The Planing Mill — Restaurant in Visalia

A sad story about one of our favorite restaurants in Visalia. No they didn't shutdown. They did worse than that. They are running off patrons. Their service is so bad that I would highly recommend to go somewhere else. Second attempt to let them dig out of a hole from a poor service experience, only dug a deeper one. The most recent was on Dec 3rd 2024 at 5 pm. My wife and walked into the Planing Mill. The place was mostly empty. The only customers were 4 ppl setting at the bar. We self sat ourselves at a high table in the bar area. After sitting for at least 10 minutes we got up and walked over towards the kitchen area. An employee was walking towards from behind the counter. My wife asked her a few questions about the menu and if they were now self ordering. She replied yes and pointed us towards the counter in front of the kitchen to place our order. There was a man standing in front of a cash register, I asked if this is where we order. He looked up at me with a confused expression and asked if we had made an on line order. I replied no, that we were told to order here. He said no, they are full service. Kindly take a seat and there would someone to take our order. We walked back to our table. After another 10 minutes waiting, I walked over to the bar to order drinks and after not long, the bartender walked over. I asked for a couple of Mexican lagers. She responded that they were out and to order off the list on the wall. I went back to my seat to see what my wife wanted to order from the wall. After another 10 minutes I told my wife that wasn't going to order drinks until we had ordered food. Now we have been in this basically empty establishment for over 30 minutes. The women behind the bar left and was replaced by the man that had told us to have a seat and someone would be by to talk our order. We made eye contact but he continued to ignore us. After another 7 or 8 minutes we got up and walked out. Only to hear some say "I guess they were upset". Sadly, we had liked the food and drink there. If your looking for much better food, and better list of bar drinks and good service, go to...

I went this afternoon with some friends. I have been to the Planing Mill before and have always had wonderful food, and no issues with service before today. My friends and I each ordered personal pizzas and drinks. I ordered the Muscles from Brussels, with no bacon. I had been planning on ordering this pizza since we decided where we would be having lunch. It sounded awesome, and I have heard that Mike's Hot Honey is amazing. Unfortunately, when my pizza arrived, I was told that they were out of the honey. I was visibly disappointed and told our server that the only reason I ordered that pizza was because of the honey. She was incredibly polite and apologized, and I appreciate that, but I wish that I had been told before hand that they were out of the honey. I 100% would have ordered a different pizza. That particular pizza has only 6 toppings and now I'm down 2. The server offered to bring me a different sauce on the side, but I wasn't sure what to order. She suggested the aioli that is typically paired with the appetizers. I don't know that that was the right choice. As I said, the server was very sweet, and very apologetic, my issue is that I felt like I was being offered a substutution for an ingredient, but there was no offer to "make it right" or make sure I was satisfied with what I got. Other establishments would have offered a replacement, or perhaps a discount on my next visit, something.... But that was not the case. Additionally, when we went to the bar, we were interested in trying the Mexican lager that was on the $2 Taco Tuesday special, but the bartender wasn't happy with the way it was pouring, so we were offered a different beer, at the same price. The second beer wasn't as good, but for $2 it was a decent replacement. This was the offer to make it right that I had hoped for with the pizza. I will definitely be back, but I will be sure to ask if all the ingredients are available before I...

We planned to come here for a birthday celebration

As we walked in we weren’t greeted the server had an attitude. Wasn’t inviting at all. She wanted to seat us at a table that didn’t have enough space since I had my baby in a stroller. We asked to sit at a different table and had a face of annoyance and wasn’t very happy we asked to switch. This was our first time going to this business. We didn’t know we couldn’t sit where we wanted the other server said they seated people by sections which clearly was a lie because the other sections weren’t full. We then asked for a drink menu and my father in law has issues with vision asked if he could get up and go to the bar to see the menu and that was another way I guess we annoyed the server and the bartender. My sister in law showed up and asked if the fan could be turned down because it was pretty high and it was cold. They said they couldn’t turn it off which she didn’t ask for it to be turned off. But she did lower the speed. Once we placed our order and we were waiting for our food I could clearly see the servers talking about the encounters they had with us. They kept looking towards us making gestures and mocking the way we had asked for different stuff. They were laughing. Giving ugly facial gestures, and I was able to see them talking about us and just making fun of the situation. It was just an awful awful experience. As our first time there I can honestly say I won’t be going back. I know one costumer won’t hurt the business but it just left a really bad taste in my mouth. Specially once the whole crew knew what was going on and they all went along and kept talking about us. And I am sure they don’t care about this because they have never really been disciplined for their behavior because these are signs that they probably do this constantly.

Name of server on...