Lure Fish House — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

This was our first experience with Lure Fish House.We were in the Santa Barbara area and my wife was excited to get some fresh seafood since we were close to the sea.I read previous restaurant reviews from people and based on the information I had,this was the place to get some flavorful seafood. I also based my decision in part due to the fact that a previous customer had showed up on a sunday,and were shown a seat right away.One part I wondered about was attire.This place shows three dollar signs on price,so do you need to be dressed up.I would say no you definately do not.I like wearing shorts,and I was definately not alone in that here.So it seems ...come as you are.Today is Sunday,so I thought better still,and we had a party of four.Today was a very special day,so I thought sure...lets do today right. We showed up with four people with no reservations around 5pm and went in to see the lay of the land.We were told it would be like 15 to 20 mins.Thats great I thought and we waited for the text.We got our text and were seated by the hostess with the booming voice.The staff were very friendly and helpful in every way. We ordered a couple drinks...a mojito and a blackberry bramble.The drinks were good and according to the imbibers...they were appropriately strong and tastey.We ordered a dozen of the chargrilled oysters for the two oyster lovers in our party.The hostess we had by the way was very kind and personable,and also brought us some of the sourdough bread with creamy butter which someone in our party absolutely relished.The dozen chargrilled oysters came and we were so eager to see what they looked like as they came.We both proceeded to start on the oysters and it was obvious at a glance,that there were literally TWO of the oysters that were plump and juicy,and literally the rest of the dozen were atrophied and could almost be mistaken for the muscle only that is left in the shell. This was a huge day for our family and our daughter,as she was starting a freshman at UCSB.My wife and I were not going to let the fact ,that the staff of Lure Fish House serve us TWO large oysters and the rest literally thumbnail size oysters for our "Dozen Chargrilled Osyters",get in the way of our families special day together. We rose above this obvious hiccup of judgement in the staff of Lure Fish House,and waited for our entrees to arrive. I ordered the lobster/crab ravioli with a crusted bread.The ravioli seemed slightly dry on the outside and could have used a touch more sauce.The crab and lobster bits were good though,and I enjoyed the taste of the sauce.The one crustini that came with the dish was used with the sauce.I enjoyed this dish,but the squid ink was purely for show.My wife ordered the fish and chips with sweet potato fries and pineapple slaw.My wife enjoyed that dish with the fish and chips.She thought the fish was crunchy and good.The sweet potato fries with the spicy sauce and the pineapple slaw was a hit.One person ordered the salmon with fish cakes and sweet potato fries.The sweet potato fries were well receieved once again and the potato cakes disappeared as they were thought tastey.The fourth person got salmon with french fries and asparagus.Our daughter wants to like asparagus for some reason,because she keeps trying it when we go out to eat.I think she kind of liked it.The french fries were normal french fries, so I reccommend the sweet potato fries with spicy sauce.The salmon was prepared quite moist,and almost succulent as funny as that may sound.I tried it and it was good all on its own.All in all I would reccommend Lure Fish House.It may cost a touch more than several other restaurants,but can you put a price on time spent together with...

Had a great lunch with friends! We had the sand dabs, charbroiled oysters and 2 trout amandine .Served up a hot loaf of sourdough bread with seasoned butter was great! We started splitting a crab cake appetizer- there are 3 and 3 of us! These were presented nicely, but we all agreed we'd pass again next time...way too much filling and didn't have a lot of crab for the price. I got 6 charbroiled oyster and all wanted to try. OMG!!! SO absolutely delicious! Perfect fire cook with butter, garlic and parmesan and parsley! Use the bread in the butter ,garlic and with the white wine we ordered...yummy! Our fish entrees also impressed, one with sand dabs in a butter/lemon, caper sauce, she said was great; 2 were trout almandine dishes, very delish! I'd say my side of sweet potato fries blew me away! Hot and flavorful. I took them home leftover, not expecting much, but they were back to life in the air fryer! Great ,great servers in Sara and another lady (sorry-didn't get name) made for a well tended get together. Overall great food AND service!! We'll be back soon!!

Sad Follow up review (11/30/23): We did go back several times and had the same great service and food as before; either in the bar or dining area. However; the last time there, to celebrate the end of a job, we chose to go there and had a terrible experience! Sat in the bar area, it was a weekday, 5ish, and wasn't crowded. A young lady announced she'd be our server and took a drink order and was never to be seen again. A different server brought out our 2 glasses and left. I noticed a huge broken piece of glass missing from the edge of my glass. When we could get anyone's attention, they took it away...but didn't return for quite a while. We were there to eat dinner and finally, literally flagged someone to take our food order. There was a table close by us that was recieving a lot of attention from all the staff and getting served quickly as if it was a co worker. But we couldn't get ANYONE to come over. A young lady came and we asked for something and said we weren't sure WHO our server was, she said"WELL! you are sitting in the bar!" Rude.(Table IN the huge bar area). Meanwhile, she was behind the bar chatting with the main bartender and grabbed cut up fruits from the bar fridge with her bare hands and ate them! Our meal was brought out by yet another member and the Sea Bass was as delicious as ever!! Kitchen still doing a great job! Sitting there for a long time,waiting for a server-we wanted to see the dessert menu, the fruit eater dropped off the check. We said,we'd like to see dessert. We ordered and she came back again and dropped the check before the dessert arrived. We assumed she didn't hear our order, but the dessert did arrive after. She picked up the check book, but I told her there wasn't anything in there b/c we weren't done! We had a gift card and cash we used to put in the folder for the proper amount plus tip. No one picked it up and we just left with no reciept . The same young woman was loudly saying goodbye from behind the bar. A really sorry service experience from Lure!! Must have had no manager on. Disappointing last meal...

After we have been treat disrespectful by the front host employees. We was seated at the tiny table right in the front of Restroom door while the whole restaurant very much empty. I never forgot that special treatment on my 40th birthday. However, we thought everyone should get a second chance to improve, so we still came back many time after that uncertain event. We brought friends and family to support this place just because I had a great experience with their service all the way back at their Ventura Location and We hoped we can see some great experience like that at Santa Barbara location one day, but turn out we were wrong. ( after that event, my husband and I decided to find an open seat at the bar instead of being seat, and it was fine. Occasionally, we came with group of 4 or 6, we got a decent table.). On our last visit for lunch 2 week ago, we couldn't get an open seat at bar area anymore because restaurants served outdoor now, so we put our name on a waiting list to wait for over 1 hour to got a big flat disappointment.. After Years, they did it to us again, the different this time only outdoor seating, so they can not seat us at tiny table in the FRONT RESTROOM DOOR anymore, bút somehow they managed managed to seat us at one of the little tiny table that is only one and totally different from all the table in their patio, and it locates dọwn to corner section while saved the decent seat to the next couple who was behind us on the waiting list. We felt like we were kids who had bad behavior and got punishment. I turned around about to leave and I asked what did we do to be treat this way more than once? The host did not apologize, but told us to wait for them to clean other table for us. Another unforgettable Valentine's Day 2021 for us here. 😒😳 Well, this time, we said goodbye to this...