The Tides Wharf & Restaurant — Restaurant in Sebastopol

My sis was turning 35 and wanted to see the Ocean as she’s only seen it a handful of times in her life. Upon leaving the area and on our way home we decided to find a dine in restaurant. Not knowing how special this place was we stopped went in and was surprised to see this restaurant definitely had a past and with the gift shop being an added bonus we thought we check into the restaurant and do a little shopping. We were told the wait time was to be about 30-45 mins for our party of 9. We waited patiently and did our shopping, took pictures of the ocean out back. Everything was nice till we walked in. We were a large group so naturally everyone was looking at us. Sitting down we noticed we were missing 2 seats so in actuality we had to squeeze in two seats from other tables from the other guests that were offering. Our waitress “Merry” came to greet us. Merry was anything but Merry which I noticed when I had asked if we could combine a nearby table that was empty. Responding “absolutely not, how do I know that table wasn’t already called for” I was initially thrown off by her response but thought nothing more into it as I believed it to be her character and wanted nothing more than a nice time for my sister. Upon ordering Merry rushed us “Who’s ordering next!” Mind you we had asked Merry to split the check so we each took care of our own. The food was nothing special trust me. I ordered the Clam Chowder with the Shrimp Cocktail. I was so thrown off by the taste I could not finish it, Sour Ketchup is the best way to describe what sat in front of me. My brothers soup was watered down with what looked to be like canned veggies. Everyone else had something to mention about the quality. As I’m eating I look up and each kitchen staff member came out of the door looked in our direction and laughed. One guy wearing all black stood in the door way to the kitchen picking his nose and flicking it to the ground. Then proceeded to pull something out once again and run his fingers in front of him dropping his crusty boogers on the floor gross. Upon checking out “Not so Merry, Merry” came up and said alright who’s paying? We looked at each other stumped and said well we asked for a split check. Merry responded “No one said anything about splitting the check” my poor sister the Bday girl said to Merry we did mention it but it was ok. I wanted to incentivize Merry and let her know we would all be giving her an individualized tip and from my experience waiting tables years ago I would often get better tips that way. Merry then raised her Voice and said “That’s a Crock of Shit”. Both my party and several other tables had silenced ourselves in disbelief. My niece had begun to itemize the check to make it easier on her. I grabbed the receipt walked up to the next waiter and asked to be checked out the minute Merry walked away. Merry came out and said ok is there anything else needed from her. I sat up and said “No absolutely not!” I didn’t need anything from this woman and I was just happy to get out of there I explained to her. My poor sister looked upset and I asked her and the rest of my party to wait outside. Before I could zero out a tip all together my sister turned around and added a tip in cash into the checkbook. As I asked who I should give the checkbook to no one wanted to help. Nearly making it to the front entrance I asked the kitchen staff who I would hand it to since no one wanted to take it from me and some lady said “what the issue” and instead of then pointing me to a Manager like I had also asked others at this time she stated “Look you already paid” I said yes but I wanted to make sure it got in the right hands and I wanted to speak to a Manager. They grabbed him and I explained the whole situation. I would never go that far and I never speak up unless I feel like I’ve been wronged but in no way did anyone attempt to make us feel better. I’m gonna say this because I’ve been treated differently before. Merry treated us so differently than her white guests. We are Native with money and she judged us...

