Lombardi’s

Why isn’t this restaurant listed on the 10 best list? My husband and I stumbled upon this place and we couldn’t have been more pleased. The meatballs are out of this world good. My husband had a wonderful pizza and I had the fettuccini Lombardi. It was amazing. I highly recommend Lombardi’s.

Great food. Real Italian sauce; pretty thick, not too sweet, and the vegetables were finely chopped into, not like some places where you are eating a salad for your sauce. The bread was great — fresh. And the entrees were delicious.
My only complaints would be the atmosphere — it looked like they got their furniture from every era of every second hand store in town, most of the tables could use a wrench to tighten things up a bit. Also, «in an effort to conserve water,» they sold bottles for $ 0.75. First off, by selling those stupid bottles, they are doing nothing for the planet. If you want to conserve water, just only give it to people who ask for it. I get California may have to become like Europe where there is no more free water, but just charge me $ 0.10 or something for tap water, not those stupid bottles.
Anyway, loved the food. Eat there!

Our «must stop» restaurant along the coast. Sometimes we come for the weekend just to be able to eat here.

We were staying in Cambria for the night because we were going to visit the Hearst Castle the next morning. Decided to try this place despite poor reviews.
There weren’t that many people when we arrived. They only served bottled water so you have to pay 75 cents per bottle. This was super odd to me because I’ve never went to an establishment that didn’t have tap water.
We ordered 3 dishes to share between 4 people because we weren’t that hungry. We got the fettuccine Alfredo with chicken, spaghettini with tortellini, and the seafood ravioli special of the day. Our whole meal was $ 90! The chicken was super dry and the portions weren’t ginormous. The dishes did come with garlic bread though which was pretty good. The seafood special also came with a salad but the other dishes did not.
The only reason why I’m giving this place 2 stars is the overpriced dishes and no tap water. The food was decent but I’ve definitely had way better for cheaper.

My wife liked the gorgon zola pizza and the pasta dish (rigatoni) had nice mushrooms and garlic

After touring the Piedras Blancas lighthouse, my sons and I came to eat at Lombardi’s Pizza & Pasta. The service was great, the food is great, we will definitely come back

There’s nothing worse than going into a restaurant when you’re so hungry and right off the bat intuition tells you to leave. Oh yes there’s something worse the Menu. Overpriced!!!
2 small pizzas, 4 cokes & a small salad $ 53!!! Though the service was fine, the «cheap» ambience and quality of food is good enough reason to walk out. Next time I’ll heed my intuition’s warning.

It was the only place open when we got to Cambria at 8:30pm on a Friday night 10÷30÷15 after the night tour at Hearst Castle. They almost closed, we decided order to go. Most 1&2 stars reviews are accurate, over priced, small portions and cheap ingridents.

My husband and I stopped here for lunch. It was our first time in the Town, where we came for the famous annual scarecrow festival. After walking around and looking at menus we decided to have lunch here, because it had a nice lunch special and we were craving Italian food.
You must know, there is NO service in the little town, for what I couldn’t check out a better place on Unilocal or read reviews!
They charge for water .75 per bottle. I asked for tab water, and despite it says they do NOT offer tab water, the waitress didn’t hesitated on giving us tab water. That was nice of her, despite non sense policy of the restaurant.
Also, they charge $ 2.00 per entrée if you pay with credit card. I witnessed a couple leaving the restaurant after reading that extra charge on the menu. Lucky me, I had cash and stayed, we were too hungry to start a new search!
I had the house lasagna… Nothing special about it. Just a normal lasagna, with sauce and cheese. Meat tasteless… Garlic Bread OK, again, nothing special.
My husband had the lunch special, he got ravioli on gorgonzola sauce with mushrooms, it came with a house salad and garlic bread for $ 9.95 ($ 11.95 if paid with credit card). He liked it… He actually enjoyed it. The sauce was very creamy and tasty. The salad… just ok.
The place is clean, a little bit old fashion, but again, its an old tiny town., everything is old fashion. Thats what makes the town so special and nice!
I don’t think I would recommend this place, nor come again. It wasn’t a bad experience because the service was good, but I can cook way better than them!

