adrian Wildes, I’m assuming she is their dining experience manager. Adrian called me back two days later however I was having terrible reception at the moment that she called and the call was disconnected. Since then I’ve tried to call her back numerous times. Left her an additional message to which she’s not responded. So while I do love some of the items on the menu, I don’t think I will be returning. I received an email welcoming me to a free Dessert during my birthday week which is on 31 August, but I don’t think I will be going back because like the coupon fiasco, I’m afraid I might have to dine-in just to eat a dessert and fries. I know this review was long so if you made it to the end, I’m sorry that my review...

I’m kind of being nice giving them three stars but that’s because they are new and obviously need time to improve. Went for happy hour and we sat at the bar otherwise it was one hour to 1 1/2 hour wait for a table including patio. The way the acoustics are inside it can get quiet loud. The patio welcomes dogs which is nice. As I have come to see it is not a place for those that are really health-conscious for the most part. Yes they have a few salads but it’s mainly what I called comfort food. We ordered a lot of stuff I would normally never order because it was on the happy hour menu and we wanted to try a variety of things. The only thing I would recommend that I would normally never order was the umami fries. But like the other things they offer, they drip sauces all over everything. I thought it would be more of a spice on the fries instead of drizzled. We tried the calamari which I was glad were what I call “O-rings“ and not “tarantulas“, but the spice they had on it took over everything and they were over cooked. We ordered the bacon hotdog and found one tiny piece of bacon and it was open face with waffle chips. It looked like an explosion with a hot sauce drizzled over everything. I couldn’t even tell if the bun was toasted (too covered with the hot sauce), but what I saw did not look toasted and it was too spicy and too messy so we just ate hotdog out. We decided to also share a burger which is on the happy hour menu ….but not at a happy hour price?? Very typical average burger, just thinking it probably has good beef. When it comes to drinks, at 5 PM they were out of all beers but three. The one I tried I would never order again. We decided to try happy hour martinis which were served in the very very shallow margarita type glasses and not filled to the top. I got the mint cucumber which was tasty but definitely a happy hour size! My neighbor got the pear martini which essentially was a lemon drop but pear flavored. They do offer frozen TV dinner type entrées you can take home and eat later which is interesting. A friend of mine did go prior to one of their restaurants down towards San Jose? and was not very impressed. I will not be running back unfortunately and I will give them time to...

5 stars for the layout. The huge bar, tables and overall theme of the restaurant is Southwestern with numerous tall picture windows and nice patio. The restuarant is much larger, nicer and more “high end” than expected as viewed from the parking lot. Living in Foster City, I felt like I had taken a mini vacation for the few hours I was there.

3 stars for the food and drinks. We ordered starters (buffalo chicken wings, crispy brussel sprouts, chicken lettuce wraps, sweet corn fries, crispy deviled eggs) and various glasses of wine. I liked all of the items but my wife and her friend thought the food was fair to poor. My only complaint was all the items were pricey for a causal dining restaurant.

2 stars for the ambience. It was really loud the night we were there and we struggled to talk and hear one another

1 star for the service: The good news is we were seated immediately despite the long line and mostly filled restaurant. The bad news: It took 25 minutes to get our drinks and when they arrived, they were all wrong. Another 15 minutes later, the food starters arrived all at once. Drinks came 10 minutes later, still wrong. And no water after we asked several times.

The coup de gras was after we paid our bill and heading out, the manager came over and explained we received the bill for another table ($11 less than our bill) and he blamed it on the server. Whoa! That is not the kind of leadership you want to see out of a manager (of note is that our server, clearly new to the food industry, was really nice and helpful throughout the whole meal and our opinion is that the poor service was not due to inept servers but more management).

Rather than the manager take ownership and eat the billing mistake, he explained he deleted the first charge from out credit card, explained it would be “pending” on our credit card for a few days, asked us to pay the corrected amount and again reiterated the server’s mistake. Wake up Lazy Dog management and...