Centro Basco

The Good: Friendly Employees?
The Bad: Just about everything else.
Made reservations weeks in advance for 7pm. Arrived at 6:15 and got some pretty strong drinks in the bar area. Come 7pm, we were told our wait would be 20 mins despite the reservation. Did not get seated until 7:30pm.
After ordering soon thereafter, we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Finally at 8:45, our server FINALLY apologized for the wait and said it would be out shortly. Come 9:00, another lady (I believe who was the manager) came and told us that our food was coming out «Now» (She said «now» at least three times). She tried offering us free dessert or wine and we told her multiple times all we wanted was our food.
«now» became a five minute wait, at which point we agreed to take a (cheap) bottle of wine home. Food did not arrive until 9:20!!!
Now that we waited so long, the food had to be worth the wait, right? WRONG.
My rack of lamb was bland and nothing to write home about. Worse, despite requesting au gratin potatoes, the waitress dropped off the food and said, «We’re out of au gratin potatoes so everyone gets fries» and then left.
My fiances’ chicken was also nothing to write home about. Everyone else at the table had equally poor reviews.
So after the 2.5 hr wait, the lack of au gratin potatoes, and the subpar food, it can’t get much worse, right?
Wrong again. As compensation, all we were comped was a side of blue cheese and a cheap bottle of wine. Thats it. Not even one free entrée. Nothing.
Unbelievable. Avoid this place at all cost.

Love the vintage charm of this place. On my first visit, in the first moments of my first impression, all I knew was this place must have been around for generations seeing all the legitimate 1970’s surroundings & décor. I honestly didn’t know what to expect of the service and food, but right away we were greeted by our waitress with such a wonderful sense of hospitality.
We ordered lamb chops and baked tilapia and both dishes were great, but i have to say the spaghetti (tomato and roasted pepper sauce) was the best spaghetti I’ve had in years! I’m coming back for lots more of that! :) WE LEFT STUFFED and very happy

This place needs remodeling. Walked in and can smell dust. the food wasn’t great. I was upset to eat in old plates and silverware and our tablecloth was slightly dirty I can’t believe this place is still open, I think an inspector needs to go in a Check this place out. If our area is dirty I can only imagine the kitchen.

THE BAR ROCKS! Clean, Quick service, and very good drinks. They have a jukebox and tvs. It carries a older atmosphere that makes you feel at home. Full open bar with many drinks to choose from. If your in the area you definitely want to check in.

Favorite restaurant in the US. The most authentic restaurant I have ever been. Not in the Basque food sense, but in the sense of the restaurant origin.
Hotel, cowbell, sharing, braised and stewed meals, simple, seemingly familial servers, handball players, farm owners, farm hands, Pasadena lawyers, LA brokers, no menus, bathroom wall articles, French grandpas… experience.
Extras are chilled red wine that is only palatable when mixing the two styles. Sometimes but not often, you get a scoop of ice cream for dessert.

For those of you who have never heard of the Basque, they are a people native to the Pyreenes mountains in between Spain and France. There is a brief and interesting history on the menu.
Not many people can say they have been dining at the same restaurant for 40 years. And to top that off, that the food had been consistently delicious during all that time!
For those of you that enjoy a hearty, home cooked meal, this is the place to go. The restaurant itself is very simple, but that is part of the charm, it’s a blast from the past.
Dinner is served family style and starts with soup that is served in a large tureen. It varies daily and tastes just like grandma made it. You can tell there are no fillers or artificial ingredients, just a great broth with vegetables, legumes and sometimes meat. This is followed with an excellent salad, dressed with a light garlic, oil and vinegar dressing.
Over the years, we have tried a variety of entrees, all have been pleasing to the palate. Last night, my husband ordered a flatiron steak with bernaise sauce, and the meat was tender and very flavorful. I had the Shrimp Scampi with a lemony garlic butter sauce. All entrees come with vegetables and fries or potatoes au gratin. The desserts are luscious as well with a chocolate cake to rival Claim Jumpers mother lode cake.
So, break out and try a Basque night out on the town, if you’re a foodie, you won’t be disappointed!

I purchased a Groupon deal and came here tonight with my family for dinner. I did some research to find out where this place is located. The pictures on their website show how beautiful this place is. As we arrived, we turned into a gravel parking lot and found out later that the restaurant was on the other side. It was an old building and the ambiance and interior décor did not stand up to the pictures on their website.
The food and service here is mediocre. My husband had the lamb chops and that was ok. My prime rib was dry and of poor quality. The side of french fries had the taste of oil that has been used over and over again. My husband also found a piece of metal or aluminum in his drink. He was too nice to not make a stink about it. Mr. Bartender, you got away with this one!
Overall, I would not recommend this place. I felt mislead by the photos, not only from their website, but also by the one used on Groupon. The lamb chops we ordered looked nothing like the one advertised on Groupon. Very disappointed!