My Mom and I stopped in for dinner on a Saturday during the scarecrow festival. The place was empty. The waitress was very nice but it took a while for her to come and take our order. I had the Lombardi Chicken. It was good. Chicken was moist. It came with garlic bread. The bread was boring. Tasted like it was a butter spread used. I expect fabulous bread from Italian restaurants. My Mom had the chicken Picado. Same thing it was good. Nothing fancy and nothing to really bring me back. Too bad. I go each year for the festivals and it would have been nice to have a repeat place to go to.

We came as a family of five…2 adults and three teenagers. The bill came to $ 89. That’s a little steep for the quality of the food. It was edible but nothing to write home about. Our daughter ordered the pesto pizza. It was good. orders the chicken Diablo pasta. It was too spicy. The meatballs and pesto were very average. So basically, this is Italian food that your American mom would make by opening cans from the grocery store. Service was decent.

Had been here on a previous visit to Cambria. I remembered the food being delicious and just had to find it again. On this visit I was greeted by a sign that clearly stated that they «serve bottled water only for .75c» I know we are going through a drought, but most restaurants have switched to «water upon request» policies, not this place. .75c for an ice cold bottle of Costco’s finest, Kirkland water… It is obviously an attempt to get whatever extra money can from their guests.
I ordered an antipasto salad that was generously topped and served with a vinegary house creamy Italian dressing. The flavors went very well together. My 6 year old daughter had a child’s pasta with Alfredo sauce. She ate every single bite and loved it. However, the portion was so small she was still hungry when she finished and we weren’t even half way done with our salads. Rather than ordering her another small serving of child’s pasta for $ 7.50 I asked if her meal came with garlic bread, the waitress said no. I told her that it clearly reads on the menu that every entrée includes garlic bread. The waitress said it didn’t (I double checked on my way out, it DOES clearly state that.) I ordered my daughter an order of garlic bread, which should have automatically come with her meal. The food was delicious. Their pricing and petty policies suck.

The food, the service, and the decoration were all mediocre at best. My husband ordered the creamy marinara pasta which didn’t even taste as though it came from a jar but instead from a 20 lb bag that cost less that one 24 oz jar. Thank goodness the portions were so small because my husband had heartburn all night as it was. The prices though… amazingly high! Maggiano’s charges less, plus they give you an extra enter to take home.
The following day, we drove across town to Main Street Grill. They had great food at great prices.

Maria — gorgeous
Nicole — fantastic
Lombardi’s Special pizza — magnifico
Rosemary chicken — hmmm, not the best
Atmosphere — what we like, like Momma’s
My wife/​lover says five stars! Five it is!
Salute! We’ll be back!

We enjoyed Lombardi’s so much that we ate dinner there two nights in a row!
The BEST checca I have ever had and the chef was kind enough to share his recipe (which I will feature in a post on my blog
shortly).
The scampi, garlic bread is excellent, the chocolate torte, spumoni ice cream. My father loves Frutti di Mare and the chefs were very accommodating. They add shrimp and a TON of mussels to their Spaghettini with Clams. Dad was very pleased. Ask for the Victor Hugo Merlot, if you like merlot.
I highly recommend Lombardi’s. Lovely family-​run restaurant with delicious Italian food for the whole family!

Great Italian restaurant with tasty food at fair prices and enthusiasm galore Tonight by our friendliest server Nicole! Loved her enthusiasm. Nicole gets an A+ for friendliest waitress ever! I have been all over Europe and parts if the US, and haven’t met a friendlier server. My 2 son’s had very large portions on their «Chicken Parmesans» and they loved them. The side salads my wife and I had had a nice variety of vegetables and beets too, and our «Eggplant» was prepared perfectly! Tasteful!
And to top off the dinner the fresh bread was really pleasing. Very good atmosphere and good food at reasonable prices! By the way a local resident told me about loving the food here before we tried this establishment. Good eating! And ask for Nicole!

My partner and I stayed in Cambria for Memorial Day weekend and Lombardi’s really made our experience unforgettable. Nothing makes a weekend get away more romantic than sharing a bathroom after a tasteless, tacky Italian restaurant gives both of you food poisoning!
Food was gross. Restaurant was tacky. Never again!

