Local Kitchen — Restaurant in Torrance

Arrived and our reservation was ready!hurray! We sit by the washroom, hey no biggie, as long as we have a seat. Waiter had to be tracked down to order. Still no biggie. We ordered appetizers because it was 5 of us. Spinach dip delish. Brussel sprouts bitter from the burnt, but apparently they were supposed to be like that. Im still good right. Get our main courses, the pasta with shrimp I swear it was the same spinach dip sauce. 2 chicken plates, chewy and one had a big tendon down the middle. High end places do clean up their chicken. Now let's get to my plate....new orleans cajun jumbo shrimp with brown rice and broccoli rab. Broccoli, cant go wrong. Brown rice...dry as a bone and hard crunchy bits like I got the bottom of the pan. Shrimp, more pale than the yt guy next to me. No color, no flavor, no seasoning. Feeling mislead the whole time. Oh wait, where is out waiter? We Track him down and i ask for melted butter! Give me something to add to my shrimp or rice! 5min later, my food is 2x as cold. We had ordered garlic bread to make up for the chicken, and yup came after the butter eventually. Oh did he ask for our refills? Yes, when he was picking up our plates to leave. Then we sat another 10min waiting for our check. We paid and just wanted to get out. A person of our party had been there for lunch so im sure the service and food goes ski high when lunching! Read other reviews and most have similar experiences with the food. Others are raving about it. I mean, yup perfect for all of you that have would complain of too much pepper and think...

I visited Local Kitchen with friends on a recent Friday night. We walked to the restaurant so I can't comment much on the parking other than there is street parking. We didn't have a reservation, but the our party of four was promptly seated. We were seated in a round table and were surrounded by TVs on all sides showing March Madness. The Dodgers' game was missing from the TVs so they probably don't have Spectrum available. The service was great. We had a couple of waiters help us that night and both were great. I don't like sending things back to the kitchen or bar, but had to due to a beer being flat. I didn't get a strange look or any problem from the waiter. The Strawberry salad was very good. It's a huge portion that one person can eat or share. The calamari was good, but the breading was a bit different from fried calamari I've had at other restaurants. I also tried the brussel sprouts and they were my favorite appetizer. The tavern Mac and Cheese was okay. Not my favorite Mac and Cheese that I've had. The meatloaf tower was my favorite. Despite it missing any vegetables, the bread mounted with a good portion of meatloaf and topped with a healthy serving of mashed potatoes was the best tasting of everything I had that night. There's also a nice selection of draft and bottled beers. My only minor complaint is the lack of local microbreweries. It's a nice chill place with great food, great service and great atmosphere. Looking forward to...

Update post owner response: I spoke offline to the owner. His commitment to the business and customer service was perfect and unwavering. I rescind my 1 star review due to the good faith of the owner... 5 stars now... My respect and admiration for the owner of Local Kitchen and his commitment to make his business the best it can be!

Original review: The food is good, the service was inattentive and rude!

Came in for breakfast recently, and the food was mostly good... I had a waffle with fruit on top and added a slice of ham. The waffle lived up to the resturants standards, but the ham steak was overcooked to the point of being dry.

Unfortunately, even if the food is good, poor service will ruin the resturant experience and this visit was no exception. To kick it off, we were seated in a "middle" table, servers walked by for 10 or 15 minutes without saying a thing. Finally, a server (not ours I might add), asked if we'd been helped... A few minutes later, a surly server showed up to take our order. She couldn't be bothered to get us condiments, etc. and never checked on us. Additionally, she even commented about having too many tables to provide good service. I get that people have bad days, but in the service industry, you have to put on a positive front for your customers... Sadly, our server did not!

Gotta say that I will never come back, there's just so many restaurants that serve great food and actually care about...