RUDE! The food is not that great to come back to. Waitress was so rude and so was the woman owner. We were almost thrown out after are dinner since it was past 9:00 pm! This place should be shut down!

Service: not sure if it’s because we sat at the wrong place (the bar area not the actual dining area) or the servers were just racist, but NO ONE was helping us. We had to yell out what we wanted to order because the bartender took our orders and she was too lazy to walk over.
Food: decent. steak was not bad thought the garlic was uncooked, side dishes were yummy. French onion soup was really good.

Still best Basque food in the Inland Empire. Roughy, Flat Iron Steak, and house special were still as best ever. Come and enjoy.

Very friendly staff. Dinner entrees come with salad and soup, bread, green beans and another side of your choice, basically a lot of food so go when very hungry.
The food was very good and we took the left overs which made for a good next day lunch.

I know the rating of this place is a solid 4. But this is OUR EXPERIENCE. My bf and I were looking for a new place to go to for dinner and saw a Groupon, $ 14 for $ 30 worth of food. Great deal right? Well, you decide.
ATMOSPHERE & DECOR: **
The place looked old inside, white table cloths and tables really close together, too close actually. The waiting area (the bar) was pretty dirty, it needed some cleaning. Normally it wouldn’t matter, but it is a restaurant after all. There’s also an old dingy smell that hung in the air, probably coming from the carpet, it looked like it hasn’t been cleaned in a while.
WAIT TIME: *
We went on a Saturday night. We got there at 7:15pm and was told there’s a 15−20min wait. 7:45pm came and still no table. We asked the hostess and she said, «people are leaving, we’ll get you seated soon.» There were 2 other couples waiting that came after us, at 8pm, they sat them before us. We finally came up to the hostess and after apologizing to us, she sat us at 8:10pm. 55 minutes wait.
FOOD: **
We ordered the sausage with garlic noodles and the baked chicken. Our meal also came with sourdough bread, soup and salad. Bread and soup were good except for the wilted and really oily salad, which had a blonde strand of hair, so we didn’t eat it. The sausage had a weird old taste to it, i didn’t like the way it was cured, but that’s just a matter of taste, but there was no excuse as to why it was overcooked, tough and rubbery and was so hard to cut. I only ate one, and it’s because I was hungry. The baked half chicken was seasoned well, but it was on the dry side, it wasn’t anything special. Just like any rotisserie chicken you can buy at a grocery store for $ 6. The couple we were talking to at the bar raved about the food. They liked the flank steak and the rack of lamb. I’m sure they’re good. Maybe we ordered wrong. I’ll pass along their recommendation. But do consider our review when ordering the chicken and the sausage. By the way, their sodas are flat. Maybe the soda machine needs fixing.
SERVICE: *
This is where it matters most to me. A restaurant is a service industry and customer service is paramount on whether they’ll see you once or a repeat customer. I would have been willing to give this place another try but the service is really lacking. We came at 7:15pm, didn’t get seated until 8:10pm, main dishes didn’t come until 8:50pm. The place closes at 9pm and we barely started our dinner. It was a good 10min before our server came to our table, so the hostess, thankfully, got us our bread. Our server was rude, she didn’t even say sorry for making us wait or introduce herself, she just said, «what can I get for you?» We gave our order and when I told her I’d like to change my drink she seemed annoyed. The food took forever, the hostess came to use 2x to let us know it’s coming, no server once again to update us. We found out that there was a room full of people in the other room that they are all catering to. By the time we got out of there, it was already 9:30pm. They were also rude to one another. Yelling at each other across the room or making snide comments in front of everyone. It was just an overall negative experience.
We’re not stopping anyone from dining there but we wanted to add our experience to the mix. Hopefully the restaurant will see this review and make some positive changes in order to keep customers coming in.

Decided to try this place because we found a groupon, and my boyfriend and I are always up for trying a new place.
Parking was a little confusing, we had entered a gravel lot and ended up walking on the other side of the building to where the entrance really was.
At first glance when I walked inside I was already not really expecting much. But to my surprise right from the beginning the already give you complimentary french onion soup and salad ! The soup was decent and the salad greens were fresh, but it could’ve had a bit less dressing.
For the main entrée we ordered the rack of lamb and the lukinka with noodles. The lamb was very tender and moist, I would really recommend this dish, the mint jelly wasn’t doing it for me though. Both the texture and taste reminded me of toothpaste so that wasn’t really enjoyable. The sausage for the lukinka and noodles are housemade and was also really tasty, and I thoroughly enjoyed the garlic noodles as well because they were soft and cooked to perfection.