On my second night in Cambria, I decided that I refused to spend $ 28 on a dinner entrée at one of the fancy restaurants lining the main drag — so I decided to go back to Lombardi’s, where I had a really decent meal a few years before.
Yes, Lombardi’s is a hole-​in-​the-​wall and they could use some updating of their décor and menus — however it has a lot of plusses. Very friendly and welcoming service, plus good, hearty, old fashioned Italian food that doesn’t break the bank. I had the eggplant parmesan with a side of spaghettini with marinara sauce. The eggplant was good — not drowning in sauce (the way I like it), and the tomato sauce over the spaghettini was full of flavor (and garlic!). I paid a third of what I would have paid at one of the fancy restaurants down the street, and that included a beer with my dinner.
I have to disagree with some of the other reviewers regarding the spaghetti sauce — I’ve seen it called Ragu, but it was definitely not Ragu. I could tell it was home-​made because of its consistency and how flavorful it was (like I said, lots of garlic which I love).
Someone mentioned that water comes in a bottle at this restaurant — because of the drought in California, every restaurant in Cambria is serving bottled water at a nominal price. This is not done because the restaurant has an attitude, but because they have to. Not fair to take away points for that.
I also noticed that a lot of locals came in for take-​out orders — something to look for in a restaurant when going out of town.
I live in a tourist town, and it’s hard to find a small, low-​key Italian restaurant these days that will serve you a simple bowl of Red. I will definitely go back to Lombardi’s the next time I’m in Cambria.

Food is incredibly mediocre. Our table ordered the rosemary chicken, cheese tortellini, baked rigatoni, and veggie pizza. Marinara sauce was watered down. Garlic bread tasted like the frozen stuff you get at Costco. The only decent dish was the tortellini and even that was nothing to write home about.
What earns this place a 1 star review is the service. My party of 6 came in on a Saturday night because this was the only place without a 45 min wait. But we ended up having to wait 45 minutes for our food to arrive while we watched a table of 4 and a table of 5 (both of which arrived after us) received their food before us, so I really wish we’d just waited to eat at Robin ’ or Linn’s instead.
When our food finally arrived, my order was wrong. But when I politely pointed this out to our server, she insisted I had ordered ravioli but I know I ordered tortellini because it was the exact same order as my fiancé’s – I had even joked about it with our server when we were ordering. But here she was now, accusing me of placing the wrong order. She took the ravioli back but did not apologize; actually, she looked very annoyed. The correct order came out pretty quick, thankfully. But not one single apology from anyone and they ended up charging us for everything, including an automatic 20% gratuity. No apologies from the restaurant. And they charged .75 cents for water. And they wouldn’t even split our check for us.
This place left such a bad taste in our mouths that we left without ordering a birthday dessert for me – probably wouldn’t even have been complimentary anyway, and certainly not tasty. Look elsewhere for a bite to eat in Cambria. Plenty of other options with better food and vastly better service than this crap hole. No wonder the place was almost empty during the dinner rush on a Saturday night!

75 cents for bottled water, acceptable. Not providing a tap water option? Okay, I get that we’re in a drought, but you have as well as a «if it’s yellow, keep it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down» sign in your bathroom if you’re not going to use tap water FOR DRINKING.
By the way, bottled water is also wasteful for the environment, so if you want to charge people for water, think of a better excuse.
20% for gratuity, also acceptable. Charging our tableS for gratuity when you’re not accommodating for us to sit together. Unacceptable. Splitting us into two tables means we’re allowed to pay two separate bills.
Charging $ 2 per extra plate. What the fuck. No words for that. Oh, but it gets better, when someone said never mind on the plate, the manager told the waiter to add the charge on anyway, even though we never got this said extra plate.
The main course. The food was grossly overpriced for both the quality and the portions. For $ 15 dollars a plate, you should be expecting homemade, above average, or large portioned Italian food. This place is none of the above.
It seriously looks like a bowl that my mom cooks with Prego’s sauce (even the bowl looks the same). My table opted for sausage parmesan sandwiches, which were surprisingly not disappointing, size wise. Taste was completely average. We however in the moment thought it was amazing because we were starving and waiting well over 30 minutes.
I think this place is a complete rip off and a waste of your time. Just because they’re one of three restaurants open in this small downtown doesn’t mean they should overcharge mediocre food. Next time, I’d definitely rather wait an hour and a half at Linn’s or eat a bag of cheeto’s from the liquor store down the street.