We had a nice dinner on a Saturday after spending a couple days cleaning up after the Kincade fire turned things upside down at home. One of us had the 'special' of the potato crusted salmon with lemon sauce, green beans, saffron rice. It was a nice and tasty dish - but a la carte, so no soup or salad offered with it. I had the 'chefs choice' fish & chips which was an assortment of cod, shrimp, oyster and scallop dipped in batter and deep fried, served with fries (large cut, not shoestring) and tartar sauce and cocktail sauce (although the cocktail sauce seemed like ketchup with grated horseradish added - serviceable). The fish&chips are not a la carte so I had a cup of the 'Bodega Bay Chowder' with it. All washed down with a pint of Anderson Valley Boont Amber. The place does indeed have nice views of the harbor. Practically every table in the place has a great view. (The second aisle of tables from the windows are up a level by a couple steps.) But the place is a curious mishmash of tourist prices, upscale pretensions, but local seafood joint One is greeted by the host, ushered to your table and menus presented with a flourish. No tablecloths, but paper placemats with a few bits of text about the history of Bodega Bay, cloth napkins, a basket of sliced bread with wrapped butter pats already placed & covered in a cloth napkin. A bread plate at the ready at each place setting. A little amber table candle set with one of those LED faux-candles flickering in it. The decor is spare with warm wood tones, exposed beams, vaulted ceiling. There are shades that can be drawn down over each window reducing the glare of a western sun. Overall: pleasant, somewhat cozy, and - I'll happily point out - not the noisy echo-chamber din that plagues so many reasaurants nowadays. The place was busy with most tables occupied for the evening and you could still have a conversation with the person across the table from you and not have to shout. This was our first time here, and I was curious what it was. I'd known that the original Tides Restaurant featured in Hitchcock's movie, "The Birds", had burned down decades ago (there is a small life-sized mock-up of the front of the old Tides at the entrance to the restaurant). So there is a sort of notoriety to the location - perhaps an additional draw to the tourist business. For the somewhat early Saturday dinner crowd (we paid and left around 6:30) on the first weekend after the Kincade wildfire, the clientele was more casual than I'd expected. Hoodies, baseball caps worn backwards, cutoffs, Crocs. Nobody dressed in anything remotely dressy, but then no one dressed in 'day at the beach' attire either. Middle aged men in polo shirts and Dockers was about the top of the range. I know that seafood can command a higher price, perhaps even when served at an oceanside indoor establishment with sit-down service and cloth napkins. Our dinner of 1 a la carte salmon entree, 1 'captains platter' fish & chips with cup of soup and 1 local beer came to $70 (before tip). We had no problem with the waiter, but another curious note: since I ordered the fish&chips, when it came, was served with a tartar sauce and what I took to be ketchup, each in little plastic disposable cups nestled in the plate. The server asked if I wanted ketchup - I looked at the red sauce in the cup and must have had a quizzical look on my face as the waiter read my thoughts and explained that it was cocktail sauce. (It sure looked like ketchup to me). Taking him at his word, I thanked him and said I would like some ketchup with my fries. He disappeared and a moment later returned and plopped down a commercial plastic squeeze bottle of Heinz ketchup! Fine, but somehow jarring against the sort of upscale pretensions the place gently exudes. Well, at least it wasn't a handful of little tear-open packets of ketchup! As I said - I had no issue with the waiter. The food was good - but it wasn't $70 good. As I said above, the place is a peculiar mishmash of...

I debated long and hard about if I should even review this place as I feel sometimes people’s criticism in reviews is not entirely warranted and I don’t want to sound like a male Karen. I’m actually not a picky eater at all but I hope I can spare some hungry travelers from spending a lot of hard earned money on what I can only describe as one of the worst dining experiences in my 30 some years of life. About six months ago my friends and I were in the area after taking a road trip to bodega and were looking for a local seafood restaurant to try. We saw a lot of people in line waiting to eat at this establishment, so we thought the food must be great if they’re that busy. As we were walking up, some lady came storming out of the dining area screaming and clearly upset about the food/service at this establishment. She told everyone in line that the food was awful and not worth the high price tag. We left that day and opted for cooking our own food at the campground down the street. This last weekend my friend and I were in the area again. He had eaten here some years ago and told me it was “pretty good”. I let myself get talked into giving this a try. After all, how bad could it REALLY be?…. The service was ok, not bad but I’ve had better at Denny's. We opted for bbq oysters as appetizers and we both had the seafood chowder/shrimp cocktail combination. The seafood chowder arrived before our appetizer, a tiny bowl containing roughly three spoons worth of what tasted like bland canned Minestrone with a couple tiny gravel sized pieces of mystery “seafood”. Next was the shrimp cocktail. A tiny glass with what appeared to be salad shrimp (the kind you can find at any Walmart) with what I assume supposed to be cocktail sauce on the bottom of the glass that tasted like ketchup. The only highlight of this whole “dish” was the single piece of decorative parsley on top that at least provided some little flavor for one bite. Finally our appetizer arrived after or two “main meal” ordeal, the bbq oysters. I was hopeful that for !25 bucks! (4 oysters) this would finally be the redeeming part to prove me wrong, to send me home thinking that this establishment isn’t a complete sloppy money grab for hungry travelers. Unfortunately it wasn’t. The oysters were uneventfully topped with a glob of what tasted like the same ketchup based sauce that was used in the shrimp cocktail. On top of that I could tell they were cooked on the same grill as the hamburgers. We quietly left, not wanting to make a scene and take this one as a fat L. My friend dropped over 100 bucks including tip for this s**t and I could see the disappointment on his face as he looked forward to a decent meal all day. I feel bad for anyone experiencing even close to the same. I hear bodega bay oyster company is worth a try if you don’t mind the drive but I can’t vouch for it as I haven’t tried it yet myself. After miserable experience I don’t think it could be any...