Stonefire Grill — Restaurant in Thousand Oaks

Stonefire ruined Christmas Eve... They were too busy and unorganized to effectively provide hot food at the normal quality.

We ordered online a week early with the thought that our order would be preplanned and go smoothly. Our confirmation came, our pickup time was 5pm on Christmas Eve. Cool, things were set. I arrived at 5:05pm to find a large line outside. I waited and the guy took my name and asked me to wait in my car for the order--they would bring it out to me.

The 5pm pick up time was the same time as our guests were arriving, this allowed me to disappear for a short bit to get the food while my wife entertained, then I was to arrive and everything would be grand.

I sat in my car with every minute passing, thinking I must be next, my food should have been ready shortly before I arrived. After all, this is a professional restaurant that does this all the time.

At 5:35pm I went back up to the head of the line to see what was going on as it's been half of an hour and my wife was texting me. I spoke to the lady that was accepting names at that point. Turns out the original guy either didn't take my name or took it incorrectly--granted "David" is a super difficult name. She sent a runner into the back, who came to the front roughly 5-10 minutes later with my order. Awesome.

This teaches me not to follow their directions and wait in the car like a fool. Additionally, they had all my information and could have followed up, but I suppose since they already had payment, what does that matter to them?

Now, the food by this time has been sitting for presumably 35 minutes, possibly longer as they probably have it prepared slightly ahead of time. And it tasted like it...

So a 5pm pickup time, received at 5:45pm. Lovely.

The pizza was outright cold and hard. The tritip, chicken, and salmon were all room temperature at best. The mac & cheese was outright sub-par, it was bland and didn't taste right. As a result, it was barely touched. The mash was alright, because cold mash isn't bad, just wasn't the expectation by any means.

I am one to consider those who can cook to be wonderful wizards as it's a skill I don't posses. Taking that skill and making a successful business with multiple locations and continued growth is commendable at many levels. Being able to pivot and flex with the ever changing times from covid is even more commendable. At this point covid restrictions and rules are not new.

Taking a name and asking someone to wait in their car only to leave them there, then to "forget" about them is outright incompetence. To have a short time waiting within the restaurant affect the quality of your food is another level of unreadiness or disorganization. This is failure on multiple levels.

There is no way I can recommend Stonefire to anyone for any time that might be remotely busy. And since I don't know the point of failure, I can't recommend an online or take out order from...

This is a sit and service yourself restaurant. The chairs obviously never receive soap & water. They were so filthy that my hand stuck to the chair when I went to pull it out to sit down. A young man came over to us, we hadn't sat yet. I asked if he could clean the chairs and sticky table and put the edges of the table down. He didn't understand a word I said. So we had to pick another table on the opposite side of the restaurant. The table and chairs were cleaner but still needed attention. Right after I sat, another young man came and gave us our salads. I asked if we were going to be given utensils. He said there is a serve yourself area for everything we would need. I didn't know this since it was my first time there. He said he would get us some anyway. I told him there were three of us, and our daughter wasn't at the table yet. He came back with just 3 Skippy napkins and 3 forks. Our daughter then came with our waters, and she went back to the self-serve area for more napkins and ⁹the main course of the meals needs to be cut with a knife. Which the young man didn't bother to bring. The rest of our food came. The bbq tri-tip, which I had and lemon pepper Tri-tip our daughter had, were very good. My husband had the grilled lemon chicken. I don't know how it was cooked. It didn't look or taste grilled. It was bland. The salads were ok, they could have used a little more dressing, which is not available at the self-serve area. The garlic mahed potatoes were lacking in taste, and the mac & cheese was the worst I've ever had. Another young man came to our table when we had just a few bites of food left and asked if everything was ok. At this point of our meal, what diiference did it make. So I told him the mac & cheese wasn't good, but we ate it anyway because we were starving, and we didn't think anyone was going to come check to see if everything was ok. Which they didn't till it was too late. He just walked away. For what we paid the experience wad a disapointment. At this restaurant, you order your food and pay before you sit. So, while you're paying, you are also asked for tips. I told them I hadn't received service yet, so I didn't feel comfortable giving a tip at this point. We did, however, get some excellent service anyway despite their employees. Our daughter went to the self-serve four times to get what we needed for our dinner. So I gave her the tip. We won't be patronizing this food stand...

Did a curb side pick up for a stimulus package. I had requested for BBQ sauce on the side. And when we picked up our order, I asked for additional BBQ sauce because this was a meal that we were going to gift to our friends. The gentlemen that had brought out our food said that the extra BBQ sauce was already inside the bag and if we wanted more, they would charge us. We checked the bag and there was only one small container for the meal. We told him there was no additional sauce and he brought out one small container. This was about a month ago when we place this specific order.

Today I had ordered through the app again and had my husband pick up the order. Same order (stimulus package) and my husband had requested additional BBQ sauce. This time, the person who brought out the order told my husband that he needed to check the bag when he asked for extra bbq sauce. He told him that he needed to look in the bag and so my husband did and said there was one, the employee finally said ok I'll get you one more. My husband ended up having to walk in since the guy did not come back with sauce and they made him pay for it! So ridiculous because when you dine in at stonefire, there is an unlimited amount of bbq sauce that you can take!

Honestly, the food is delicious but if you are going to be that stingy about giving a customer an additional BBQ sauce, I would rather take my business elsewhere. We usually eat at the Stonefire in Irvine and have never encountered this issue before. The employees are always nice and helpful at the Irvine location. The thousand oaks locations needs to reevaluate their customer service if they want to keep their business.

Tldr: Be prepared to pay for extra BBQ sauce if you ask for some at this location! Other Stonefire locations are much nicer to...