Water's Edge Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Ventura

I give two stars only for the restaurant itself, which is beautiful. The restaurant was right on the water, with lovely views of the harbor and boats coming in. It was immaculately clean and well decorated. That's about where my experience turned ugly. We stopped in at about 5:30 or so for an early dinner and were asked if we wanted a table or if we were going to the bar for happy hour. We have never been there before so we said lets get a drink at the bar first and see how we feel. Enter our Happy hour waitress. We ordered a round of drinks, and while waiting for them realized that we made a mistake by not getting a table. The bar area is lovely and you can see through the wall of windows, but it would be much nicer and more romantic if we were seated in a table.

When she got back with our drinks, she asked if we wanted to put in any food. We said we actually would like a table for dinner. She was visibly annoyed by this, and said she would check if there is a table available. The time it took to drink our first entire drink passed before she came back and said "there are no tables until 8 tonight, I don't know if you want to wait that long." We thought.. bummer we should have taken the hostess up on the table when she asked. Oh well.

We look at the menu and decide on Sole with crab and a side salad. She came to take our order and we were told they don't have side salads, but they can split a dinner salad for us. Cool. As we sit there waiting for our food we look longingly at these empty tables at the window. Our salad comes, and for a split dinner salad, it is extremely small. About 3/4 to 1 cup of salad per plate. Ok, fancy restaurant... small portions, I get it. Salad was good. Our drinks are empty and no sign of the waitress. Wife goes to use the restroom by the hostess stations and when she gets back she said there is no wait for a table by the window. This is upsetting, we were told that there were no tables until 8 pm and it is now only 6:30 or so. Waitress comes around for more drinks, and we ask about the table. She said again it is booked until 8 pm... we are still looking at empty tables in the dining room. We order drinks and food.

Our food arrives and the crab and fish are extremely over salted. I hate to be picky so we just eat as much as we can and call it a day, the majority of the fish was not eaten, sadly the star of the show was the mashed potato and spinach. We told the busser who cleared the table it was way over salted, and asked for more water. Finish our last round of drinks and get the check. The tiny dinner salad? Apparently there is a $3 extra charge to split it, so it turned out to be a $17 salad, for about 1.5 - 2 cups of salad. On the way out i ask the hostess how long it was for a table in the dining room tonight , she said there was no wait for a table tonight and asked if we wanted to be seated now...

Service - 0/5 stars. Server dishonest and not upfront about extra fees. Food - 2/5 Stars. Overpriced, small portions, and over salted. Drinks - 4/5 stars, a little too sweat for my taste. Ambiance - 3/5 - would have been 5/5 if we got the table...

We have been to this restaurant several times since moving to Ventura. We are both seniors who have disabilities so lately have been doing take out. We have a guest & decided to order your Rodeo burger which is one of our favorites. It is very expensive for a burger but we splurge occasionally. First off at 5 pm on Sunday the phone just rang & rang when we tried to place an order so my husband actually drove to restaurant to see what was going on. They had no idea that the phone was unplugged even tho their hours are 10- 9. He placed order for 2 rodeo burgers which have always consisted of blue cheese, bacon jam, balsamic, arugula &onion ring ( states ingredients on website menu) cup of chowder & 1/2 Caesar salad that was also on menu- he was told they no longer do 1/2 Caesar & they stopped putting onion ring on burger?! Yet they still charge $21 & it is still on website. They brought food out in multiple containers w/ aluminum foil instead of lids- said supplier didn’t send order. Never did they offer to compensate for any changes or for unavailability to take phone order & him having to wait& refused to get manager when asked to speak to him. Too add insult to injury- got food home & it was nothing like the burger we ordered ! No arugula no bacon jam no blue cheese & of course no onion ring! It was disgusting looking with a glob of some thick off colored item & another brown unknown substance on burger - we called & told them & he took burgers & fries back - manager finally came out apologized & had them made again - but sadly the onion ring he gave us on the side was nothing like before- & the burger just wasn’t nearly as good as it has been in past. The chowder & the “full” Caesar were both sub par & dressing ( thank God I got it on the side) was disgusting- Since they sent bad food 1st order we should’ve gotten either free replacement or something! We owned a restaurant for years & would have never served anything like that & definitely would have made it right! Guess they don’t care about return customers as we definitely will not be returning - $74 for 2 bad burgers ,cup of weak chowder & some old lettuce...

This was our first time dining at Waters Edge. The view and ambience can't redeem the low quality food offered at this restaurant. Even though the wait staff and catering workers were very friendly, this will be our last time dining here. I looked online and found some entrees I enjoy on the menu. Unfortunately, they only offered a fixed buffet because it was news years eve. The cost of the buffet was $85 so we were expecting high quality food and desserts. However, what they served was exactly the opposite. I don't mind spending money on a quality meal. Unfortunately, this experience left us feeling like we just ate at a cheap meat and 3 buffett. The prime rib was the only thing offered that was of any quality. Everything else tasted like frozen food from Ralph's TV dinner freezer section. The rolls were awful and cold. They also only offered them with Garlic and should have had a plain option. They also only offered 2 desserts. One was a coffee chocolate cake and I have no idea what the other option was... My girlfriend gagged on it.. Many people including me DO NOT like coffee which excluded me from enjoying a dessert. I hoped it would redeem the low quality meal I had just eaten. The included champagne was undrinkable and lower quality than the cheap stuff from Costco. To top it all off, the manager pretty much blew us off when we gave him our feedback. After reading several online reviews from Yelp and Google I see they copy and paste the same response to every negative review. They obviously don't care at Waters Edge. I'll make sure to inform all of colleagues to avoid this restaurant. In closing this feedback regarding the Waters Edge restaurant in Ventura, I'd like to emphasize that you don't always get what you pay for... If that was the case, the buffet would have been $9.99 per plate. It certainly wasn't worth a fraction of the $85...