Sadly, I agree. We’ve been fortunate to have enjoyed many wonderful meals over the years at SYR Stonehouse restaurant. And yes, always for a special occasion and one we always looked forward to. We recently celebrated my birthday in September and were beyond appalled. Everything you described; a 25-minute wait before we were handed menus, no drink service and, even worse, my-all time favorite halibut entree that I had been eagerly anticipating, was poorly prepared and mediocre, at best. There was no attempt to apologize for the poor service even after we pointed it out. If Ty Warner & the SYR staff are going to the trouble of defining non-hotel guest reservations…shame on them. However, my feeling is this utter lack of service and quality is extended to ALL dining patrons. Conversely, Rick Caruso does understand how to run a high end-hotel with top notch dining experiences.
Afraid not....
Arlington Avenue?
Nope, but thanks for guessing!
Sea center?
I see it clearly on their site in the menu under "store location." I've been several times and it's great local store. Thanks Siteline for featuring and reminding me that if I want them to stay I need to do some of my holiday shopping there (smile).
The report of a Milpas 7-11 "looting" might have been a hoax. Is there any confirmation of this episode other than the Edhat report?
Google it.
Westward General, a new shop covered in this story doesn’t give their address on their website? If shopping local is the thing to do, how can this place be in business if they don’t give out the address? Just wondering.?
Some people might respond to this review by saying ‘shame on you’ for going one more time. We are very sorry to say, that wanting the San Ysidro Ranch restaurant to finally be back to their pre-Covid ways and before ‘staffing problems’ was an acceptable excuse for poor service, it continues to disappoint in a big way.
Let’s go back to February, 2022; a time when Covid restrictions were loosening and there was a feeling that we were rounding the corner from a very bad dream. Our well traveled friends were visiting us in Santa Barbara for the weekend. We knew that one of our dinners would be at a restaurant and chose San Ysidro. One reason was that this was a very special occasion and because our friends knew the place well after previously being guests at the ranch. Dinner turned out to be a comedy of errors and quite entertaining from the standpoint of the unbelievable under performance of the staff. From our server not knowing how to operate the table side cooking equipment to the food that we were served being cold, it was embarrassingly comedic - which is the only reason we look back on our meal with good memories. In August, we celebrated a birthday in the lovely gardens of SYR. The entire meal was boring and the service painfully non-attentive. Not what you expect from a restaurant of this caliber. Fast forward to today, we had a reservation for our Thanksgiving meal at San Ysidro. I don’t think we still are over the shock of just how poor the service was. I could list multiple examples of how lacking the customer service was from not being greeted by anyone (our server) for at least 20 minutes, having to get up more than once to fill our own water glasses, to never getting the coffee we ordered with desert, and then when we asked our server about it, his remark, would you like it now? Never once did he acknowledge that he had forgotten the coffee.
I am very sorry that I was the person who suggested we go to San Ysidro for Thanksgiving. We had such a lovely Christmas meal at SYR 3 years ago.
Is this another example of Ty Warner’s excellent way to run a high end resort?
Not to mention the table behind us was also experiencing the same awful service from the same server. I felt badly for the Santa Barbarian who brought her out of town guests to what she was hoping would be a lovely experience. It was not. And I believe she was embarrassed.
3 strikes and you’re out.
Then again, maybe that’s what the ranch wants. If you’re not a guest staying at the ranch, it’s better that you go someplace else for dinner?
Shame on me, total shame on SYR.
Cant believe someone bought the Golf Klub! What was there to buy? A grumpy old man? Limited hours? Poor customer service? Hopefully, the new owner is more attentive to actual customer needs. The closest golf store otherwise is in Oxnard.
RIP Toddy. You were loved and are dearly missed.
Had lunch at Dutch Gardens. Reuben was legit, great rye bread, pastrami sliced thin and warm and gooey Swiss cheese. Staff was super friendly . People were lined up at 11am!
Gonna be having one of each… thanks!
Well I guess it’s a good thing when billionaires stop wasting water on acres of fruit trees they don’t need and probably aren’t even harvesting
Tyger Tyger's new menu is amazing and should not be written off to your readers because you ordered wrong one time :)
More posts like this! This is so lovely and helpful ? Thank you!
I had very different impressions of Tyger Tyger’s food, but agreed on 2 & 3. We ordered the tea leaf noodle salad, the fish dish, and mushroom carbonara. It was fabulous.
I love the Azul restaurant space. Best courtyard dining in SB.
Just a shout out to the long-standing State & Fig for their delicious menu and fresh-made house potato chips.
Thank you for this list!! I couldn’t agree more with your choices. You inspire me to have something other than oysters and devine lobster rolls at Broad Street Oyster ❤️
I recognize (and agree with a few) and am excited to try some new things on the list. Super fun post and you better believe I'm gonna be stealing some doughnuts from you. (sorry, but true) ;-)
Best. Line. Ever. :) ~ "I’ve given up complaining that they’re only available after 12:30 p.m., because if I could get my hands on them any earlier, I’d have to buy new pants."
THANK YOU for this post. I will be making ny way down the list. A lot of goodness in store for me!
The brunch menu at Augies looks amazing. Can’t wait to try it all!
