Gilda's — Restaurant in Santa Cruz

My wife and I tried Gilda's happy Hour on Monday afternoon, 9/29/25. We first went into the bar. It's a very cute but small bar. Eight people could fit comfortably; 10-12 if you were all friends and showered. I asked about the happy Hour, and the bartender said we could have it in the bar - which was full up at the time - or go into the main restaurant for it. Seeing that there was really no room at the bar, we went into the restaurant. As you can see from one of the accompanying pictures, the place was nearly deserted (about 4:45 pm). By the kitchen there was a man who appeared to be either the main waiter or the manager. I asked where we could sit for the happy hour, and he pretty rudely repled, "Happy Hour is in the bar." When I told him the bartender told us we could get happy hour in either the bar or the restaurant and that the bar was full, he begrudgingly told us to sit wherever we wanted, and promptly ignored us. Thank goodness there was a young lady there who obviously could see we were extremely put off by the guy's attitude, and she very kindly and amicably showed us to a nice window seat. If it weren't for her, we would have left immediately. She helped us with the happy hour menu for drinks and food, and we ordered. The food at happy hour is - thank goodness - half price, but still pricey. As you can see from the bill, we had crab cakes and calamari. We received two small crab cakes that were very mealy without much crab meat, and some very rubbery calamari. Even at half price, the two dishes were disappointments. Now to the cocktails. I had something called a "Smoke and Smash," which was little more than a couple ounces of mixed fluids, somewhere wherein there was some kind of distilled spirit - not very good. The Merlot was fine. The kicker is that our food was out and on the table long before the two simple drinks arrived. In fact, we were finished with the food before the drinks even came. I saw the bartender was busy with his eight customers, but ... really? The ONLY bright spot in our "experience" at Gilda's was the young lady who helped us out. Jocelyn was kind, friendly, and helpful. She is a true ambassador for Gilda's and should be recognized for her work. I only gave Gilda's two stars for service because of the other employees there; if it had just been Jocelyn's review, it would have been a 5+. Needless to say, we won't be going back to Gilda's, and I'm fairly certain that "Gilda" would be sorely disappointed at the treatment of some of...

First and last time eating here 10/15/23. The views are great, food is horrible. I got food poisoning from the fried scallops. They had 1 waitress working for a busy Sunday afternoon. We had to wait a long time for service. Which I would have been fine with that if the food had been good. I got the fried scallops basket and it was awful. They used breading that looked like what you'd put on fried mozzarella sticks, not batter like what should be on fried scallops. I ate one, and noticed when I bit into it, that it was very rubbery and tasted weird. My food was also pretty cold. It had sat under the lights for close to a half hour before they finished making my partners meal and served our meals. I'm from the East Coast where they make fresh seafood that tastes like perfection, so I know what good fresh scallops should taste like and this wasn't it. The scallops this place used were also not the bright white a scallop should be, they were grayish off white color. I thought ok, these may just be frozen ones, I was hungry so I ate 2 more. After that I decided it may be a bad idea to finish any more so I stopped eating them. The waitress asked how our meals were. I told her my scallops were tough and chewy and didn't taste good. She said "I'm sorry I'll tell the chef". She walked away printed the bill and brought it back. She did not speak to the "chef" at all and did not deduct a penny for the awful food. I've never had horrible food before that the restaurant didn't deduct at least something if the food was bad. Within a few hours I was sick as hell. I knew I had food poisoning, and it was the scallops that were bad, as they were the only thing I'd had to eat that day. This place is awful and should be shut down for serving bad seafood. My partner had the fish tacos, and while he did not end up getting sick, he said they were pretty gross and did not finish them. He gave those 3 out of 5 stars. He said the fish they used tasted terrible and definitely wasn't fresh.

Avoid this place at all costs. There has to be better places to eat on the Santa Cruz Pier. I will never ever...

This is the Furr's Cafeteria of the sea. While you are on the pier and watching seals swim by, one look at your food and you can rest assured that nothing on your plate has been near the water in a long long time. Your first hint that something is not quite right is the odd smells of the place you notice on your way to your table.

We called ahead to reserve a window table only instead of a clear vista, we see fingerprints and gunk from earlier diner's children all over the glass. I asked for lemonade. It is obvious that it came from the dispenser and not fresh. The mixture is off and needs calibration because it was unpalatable. The seafood sample plate was all heavily breaded and clearly from a box. It was left in the fryer so long that we were not certain what some of the items were.

The coleslaw arrived in a little dish on the side of the plate and it was clear that it had been scooped a long time ago and covered with plastic. The tarter sauce had been portioned much earlier as well as it had a dark skin and had time to soak into the tiny paper container.

I was very hungry and so I resigned myself to the uninspired fish and undercooked and unsalted fries but when my wife bit into an oyster that was mostly breading, she couldn't finish it because the flavor was just off like it had been around too long. That was when we had to stop and I needed to talk to the manager. It was convenient for me that our server had already dropped the bill on our table almost immediately after bringing our plates which in itself is a bit odd. I informed the manager that we were unable to eat our meals and he quickly waved the bill.

Being turned off by the prospect of having seafood at this point, we Ubered into town and 'Discovered' a place called Betty's Burgers and we had some of the best bacon cheeseburgers ever. So good that I even bought a souvenir t-shirt. Thank you...