The Rockroom

Our favorite date place. Tuesday’s are buy one app /​get one. That’s when we have small parties there. The food is good, a bit inconsistent. Flatbreads are always a 10! But we go mainly for the atmosphere. It’s cozy & upscale.

Beautiful location but the food is overpriced and it tastes terrible. I had a good glass of wine ($ 13)! Potato chip app was greasy, —ok but we had to try them for the novelty bar food experience. The chicken confit salad was awful, no flavor and neither a salad nor an «egg roll» enough said. The chicken pot pie was not a pot pie. Soup with a pilsbury type biscuit on top does not qualify as such. The minestrone soup was inedible. This was a weird chili/​soup with a quarter of a corn cob on top? No mine or strone there. Now we are afraid for Shadowbrook because that’s a whole lot of dough to be spent on horrid food. Seriously guys we went to pizza afterwards.

Food: 3 stars
P/​C: 3 stars
Service: 3.5 stars
The Rockroom is the lounge room above the more formal Shadowbrook Restaurant. Lush landscaping, waterfalls, and accent lighting line the walkway down from the parking area to the lounge. Or you can opt to take the funicular railcar down, which I thought was pretty cool. (Google Angel’s Flight to get an idea of what a funicular railcar is.)
As for the lounge itself, on the Friday night we went, there was an acoustic guitar lounge act already playing. A bit loud as it made conversation difficult.
We ordered pork sliders, pork belly, and flatbread. Nothing special on any of the food. Flatbread was the best of the bunch with the pork belly below average (tender on one half and dry on the other).
It took a very long time for delivery of our dishes as the food is served out of a mini-​kitchen within the lounge and not from the main kitchen. This makes wait times long when the room is crowded.
Service was slightly above average, but not what I would have expected in a restaurant of this caliber, and yes I know we were in the lounge portion, but still. When I was asked how the meal was, I commented on the issue with the pork belly. While maybe sympathetic, our server mentioned the issue with using the small kitchen and left it at that. No offer of a comp or a partial comp.
I’d be willing to try the main Shadowbrook restaurant, but not the Rockroom unless I’m just there to get a drink.

i love the atmosphere of this place. warm and casual, yet fancy enough to make you feel special. the fireplace is great in the winter, and everyone looked like they were having a great time.
Mondays are burger & drink specials — the burgers are great. i will certainly be back.

In a nutshell:
Food: 2.5 stars
P/​C: 3.5 stars
Service: 3.5 stars
I had to make my trek down to santa cruz to meet a friend and was squeezing my brain to see where there would be a decent dining spot. both of us immediately thought about shadowbrook — but didn’t want that whole stuffy, dressed-​up environment. So, we opted for the bar section — the rockroom.
It was such an experience to take the elevator down to the restaurant. Regardless of everything else — this was a nice touch. When we got to the restaurant, we were warmly greeted by the maitre d’ and sat ourselves by the fireplace — just a perfect beginning.
The menu was pretty good, but I wasn’t overly fond of it — they had pizza, they had quesadillas, they had steaks, burgers… sounded like TGI’s or Ruby Tuesday’s…I would’ve thought that they would have stuck with a few good ones.
In any case, we got a thing of caramelized onions and ricotta cheese pizza and the skirt steak topped with gorgonzola cheese. The pizza was absolutely dry and the toppings were scarce, but edible. The skirt steak was extremely salty and overcooked — and the gorgonzola cheese was so sloppily topped that it kinda kileed my appetite a bit.
The bad food was more than made up by the ambiance and the courteous staff. But I am not sure that there’s any wow-​element to this restaurant for me to grant four stars (not that it matters… hahaha…). If you’re in the Santa Cruz area and wanting decent food and atmosphere, this is the place to go though!
In conclusion: Not certain if you want to make the trek, but if you’re already there — definitely go here for some great atmosphere, views and somewhat for food.

A sweet spot to bring a date or your hetero-​life-​partner I suppose.
They play live music; when I was there last they had a guy rockin’ The Beatles covers on acoustic. You also get a nice view through glass of the nearby greenery. The «warmed artichoke-​crab dip» was the best I’ve ever had. It was warm, creamy, delicious tasting, and had hella crab. Like my first gf. Buh-​zing! JK
Hit this place up for drinks, good food, and good convo with whomever you take.