I love going to new restaurants. Was pleasantly surprised by Centro Basco. Heard amazing things from other reviews and friends.
Service was excellent. I’ve rarely experienced this level of service. From the servers to the hostess, we felt welcomed and at ease. Servers answered all our questions without making us feel strange and made excellent recommendations. From beginning to end the staff was very helpful without being too pushy or overbearing.
Food exceeded my already high expectations. We ordered the Rack of Lamb, medium, it was perfectly cooked. It was juicy and flavorful. It was plainly cooked topped with minced garlic. We also had the Lukinka and Noodles. Delicious homemade sausages with butter garlic noodles. Noodles were cooked to perfection, the sauce, though it was garlic and butter, wasn’t overly garlic-​y nor oily. Sausage was delicious. French onion soup was perfect, same goes for the salad.
*Blue Cheese~ I’m not a blue cheese fan, but we heard great things, and for $ 3.00, we decided to try it. It was incredible, perfectly complimented the bread and butter, salad and lamb.
Over all it was a great experience, food couldn’t have been better, and the service made it a very enjoyable experience.

My first impression upon driving up to the place was that it looked cute yet slightly ghetto, maybe because of the surroundings (Three-​way Thrift store is right next to it though — plus!). However, we went inside and the place is so legit. Besides the paper covers on top of the tablecloths, but that’s understandable I guess. The room was kind of dark, but there were Christmas lights up, which made for a nice ambiance. I was surprised, there were a good amount of people there for a random Thursday lunch. It took a little while for them to take our order, but they totally made up for it with the amazing service. They were all super friendly, willing to explain the menu, and attentive. The place has a very homey feel because of how nice the the staff is, and I think they have a lot of regulars.
Now for the food. I came because of the Groupon, which was an amazing deal. Its not extremely expensive to begin with considering their menu items. For less than $ 18 (including tip and tax), we got the Thursday special lamb shanks and breaded shrimp with garlic butter pasta. Each included a soup or salad, we chose the French onion soup and tomato basil soup. The French onion was interesting, it came with croutons and parmesan on the side, no cheese in the soup. Taste was alright and it was a big portion. The server considerately left me an extra bowl too. The tomato basil had a fairly thick consistency like I like it. They also provided us with a basket full of bread, which we devoured. I was already full at this point!
Then we got the main course. The lamb was so tender with great flavor. It came with fries, which were very much like in n out fries in texture and flavor. Love. It also came with beans and my boyfriend doesn’t usually like beans, but he liked these ones. The server provided us with mint jelly for the lamb, which I ended up eating by itself later… I just like mint. It was good with the lamb too, it takes away the gamey-​ness and it’s just a whole different flavor. The shrimp was fried perfectly and it was a good portion. The part that impressed me most was that they used real butter and garlic! None of that lame sauce stuff.
In conclusion, I will definitely be back. I want to try the rib eye, which they are supposedly famous for, and I could go for another round of lamb. If we’re being picky, the pasta was a little overcooked and the French onion soup could have been better, but overall I was super impressed and completely enjoyed my experience.

One of my few 5-​star ratings for any restaurant. Centro Basco will probably never be a popular pick but it is one of my favorite restaurants in SoCal… Specifically Sunday Brunch.
You don’t get a menu, instead waiters bring you soup, salad, wine, bread and butter. I don’t know how often it changes but both times that I have been here I always get the steak and French fries with my meal.
I have to say, one of the reasons I give this restaurant my highest rating is because it reminds me of a lunch spot I’d frequent when I lived in Madrid. So if you ever want to know what authentic, family owned restaurants in Spain feel like, then check out Centro Basco. More people should know about this place.

Came here for lunch. The food was okay (ordered the steak sandwich, but the steak was pretty fatty). It came with fries and the server gave me a side salad too, which was tasty. The side of sourdough bread was probably the tastiest thing I ate. Soft and delicious.
The lunch prices were not expensive, but just about right for what my guest and I received. It helped that we had a Groupon, so if you’re looking to try this place out, get the Groupon to save you the equivalent of one entrée.
Finally, what could have made this place better were two things. First, being seated is very confusing. No one is stationed at the door, so when you walk in, you either stand around hoping someone will notice you eventually or you wander around the restaurant (like I did) hoping to find a server for some clarification on where to sit. This isn’t an individual experience. When we came here before a few months back, we experienced the exact same thing. And it seems the guests that arrived after we did experienced the same too.
Second, the lighting is very dim and the place needs a major overhaul on décor. I can’t really explain it, but the décor closely resembles a funeral home, very darkly lit with red carpeting. While it may sound somewhat romantic, believe me, it’s not.
I’m still glad we have this place a second chance, but I wouldn’t return here considering the other choices I have in and around town.

