Riva Fish House — Restaurant in Santa Cruz

My husband and I went here for our 27th wedding anniversary 🙄. We had to put in our name when arriving, and we're told it'd be a 35-minute wait. Ok, no problem... we walked down to the candy shop, which at the time was not busy, and we got a text that our table was ready before we could complete our candy order. Awesome! OK, candy shop will hold our order until after dinner! This is going great! We got a table with stools (at first apprehensive, I'm short), but actually, the stools were very comfortable. Prices are decent. We were literally across from the bar. We could watch the Olympics, which was cool, but people were constantly walking by. So if you're looking for cozy/romantic, this is not the place( not that this was our goal) just so you know. My husband ordered fish and chips. I ordered a spicy dish with shrimp and scallop. (It also had potatoes, mushrooms, artichokes, and green bell pepper. For some reason, the side choices on my dish were Cole slaw/fries. I didn't want either. I don't like Cole slaw, and why would I want fries with a dish that contains potatoes? I asked if I could replace the side with a salad and was promptly told I would be charged $7 extra and still wind up with one of the sides I did not want. Ok.... just give me the fries. Not that I'm cheap, I didn't agree with the mentality of charging me extra to waste food. I'm a 🍷 drinker and enjoy trying local wines. I ordered the $7 red from "CA." God knows where. The price and vague location in the state were a clue, but I crossed my fingers. I'm not a wine sob and will drink a Vella or Franzia box, no problem, but honey.... NO. When I buy a bottle for home/eating out or order a glass in a restaurant, i expect good wine. This glass of wine tasted like oak leaf. Basically, Dollar 🌳. No, I don't want another glass. I expected to pay at least 9-14$ for a glass of wine upon arrival, but it's not offered. So.... if you want good red wine, bring your own. People were moving all about and DROPPING STUFF LOUDLY a LOT while I drank my cheap wine and we waited for our dinner. Now, my husband loves clam chowder. He ordered it as an appetizer and REALLY enjoyed it. No sand enough clams, etc. I tried it too and it was great. I'm the critical one, not my husband, and he did not appreciate the fish, saying it tasted funny. He gave me a taste, and it actually had no flavor and had the texture of chicken breast. I really enjoyed PARTS of my dish. The scallop was the best I EVER had, and I've been to Gordon Ramsey in the Paris hotel for $9 a single scallop. The shrimp was cooked perfectly and delicious as well, but.... there's WAY too many other ingredients on the plate. Peppers, mushrooms, artichokes, red potatoes, etc. I get that they are probably necessary for flavor, but serving this dish with this many components was overwhelming. I love artichokes so ate the hearts and a couple of potatoes( but make salad a side with a dish like this!), but the peppers were great for flavor/color yet along with mushroom wich I also love IT WAS TOO MUCH. Use these things for flavor and serve conservatively, or at least don't force your patrons to add another heavy side to this dish and allow them to have a...

We wanted to love this place, as the view is great. Ironically, being a restaurant literally over the water, the seafood is awful. Everything is bland and over cooked. Way way overpriced for poor quality.

First of all, most of their seafood isn’t fresh or local. The halibut was on special and happened to be the only thing fresh and local the day we went, so we figured it would be a great choice. It was so dry and over cooked, not even a dipping sauce was able to help. The mixed vegetables served were rubbery which lead us to believe they must come frozen. The rice was boring. And everything was bland, like no salt or seasoning added.

Someone else in our party got fish and calamari, also over cooked. Dry, chewy bits. The fries were cheap frozen crinkle cut fries. How hard is it to cut potatoes and fry them instead? And again, no flavor.

The burger is clearly a frozen patty. Just no good meaty flavor, kinda grey looking, and thin and small for the price.

Someone else got a mixed seafood platter, all of it was over cooked and bland.

Someone got the salmon and that also was bland and over cooked.

We ordered chicken strips for the little ones but they were more like nuggets. Not long thin tenders, but small chunky pieces. Also all of them over cooked and dry, which made it difficult for them to be eaten.

Finally we ordered dessert, both the lava cake and brownie were blah. Not flavorful, dry.

The only enjoyable portions of the meal were the halfway decent fried zucchini and the gelato.

It’s incredibly surprising that a restaurant on the water would not know how to properly prepare seafood so it’s atleast edible. Especially at the prices they charge! $24 for a small dinner plate portion of bland, over cooked food. Don’t believe the good reviews, save all that money and go...

Went here for dinner with my beautiful wife and kids for her birthday. I ordered steak and shrimp tacos. My son had salmon sandwich with fries, wife had crab sandwich melt and for appetizer we had calamari. The calamari were good sized bites. Nice crunch when you bit into it. The meat was sweet and clean tasting. Not fishy like some places. Only downside was it didn't have tentacles just the body cuts but tasty nonetheless. So my steak tacos were good size portion. Steak cuts were pretty good size cuts. Not chopped into minced sizes, so you actually got good bite from the steak. What made the steak taco stand out was the shrimp that was included into it. They were a good complement to each other. The seasoning and sauce were good with a hint of spice all served in a corn taco. My son's salmon sandwich was served in a sour dough roll. Lettuce and other produce were left on the side so you could decide what you wanted to add to the sandwich. As for flavor it was a bit of disappointment. It was a bit bland. There wasn't and seasoning on the salmon other than the char from the grill. My son just dipped the sandwich in the ranch dressing that came with it. My wife's crab melt was full of crab and was flavourful. That sandwich too was pretty good sized serving. Last but not least I had a Rum cocktail drink to wash down the tacos. It was ok nothing to write home about. In my opinion it was a bit watered down and not enough rum as well as not enough of the juices that were supposed to be mixed in it. Over all it wasn't a bad experience. The service was good, the waiter was very tentive checking on us every so often and made sure we were OK with our orders and if we needed anything. What's nice too is they still have out door dining for those wanting to...