Model Citizen — Restaurant in Ventura

I really wanted to like this place.

Came for the Monday all night happy hour, more specifically the burger.

Upon entering the busy restaurant, I approached the hostess and let her know I made a reservation but was a little early. To say she was aloof would be polite. She asked if I wanted a little table or the bar. I opted for the bar as it seemed like a good idea. I was wrong.

The hostess sat me, no service (app plate, fork, knife) no menu, (ALL of these thing were placed at the bar top before she sat other patrons, just not me) and with the remnants of the oysters the person seated beside me finished. I didn’t think much of it, was it bad service, absolutely, but I wasn’t going to let it ruin the night.

I waited for someone to acknowledge me, a bartender did, gave me water. He asked what I wanted to order, I let him know I came for the burger, but that I wanted to order a drink first and look at the menu that I was never given. He gave me a menu and proceeded to make my cocktail.

As he drops my drink, he informs me that he already sent my burger “order” to the kitchen. I never ordered it. I expressed interest in it but, since I was given ZERO in terms of a menu, I wanted to weigh my options. He was somewhat nice about it and sent it back. That said, I was done.

I was made to feel like some sort of unwanted patron. To feel such unease in a restaurant was a total turn off. I finished my drink and kindly asked another bartender for my check.

This place feels like a private club where you need to know someone or come so often that they know you.

The bartender (who only works Monday and Friday) was extremely friendly to those he seemed to know, I get that, but to make another customer feel like an afterthought is painfully poor service. I even thanked him for pouring me more water, he ignored me and proceeded to engage in conversation with the person to my left. Perhaps I don’t fit their model customer, I’m BIPOC, maybe it was just a bad Monday.

Maybe this place has good food, I wouldn’t know since feeling so uncomfortable made me leave without wanting to try it.

Maybe you’ll have a better experience if you know someone there.

As a first time customer, I likely...

This place is very "meh". I wanted to like it, but it just didn't hit the mark for me. I waited over 30 minutes for my glass of wine after I ordered it, and we had to ask if something happened to our appetizer because that also took so long to come out. The service is very mediocre here and the atmosphere is just very bland and sterile. Looking at the full menu, I believe the food is pretty overpriced from what I hear about it. A lot of the wait staff just seemed to stand around and talk to each other. Which is probably why it takes over 30 minutes to get a simple glass of wine. They have a happy hour menu and their smashburger that was on it is quite good, I will say. They said that they have happy hour glasses of both red and white wine, however there was only one single red wine available for happy hour and it was 'ok'. The glasses they use for water glasses just seem really pretentious and do not make sense at all. They remind me more of tea light candle holders. The biggest drawback for me is the fact that they charge you an automatic 18% for a "staff charge". So I can only assume this is for the tip? Therefore what I left for a tip I left accordingly to the 18% addition. I can't speak for everybody else but I am a very generous tipper because I am in the industry as well, and having an automatic 18% bill to you for a staff charge just makes that tip go down for me. Not a good look, and as slow as our service was and as talkative as your staff is amongst each other, that 18% is not warranted. I do not like businesses that do that and I likely will not be back...

Drinks are supposed to be good here - we weren't drinking so can't address that. N/A options are pretty slim, but they have a couple mocktails. Service was friendly. Vibe was fine. Nice-looking bar.

Food was awful: 'pickle plate' was like three raw-tasting pieces of cauliflower and a couple nondescript peppers. Better pickled veggies at any hole-in-the-wall Mexican place, hands down. Then a 'loaded focaccia' which was neither loaded nor focaccia: it was four inches thick, white, bland, undersalted, barely crispy on the outside - supposedly it had sausage, but there was no sausage. Maybe the sauce had once been next to a sausage, but there was no meat in this dish. Those things were on the happy hour menu. Maybe the regular menu is better? Not really. For an entree I got a pasta: nice burrata but the pasta itself was undercooked, chewy (not al dente, just chewy) and a very small amount for an entree. Again, supposedly had sausage, but it more like a sausage-inspired (?) sauce that didn't even taste meaty, more mushroomy. Zero sausage detected after two attempts to order that substance. After the appetizers my wife just didn't order an entree, she had seen enough. We finished our dinner with Costco lasagna back at home, and that was when we finally felt like we had had a meal. It is really not hard to do better than this. If you actually want food with your happy hour, keep walking, this is...