Lucky's Montecito — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

I dined at Lucky's yesterday to celebrate my birthday, but unfortunately, the experience fell far short of my expectations. For an upscale restaurant with a base price of $60 for a steak, I expect a level of service and food quality that aligns with the cost. Sadly, both were disappointing. As someone with professional experience in Forbes-rated hotels and ultra-luxury resorts, I know what exceptional service and dining should feel like. When booking through OpenTable, I mentioned that it was my birthday, yet it went unacknowledged until dessert—only after my sister brought it up to our waiter. That was the first strike.

The second strike was the lack of attentiveness from our server. While our server appeared attentive to other tables, we had to call for him multiple times. We seemed to be the only POC in the restaurant, in a predominantly white town, and this disparity in service made me question if unconscious bias played a role.

Strike three was the food itself. My brother-in-law received the wrong steak, and the steaks for my brother and me were not cooked to the temperatures we had ordered. On top of that, the steaks were bland, tough, and lacked the seared crust you'd expect from a high-end steakhouse. Other dishes were similarly flavorless, except for the chicken pot pie my sister ordered—ironically, the best dish at a steakhouse.

To make matters worse, when the bill arrived, the incorrect steak was not removed despite our server admitting it was his mistake. I shouldn’t have to catch billing errors myself at a restaurant of this caliber.

The sole bright spot of the evening was the Server Assistant. He was attentive, refilled our water frequently without prompting, and was genuinely kind—a level of service our server could learn from.

Overall, this experience left me deeply disappointed. I’ve had better food and service at chain restaurants like Olive Garden,...

We did a lot of homework to make sure my 50th birthday was a good one. We chose Lucky's Montecito and Santa Barbara specifically for their great wine selection. We would typically head up to Harris Steakhouse in San Francisco as we consider it one of the top in the country. Our food was up to par and no complaints in that department. We did basic filets with a few sides and the girlfriend liked her French Onion Soup. This is an extremely noisy restaurant and you will need to speak very loudly just across your small table in order to hear. We were there on a Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. and it was packed. Overall the place has a very rushed feel. I get it, they have a great reputation. I was there to spend up to $1,000 on a bottle of wine. When I asked for the sommelier, They said he would come over. Instead, one of the waiters came over and introduced him also as a "som". Maybe my cashmere sweater looked a little more like the gym type. Very rushed, and then when asked to decant a Bordeaux, he said it didn't need it. Dude, if I'm spending over $250 or $600 on dinner.. decant my wine. We would never recommend this restaurant and are not coming back. Quite frankly, I'm pretty sure they just lied to my face and did not send the Som over. We were definitely a little bit tired from a long day of hiking and the pre-drink at Miramar. But hey my guy, I will be cheersing you on my 9-day Tuscan trip...

Never assume! My mistake was to imagine that this steakhouse located in a prime location on Coast Village Road in Montecito would offer an excellent meal. The restaurant was divided into 3 layers, an exterior, interior and a rear cozy space which I quite liked. The disappointment began with the menu offerings. The fare was quite common when compared to fine dinning restaurants at a similar per meal price point. The steaks, prime rib etc. were easily twice the price of better establishments. Not knowing better we made our selections and ordered. We assumed the price would be commensurate with its quality. Unfortunately this was not to be the case, gristly $75 steaks with $15 baked potato and $19 broccolini! Wow nothing special for the exorbitant price, no quality or sense of fine dinning what so ever. The service was quite mediocre and so was the attention to basic sanitation. When we asked our busybody to wrap up a portion of left over steak he said yes of course and then sloppily placed a used dish on the steak. When I saw this happening I reminded him that we had wanted to take it home. He said of course. It was unbelievable. The food that night was not horrible, it was only average but enormously disappointing for the price. The food quality and service was no better than what I imagine one would expect at a...