Davenport Roadhouse Restaurant and Inn

Reviews 4

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Christopher Druck

Came up here looking for reprieve from the big heatwave over Labor Day Weekend 2017, and thought this might be a good place to have dinner. The restaurant was clearly doing what they could to alleviate the heat by keeping the doors and windows open, but it was still very very warm in the restaurant meaning we were sweating pretty hard after only a few minutes. I realize this isnt the fault of the restaurant, but when our server failed to keep our water glasses full it got annoying very fast. Also, when you know its this hot, you would think they would be smart enough to give you more than 2 ice cubes in your glass. Our waters were turning warm pretty quickly. I think at one point he waited almost 30 minutes before our server looked at our table and noticed our water glasses were empty. Keep in mind this is after he said he would be right back with more water when he last visited our table. We noticed him walking to the far side of the restaurant several times. It seemed like he was also bar tending when people ordered drinks at his other tables. Clearly management needs to hire more staff if you have servers doing 2 or 3 jobs at once, requiring them to leave their tables for more than 15 minutes at a time. Also, because the doors are left open, it means flies are abundant within the restaurant. And when I say abundant, I mean I was constantly swatting flies away from face and food, and could constantly feel flies landing on me. Mixed with the beads of sweat running down my face from the extreme heat, this wasnt the most ideal dining experience. I decided to order fish n chips, thinking they might be pretty decent since we were right next to the ocean. Well they were marginal at best. They were very over-battered and just not very tasty. My mom ordered the seafood pasta option which was better than what I was having, but it was overly saturated in oil and extremely greasy. So in short, the food is not very good. Also, be weary of the bathrooms. This place had some of the dirtiest restaurant bathrooms I have seen yet, which makes me nervous that the employees are also using them. They didnt even have paper towels, just hand driers. If you know anything about hygiene, then you know that paper towels are much cleaner and safer to use because youre supposed to use them on the door handle instead of your bare hands, decreasing the chance of spreading germs and bacteria into the kitchen. The only reason I give this place 2 stars is because I liked the location and the views, it had somewhat of a cool atmosphere inside, and they had live music playing. If you ever decide to stop here, do enjoy the view, but dont expect the food to be great, dont expect good service, and dont be caught off guard by the service charge on your bill (probably why the service is bad).

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Barbara Imhoff

Just like many of the poor reviews previous to mine, I do not know where to start! I was excited to make reservations for my husband and I because after almost 11 years of living in Santa Cruz, we were finally going to experience this place. We were there for "steak night" and were VERY disappointed. My husband ordered the 12 oz sirloin steak and what arrived (he ordered it medium) was a tasteless, overcooked piece of meat that did not even resemble a sirloin steak (we have bought and made many, many sirloin steaks over the years and have never been perplexed by what arrived at our table). Not only was it over cooked, it was NOT 12 oz. I ordered the 6 oz filet mignon and what I got was a tender piece of meat but tasteless as well. It was not your normal filet mignon (a thick juicy round medallion), it was definitely NOT worth $22.00. So my husband decided he wanted to speak to the waitress to let her know that this was NOT 12 oz of meat on his plate (it looked like 6 oz, it was approximately the same amount as my 6 oz filet). The waitress gladly took the plate back to the kitchen and out came the owner. In one hand he had a raw piece of meat that he claimed was sirloin and in the other he had his scale. He plopped the scale down on our table, showed us the steak he uses for sirloin, which was covered with a layer of fat that you couldnt even see the meat itself and proceeded to state that after he weighs the steak he trims the fat. The problem with this is that when you advertise on the menu that the steak is 12 ounces, it should be 12 ounces immediately before it goes on the grill and out to your table!!!! You DO NOT weigh a raw steak BEFORE you trim the fat off!! POOR BUSINESS PRACTICES!! DO NOT EAT HERE! A good restaurant business owner would have at least taken the steak off the bill! We are small business owners ourselves and know that you must always make your customers happy in the end....NOT HAPPY!

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Lori Bradshaw

Really bad experience tonight. We arrived at 4:45 and were told it was between services and only serving drinks and appetizers. No worries. We ordered drinks and waited until 5:00. Server took order a couple of minutes before 5:00. Our food finally arrived about 5:40. We waited 40 minutes for a cheeseburger with fries and a risotto. The risotto was hot when server brought it to the table but the burger and fries were barely warm. The cooks timing was really off. The server was too preoccupied with the bar and the counter and so many other things that periods of 15 or 20 min would pass without even seeing him. We had to flag him down to get drink refills, a box for my leftovers, and our check. After waiting nearly 10 min for him to come back to get our check, we walked to the register with it only to be informed that only he and no one else was able to run our charge card so we could pay our bill. Even after they got his attention and handed him our check and card, he was too busy to run the card and made us continue to wait. The food was good, as always. The service from the kitchen was really slow, considering the number of people in the dining room at the time. And it was obvious that our experience as a guest in the restaurant was not even in the servers list of top ten priorities.

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Chris Phillips

Been there many times before and loved the place. Today, my husband and I returned after a year or so, looking forward to the usual great breakfast. #1- no more French press French Roast coffee. What we got was disappointing weak pot coffee.#2 -I ordered the Roadhouse breakfast. I requested eggs scrambled well done, and bacon, crispy. I was served fried eggs, well done. When I told the waitress, she apologized, and returned a few minutes later with my plate- this time with very loose scrambled eggs, still quite wet- and bacon that was limp. #3- my husband ordered the Roadhouse breakfast with sausage, and eggs over easy. His were well done, and the sausage had a cardboard consistency, and no discernible sausage flavor, or what was there was overwhelmed by sage. #4- we ordered sourdough toast. Neither of us thought it tasted or crunched like a sourdough. Tasted like a sliced loaf of white bread to both of us. Too bad. Not a $30 breakfast anymore. We never minded paying that or more for the quality of meal we got in the past. It was not worth it this time.