The Water Street Grill — Restaurant in Santa Cruz

The Water Street Grill Why oh why have I been sleeping on this restaurant!?

My husband and I went to this lovely establishment for the first time tonight for our weekly date night. And Holy Moses do we feel dumb for not having come here before.

We got reservations online via the website/open table for 6:30pm. We were PROMPTLY greeted and seated by 2 very lovely women. Waters with lemon came out before I could even situate my purse.

Dina our server (who may or may not be an angel in our midst), was just the absolute sweetest, personable, and attentive server, took our drink orders quickly and had them out in a flash.

We shamefully told her it was our first time there and she brought out delicious potato croquets with homemade BBQ sauce on the house. That sauce... It should be bottled.

We ordered the calamari appetizer as that's our typical go to barometer for a new to us restaurant and they delivered. Beautifully cooked with lite breading, tentacles which we love, and a never before seen (to us) addition of thinly sliced mini bell peppers that were also breaded. Y'all. The addition of these peppers... Adds a perfect blend of sweetness and acidity. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to enjoy calamari without it.

I ordered the skirt steak (rare) with blue cheese butter, mashed potatoes and broccoli. This dish. The broccoli ALONE I would order a gigantic plate of. It's cooked perfectly and seasoned to the gods. 🤤 My steak, was gorgeously seared, spiced, and almost still mooing just like I like it. Mashed potatoes were smooth and buttery. The blue cheese butter - good lawd. I want to put that on everything!

My husband ordered the Bourbon Chicken and Shrimp with potatoes. It came out on a sizzling platter but without the annoying fan fare of what you'd expect from a fajita sizzling platter. Shrimp was plentiful and cooked just right. The chicken was delicious as well as the potatoes. He cleaned his plate and wished he had more.

All in all, we were there for just under an hour due to us taking our time savoring the food. After 2 entrees, a glass of wine, a beer, and an appetizer total came to $99 before tip. Honestly - absolutely worth it.

We'll definitely be back...

You can read my review from three years ago when I first discovered this nice little gem of a restaurant in Santa Cruz. We have returned many times since then and as recently as last night. Reading back myself, I see that it's still the same quality and ambience that I enjoyed back then. Our meals were different, my wife had the pork chop and I had a New York steak, but we were equally satisfied again. Everything including the service was spot on. From putting a slice of cucumber and slice of lime in our water to the free Tapa of potato croquete, and garlic Aioli, everything tasted great and was presented beautifully. Easily gets my top rating....

REVIEW from 3 years ago We went to this place as part of the restaurant week. We enjoy this week to try some other places we have not thought of before or didn't know about. This one was a surprise and a treat.

My meal started with a chicken wings appetizer served with ranch dressing and some nice crunchy celery and carrot sticks. Portion size was very generous and I wasn't able to eat it all or I would have been too full for dinner.

For my entree I ordered a Top Sirloin steak and it came with mashed potatoes. My steak was cooked perfectly and seasoned perfectly and served with a wonderful pile of grilled onions and mushrooms on top. I would not normally order a Top Sirloin in a restaurant because it's often a inferior cut of meat compared to rib and NY steaks, but this was a pretty tender steak and because it was cooked perfect, I was very satisfied.

The desert course was a homemade Velvet cake. My wife had a cheesecake and both sure seemed like they were homemade and excellent.

I really liked this restaurant for the good food and I compliment them on making sure they shined for restaurant week. Many places I have eaten at during restaurant week don't put out their best it seems. Maybe chefs don't like the week but the owners do...., this place stood out as one that really appreciated my business and wanted me to come back again. We will certainly have this place on our list...

Went WSG for my girlfriend's birthday. We had hoped to have a better experience. Anything but. After reading some of the positive reviews, we made reservations as suggested. Arrived on time, had to wait about 5 minutes, which was not a big deal. Asked for waters and a wine list which were brought promptly. Things went downhill from there. Actually, it was a nosedive to crash and burn. The wine list was a sheet of paper with print so small that you would either have to have perfect vision or a magnifying glass. After receiving our wine we waited another 10 minutes to order our food. We both ordered the New York steak dinner. After 30 minutes we wondered when we were going to get our food. After 45 minutes, I asked to speak to the owner. I was told he was unavailable, because he was in the kitchen cooking, and that the manager would speak to us. The assistant manager came out to speak to us. She didn't identify herself, didn't apologize, but made excuses about being busy, etc. After more than an hour waiting, we received our food. By this time, we were a bit "hangry". You generally expect a little bit more from a sit down restaurant. Completely underwhelmed. Bland. No seasoning (do they even taste the food they serve?). Steak was tough. I suspect it was previously frozen. Barely edible. The prices are fair, but I don't care how affordable it is, if it's bad, it's bad and no savings will make it better. Our waitress offered us a free dessert to try and smooth things over. That was the best part of the dinner experience. She was apologetic. I felt sorry for her. It was obvious that she was frustrated with the kitchen. And to top it all off there was a faint foul smell. I couldn't tell were it was coming from, but it was gross. I try not be to hard on restaurants, I know it's a tough business, but they deserve every bit of criticism in...