Solvang Brewing Company — Restaurant in Solvang

I'm struggling with this one, for right now it's two stars. I took my wife here for our anniversary dinner because we are local and had not been. We started with cocktails and ordered the soft pretzels with the Stout fondue. My Old Fashioned was a little sweet, like they used orange liquor in it. Whatever, it's a brew pub, can't expect a perfect cocktail. My wife's margarita was excellent. The soft pretzels, omg good.....loved those. The issue was really a service problem. We both ordered the Surf & Turf, my plate came about 4 minutes after our starters. Call me picky, but timing is everything in the restaurant business. Let me enjoy my starters before you sit my entree in front of me, please. About 5 minutes later, my wife's entree still had not arrived. We hailed the waitress and were quite surprised when she told us she thought we were sharing? I informed her that we indeed had ordered two and wanted two entrees and asked her to take mine back and make us two new entrees. She told me she would see what she could do with my current plate and have new ones made. 20 minutes later, my new entree comes out alone, with a second plate as a heat shield below it. My wife's entree still did not come out together with mine, maybe another 5 minutes. They had stuck my entree under a heat lamp for 20 minutes while they made my wife's. I'm not paying 32$ for an entree that's been sitting around for over half an hour. There was no way we were going to deal with another round waiting for them to do it right. We sent both entrees back (they did offer to make them both again and comp one) as we had a time limit of two hours for our date night (kids...argh!). The manager offered to comp our drinks, I refused that. I wasn't looking for anything free, I just didn't want to pay for the entrees we didn't touch. Both the waitress and manager were great, apologetic (as was I, for some reason I always feel guilty when something like this happens). In the end the manager gave us a free dessert for the trouble and knocked 25% off our appz and drinks. The free dessert kind of cracked me up, it was offered as a remedy for the problems, but when the reservation was made they said you get a free dessert when celebrating a special occasion like this anyways.

I'm going to give it another chance for two reasons. The staff was nice and the food looked amazing. I'll update this review and change the star rating when we go back.

Adding a pic of the YUMMY pretzels. Didn't get a good picture of the rest as my mind was...

I never like posting bad reviews, though I had a very odd experience at Solvang Brewing Company. I'm sure there was something going on behind the scenes, such as short staffing. We waited in line for almost 20 minutes to order, and there were only two people in front of us. Once I got up to the counter to order, the woman walked away and started talking to a guest at the bar. When she came back, I gave my order which was the French Onion soup, Lavender Margarita, grilled cheese and tomato soup, and soft baked pretzels. The staff member, who likely was not a trained bartender and just trying her best, went to make the alcoholic drink. She poured lavender syrup, lemonade, and 7-Up in the shaker and shook it (no alcohol was added). After shaking it, she squeezed three lemon slices into the drink. One of them she dropped into the drink while squeezing it and proceeded to fish it out of the drink with her fingers. She did not wash her hands before making this drink, and had been handling cash and people's cards at the counter. Being as nice as possible, I asked to return the drink and got a water instead. We then waited 45 minutes for our food, and when it came there wasn't any silverware or napkins, so then we had to hunt someone down to get those. The one redeeming factor of the visit to Solvang Brewing Company is that the food was really good. I have been here twice before, and each of those times the service, wait, and food were awesome! Like I said, this visit was probably a fluke. I am writing such a long review in the hopes that management will see how badly the service struggles at times and will...

This was our first time visiting -- First impressions: 1) ordering process is confusing and slow. One person at order window and running the bar at the same time. It was not busy at all, but we waited for 15 minutes to place an order and 10 minutes for our food to arrive, 2) S at down at a sticky table. Witnessed bus guy clearing tables, but saw no wipe down of tables. If he did, I doubt if it was with a fresh, sanitized cloth. 3)Food was cold when it arrived. I had fish and chips, substituting onion rings for the fries. Rings were soggy and cold. Fish was fine. Given the slowness of ordering I decided not to bother anyone about reheating the rings, since waiters/waitresses were invisible where we sat (outside), 4) Restaurant is still on the "tip system/culture". Problem is you have to choose to tip before you receive your food or experience service. The only service was delivering food initially to your table. I felt like I laid down some extra money for virtually nothing. I would suggest eliminate the tipping and add a call system to have customer pick-up the order, 4) finally, that latter suggestion would not work easily, since as we left, we had to weave our way through tables and pass close by other customers at tables. Suggestion would be to rethink you whole layout and system -- ask people to g ive perspective who have never been to your establishment and out "fresh eyes"...