Pricy but damn good!!! there chicken and lamb, so so so Good!!! This restaurant seems like a blend between American, Italian, and French, there cheeses are amazing I had the sampler appt so good!
The owner came by our table and basically served us the entire time and kept us company the entire Time
She then have us a very nice your of there wine celler and added us to there email ground to send us deals and wine maker dinners.
Amazing atmosphere and service and made our dining experience really amazing :)

Dined here twice in the past month as my husband really enjoyed their lamb entrees. There is an ample amount of food served here with each meal. All starters and sides are served family style and each person gets their own entrée. Based on the reviews, this place is very well known for their lamb. I don’t eat lamb but my husband has ordered the lamb chops and rack of lamb. They come with a small mint jello on the side that complements the lamb. I’ve never seen that before, but it really does go well together! I think the rack is better than the chops.
All other menu items are just standard menu items. I was expecting something more cultural for Basque food that I wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. Kind of disappointed.
The service is really good. All waiters and servers are pleasant and attentive.
Save some money and buy the groupon for this place.

My family and I have come here for at least 30 years. What’s my excuse for not writing a review? Uh… would you believe I forgot?
But, before you get started, click on this link:
and pick out your favorite music from the MP3 list. We will all be dancing Basque style by the end of my review!
First of all, Basque food is not fancy. It was designed to provide high calories to the tummies of sheepherders, cattlemen, and dairymen, commoners who worked hard, but also played hard. Large portions, many side dishes at each meal, lots of bread, and depending on which side of the border they are from, with a flavor palate influenced by either the Spanish or French cuisine. Either way, rich and delicious. I believe CB represents French Basque.
We are lucky to have had a large community of Basque dairymen who settled in the Chino IE region. We would take the kids for a Sunday drive through the dairy lands just to admire their collection of exotic animals, easy to see from the dusty, eucalyptus lined roadsides. But sadly, most of those dairies have been swallowed up by aggressive housing developments, only a few remain. Luckily, Centro Basco still serves that diminishing community (and us wannabes), somehow managing to resist the pressure for now.
I have seen CB go through good times and bad, sometimes the food was disappointing, the paint peeling, the carpet dull, the service slow. But right now, a younger perspective seems to be breathing new life back into a still dowdy looking location. I am happy to proclaim that the food is back on track and makes me happy.
Lamb, lamb, lamb. It is all about lamb in my eyes (even though they serve much more). Lamb chops, lamb roast, rack of lamb (!!!) are my favorites and worth every penny. My other delight, as you have probably already noticed from other reviewers, is the pickled (olive oil, vinegar and garlic) beef tongue appetizer. I was raised on this, so I have no qualms, but if you are squeamish, just close your eyes. The texture is far more tender than a filet mignon, with lots of flavor from invisible but well-​marbled fat. Those who have no clue what it is, love it. It’s all in your head, ha ha, and coming from a far better end of the cow than oxtail (which I also happen to love).
What comes with the meal? Lots of fillers. A peasant soup du jour, usually thin, sourdough bread with plenty of butter, slices of cheese, a bowl of simple salad in an even simpler dressing of oil and vinegar, boiled beans, canned peas, and fries or au gratin potato, all round out the meal. You can ask for as much soup and salad as you desire. These days, if you want the whole typical appetizer spread, you must pay extra to add in the spaghetti and/​or the tongue appetizer. Both used to be standard courses, but since many had issues with the tongue, and complaints of too much food, these became add-​ons. They actually reduced their meal prices to reflect these omissions.
For the full Basque experience, mark on your calendar 7:00 pm every first Saturday of the month. They are now doing a special family style dinner (Lamb BBQ and Chillindron (stew)) that includes five courses, plus bottomless wine. They encourage you to bring your accordion and other musical instruments. What the heck? Even if you don’t like or play accordion, after all that wine, everything will sound good. And who cares if you don’t speak Basque! Fake it. No one will notice.
If you love Basque food, here is an interesting link to a list of restaurants throughout the US that claim to still serve Basque food. Thank you
. I cannot attest to it’s accuracy, but folks, isn’t that what Unilocal is all about?