The Garden — Restaurant in Santa Maria

I'm sad to say it but the service and food quality has drastically gone down hill. This WAS our family's favorite Mediterranean restaurant on the central coast and we'd recommend it to everyone we could. BUT NOT ANY MORE!

Over the last couple of years we noticed the quality of the food hasn't been what we were used to. But we kept coming back giving them the benefit of the doubt, thinking it was just an unfortunate one time thing... but it kept happening where the food was bland and the soup was watered down and the service staff were inattentive.

The last draw was a birthday party with about 20 guests. I confirmed our reservation with the owner days before hand. They had contracted with a kareoke friend of ours to have kareoke there every Saturday evening from 7 to 11 pm.

We were all excited to go. Especially our kereoke loving friends. We were ready to order all kinds of food and drinks and keep coming back on a regular basis. However none of this took place! The Karoke DJ was forbidden from setting up before we got there. They actually cancelled him. Without notifying me which is the only reason why we were booking our party there in the first place.

They didn't even have a section set up for a party of our size as we had previously discussed. They told our guests as they were arriving that they did NOT have the staff to accommodate our party. Which was a total shock, as again I was never notified about this or I would have made proper arrangements somewhere else for our party.

The manager told me a different story trying to over up their snafu but our party guests actually overheard the staff saying they couldn't accommodate us.

In short they ruined our party! Which was extremely disappointing and embarrassing for us and our guests!!

For this I'm never coming here again and wouldn't recommend anyone try booking a party with them either.

Highly unprofessional and ruined our...

I had the kebab combination platter and my husband had the lamb shank. We also ordered a mahanini sausage hot appetizer, a side of pita bread, and chose rice and vegetables as our sides. For dessert we both had Turkish coffee and baklava. So many great points on the meals but overall a disappointment. The sauce in the appetizer was way too much lemon, it ended up giving us acid burn on our tongues by the end of the course. The sausage itself was flavorful and very nice. I question the dish they chose to serve it in as it resembled an unflushed toilet. The beef on the kebab platter was great, the kofteh was not. It was more like processed meatloaf. The chicken had excellent grill char but lacked any spices. The rice was yellow but lacked flavor. I had a roasted Anaheim pepper served on my plate which was not sweated or peeled and overall quite surprising. My husband's lamb shank was the star of the night, absolutely delicious. The roasted vegetables were obviously a mix from a freezer bag, potentially microwaved and then topped with some dried oregano. I took some of the sauce from my husband's lamb shank dish and poured it on my rice, a fantastic improvement. The pita bread was chewy, tasted like it was packaged and also potentially thawed in a microwave. The Turkish coffee was spot on. The baklava was clearly a labor of love, light and flaky, but not nearly as drenched with honey as I personally like, but the flavors were fabulous. For the portion and quality I'd say this restaurant is overall overpriced and needs some work. The physical menu also has some typos, gryo Sandwich for example. But now I'm being nitpicky. The ambiance and service...

This place is a must see. If your looking for something different, this is Mediterranean food and a treat for everyone. It has been some time since we have been here. We walked in and had to find someone to help seat us. We found a person who said seat. wherever. We found our spot. We waited for menus for 5 min. Then we waited 10 min more, for waiter to talk to us for a drink order. We were getting a little upset as service was so slow. Another 5 min go by and the bus boy bring us waters we didnt order. Another 5 min go by and waiter says we dont have that. I ordered something different and 10 min go by until it shows up. He does says, so sorry for wait we are shirt handed. Ok but by now we have been here for so long we are ready to leave. I'll sum it up. Bad service! I wish I could of had some food. I know the food is good, I've eaten before. So sad a newly remodeled place that looks so good had bad service. Also the owner was there taking pictures with customers. He could of been making drinks or expediting food. He was paying attention to his friends and regulars and not others. Oh ya by the way we thought we were going to classy restaurant and pay 26 bucks a plate and we had kids watching spongebob on the TV. I have to say the backyard looks good and bar looks good. They should have bartender in the bar at all times. Also nobody was seated at the bar. Friday night and nobody at the bar. Too nice to be empty. Just had them again and the experience was much better. We had reservations so it was known we are coming. Took family this time and theu...