The Vintage Press Restaurante — Restaurant in Visalia

If i could give them 0 stars then i would. This is a review on not only how the owners and everyone there breaks the law but also how many health codes they break. David treats his employees like they are dirt. He shows not a single one of them the slitest bit of respect. I started my job at vp on march 2018. I have 8 yrs serving experience. I was just moving to town from the mountains and looking for new employment. I had nothing but good things said about me from my previous employers. My interview went great with kaycee amd william. They seemed super excited to have someone who was " more mature amd knows the meaning of work" on board. I started work. Right away they startrd having me do other duties as well as calling me i to work later than scheduled. I stuck with it. I was trying to be positive and hopeful that i wod be serving soon.. Weeks go by. Randomly serving parties and running food.unexpectedly being called off work. It gets to a point where my family is starting to struggle. I decide to start asking abouye being able to serve. They give me a shot. First time..i mafe a couple small mistakes. Nothing big amd my guests still seemed a pleased. I go without serving for a cpl more weeks...then i start asking again..they let me serve 3 days in a row..ok things went really well i was getting the hang of things. Then im off serving for a few more weeks and my hours get cut to 4 days a week. Its a slow time of year. I get that. Little did i know they were goi g to call me off 3 out of those 4 scheduled days. My family is struggling to make ends meet at this point. We are now in July 2018 going i to August. They keep telling me " hang in there itll get better. Just slow this week". They now call me off the entire work week. Mind you they are required to pay employee 2 hrs worth of work if they call you off or if they i. Willingly send you home..now we are i. A new pay period. And the new schedule is posted and i am not even on it. I contact david to ask him why...he says " you know. Its just not working out" i said " what do you mean". Again its just not working out. He had absolutaly no reason for letti g me go. I never had a warning, a talk, a write up, ive never missed a day. All i wanted was for them to work me. They didnt even offer me anothrr postion. No excuse for lettinge go. No heads up...nothing. Tell me...how is that ok?!

I started feeling a few weeks prior like they were pushi g me out. Allways calling me off..not letting me serve even though i was hired as a server. To me they were just playing games. It was also odd how i could never get a for surr amswer out of anyone about anything. I would ask one person a question aboit something that had to do with work then all off a sudde. Id get a text from someone else saying im off tonight. They were only playung games. But they werent going to push me out. I was hoping for the best amd trying to be positive.

What david has done to my self asteam i the few months i worked there is more than ive felt my.whole.life. the way he would talk down to me and talk ate not to me...never once said a please or thank you. Not only did je treat me like that but everyone. I guess i was just too weak in their eyes. Which in my opiniom is wrong. And the sad part is, all his costumers think hes so great. If they only knew how he mentally put dowm his employees then fires them for absplutaly no reason at all knowing they have a family to support and were already struggling thanks to hours being cut.

Now for the back of the house that no one knows about. I have worked for cooporate as well as privately owned restaurants. I was discustrd when i startrd work here. I blamed it on just being a really old restauralnt. But its much more tham that. I hardley ever seen cooks as well as othrr employres wash their hands. Sanitizer bucket?! Whats that...they dont have a single one. Labels?! Whats that...not a single item in that place i labeled. I have killed i dont know how many roaches. If you take a step behind the bar it ansolutaly reaks of...

I’ve noticed many of the positive five star reviews on the Vintage Press Restaurant were written by “local guides”, so maybe that answers why those reviews are 100% more positive then mine and others. It’s because of their reviews we decided to eat here for our anniversary.

We were hoping the Vintage Press would live up to the acclaim given on their website, where Wine Spectator magazine once praised them during the past 50 years for being a fine dining experience. That was a long time ago because we didn’t have that experience this last Sunday evening when we visited.

After reading many reviews where diners sometimes had to wait an hour or more for a table, that wasn’t the case with us. We were promptly seated by a friendly hostess in a booth in the back, right next to the kitchen door in a near-empty restaurant, where staff entered and exited right in front of our intimate dining experience. In the photos, you can see the door to my left. Then, shortly after we sat down, a party of four were uncomfortably seated on the other side of the doorway, crowding the area, where you can see from the photos many more desirable places to sit were available.

The waiter, Dustin, was excellent. He was friendly and attentive. But when our meal was served, a hostess or bar server brought our plates, and clearly, she had no experience as a server because she could barely carry two plates. She awkwardly reached to place them in front of us, reminiscent of a coffee-shop-type experience.

The food? My husband’s steak came undercooked, although the tiny portion was good. My lamb was also undercooked, and it was a small portion. It was NOT the best lamb I’ve eaten. It was overly fatty, and the sauce was bitter and uncomplimentary to the meat. We both agreed that the veggie side of fingerling potatoes, kimchi, and purée carrots was okay. But they weren’t the sides listed on the menu. 🙈 There was nothing to write home about. For spending close to $300 — the overall dining experience is not one we’ll repeat.

Walking out of the restaurant, I noticed another dining room, which was better for evening dining and where we would have preferred to be seated had we known it was there. All the diners were seated in their lunchroom. At least the dining room we were sitting in appeared more like a lunchroom with outdated furniture. The beautiful wood paneling and stained glass are beautiful and...

Dined at the VP a handful of times. I used to really enjoy eating there. It was where my wife and I had our first date. We went for her birthday this evening and it was nothing short of disappointing. For appetizers we tried the half dozen oysters and from the size of the platter we were anticipating a decent sized set of oysters. To our surprise the oysters were no bigger than a table spoon, shell and all. They bragged about how they came all the way from the east coast and for 25$ I feel as though I just paid for shipping, not the oysters. For the entree I ordered the tenderloin brochette and let me spoil it for you. It’s three bites worth of filet trimmings that were under seasoned and charred. It reminded me of the stuff most people leave behind when they’re eating a real steak. My wife ordered the salmon she said it was fine but not 50$ fine. All portions have been reduced significantly which is a shame because the prices have done exactly the opposite. Nearly 200$ for a coke, a ginger ale, two appetizers, two entrees, and one sad slice of a chocolate tart. Over all it seemed overpriced and almost laughable that they valued their food to the price it was. My wife was disappointed and felt as if we had just wasted 200$. On a side note. There’s no explanation of dress code or required attire anywhere to be easily seen. Having recently been through chemo I prefer to wear a hat in public, I was asked to remove it before we were seated in the dining area and I was told this as we were being seated so I felt pressured to not make a scene being I didn’t want my wife’s birthday dinner ruined by us being escorted out over a hat but it made me quit uneasy with the...