Northwoods Restaurant

Crescent City is a beautiful city filled with endless opportunities to explore the outdoors. There’s hiking, fishing, kayaking… You name it.
However, because Crescent City is known for their nature-​related activities, I assume tourists, and residents alike, don’t focus a lot of their attention on restaurants or cafes. I also noticed a lot of people munching on packed lunches rather than dining indoors. This is why I’m going to be lenient with this review. That, and because our breakfast was free for staying at the Best Western.
From the looks of it, if you stay at the Best Western, you’ll get a free pass to the breakfast buffet. Honestly, it was alright. I like that there’s Fruit Loops in one of the cereal dispensers, but I would’ve been so much happier if the coffee was better. I’d skip the eggs unless you see someone replacing them with a fresh batch. The serving I got was in the heat for too long so the texture was a bit off. The ham and pancakes were both good. The sausage was a little dry from the heat so, again, I’d hold off until there’s a fresh batch. To my surprise, the fruit was excellent. I had orange slices, watermelon, and cantaloupe. All were very fresh, and my second plate was filled entirely with them.
It’s probably annoying for the staff whenever hoards of customers come in, only to be there for the complimentary buffet. And from what I’ve gathered from friends who were servers, it’s common for people not tip on complimentary meals. However, I wish our waitress just paid a little more attention to us. She was pleasant enough but if she were to maybe refill our waters a couple more times, or even asked how we were doing, we would’ve skyrocketed our tip.
Overall, a free breakfast buffet is a free breakfast buffet. It was on par with diners and family restaurant chains. Maybe their menu-​based items are vastly better, but their buffet wasn’t bad by any means. So if you have a ticket for the free breakfast buffet, I think you should go for it.

Most of my experiences here have not been great but this weekend is what will probably be my last visit. Had to ask for everything from napkins to utensils to bread to the little plates they are supposed to bring when you order appetizers. Kitchen and wait staff were (I’m assuming) watching football because meal was constantly interrupted by screaming and extremely loud cheering from their kitchen. Then a female employee came out and banged a bunch of dishes at the salad bar so loudly that I and other customers cringed and she didn’t apologize. Meal fine but french fries soggy. Restaurant is beautiful and if the employees were more organized/​professional I bet they would get a lot more business.

Mind you, this might be your only option after about 8:30 — 9:00pm on Saturday night! After reading some reviews we were a little skeptical (but hungry), so we were pleasantly surprised when we really enjoyed our food and experience there! The server was nice, our drinks were good, and the Halibut was super delish! Everything came out as expected, and even the salad bar, while simple, looked good. If we were ever in the area again we would recommend it! There were a lot of options on the menu, and the service was great.

I stopped into this place for breakfast after staying in a motel a few doors down. This is the Best Western’s house restaurant, so when I first came in, the server assumed I was a Best Western guest and was there for the buffet. She asked to see my card, by which I now assume she meant my room key card, but she didn’t say that. I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, and only when that became apparent did she ask if I was a guest of the hotel. I said no and asked if it was just a buffet, and she said no and brought me a menu. I ordered some kind of ‘scramble’ or ‘skillet’ that was supposed to be Italian. It was gross.
The server was friendly enough, but she seemed distracted by the busload of geriatric sightseers crowded around the buffet, and just generally out of it and not coping. In a way it’s hard to blame her — those people were very distracting, and annoying, and like I do every time I see tourists, I wondered why Darwinism doesn’t work on human beings. But I’ve spent a lot of time in diners all over the U.S. and Canada and I’ve seen good servers and bad, and I hate to say it, but a good server would have handled the rush just fine. I just wanted to leave, and even that took longer than it should have.
Lousy coffee too.

This was a cute little place off the 101 HWY.
I ordered 2 bowls of clam chowder for $ 13.47 so Just FYI the menu price on Unilocal is incorrect and I would have been satisfied with just the cup but since Unilocal menu said $ 4.99/ bowl I thought it was going to be smaller. Also not the very best clam chowder. You know the sandy texture that you bite in to when eating you clam chowder? Well I got that with every single bite.

Expected a greasy spoon kinda place, but it was more than a step above. Convenient to our motel and glad of it.

Best place to eat. Emmanuel and Robert are the best waiters I’ve ever came across. Extremely nice and professional. Highly recommended this place.

Good food, good décor, great desserts and of course the service was amazing. Linda our server was attentive and super nice. I’d recommend going here I’ll be back for sure. The seasoned fries are amazing

I was in Crescent City exploring the coast. This place was not good. The service was poor and the food was gross. They were out of everything. The clam chowder soup was watery. The fish a member of my dining party order said it was rubbery and the garlic pasta was extremely buttery and garlicky. I would avoid this place.

The service was good. I had the stuffed snapper. It lacked flavor and seasonings. Would not order it again. Next time I am in town. I will try a different restaurant.

We tried this because it is next to the Best Western Hotel. When we sat down the customers in the table warned us that they ha waited 30 minutes and had yet to place their order. We experienced a long delay as well. The salmon was good but the calamari steak had no seasoning. The same was true for breakfast. No spices. Normally I would give this 3 stars but because or the poor service I gave it 2 stars.

Depends on the Day — Depends on the Cook!
Over the past few years, I have spent many weeks at the Best Western Northwoods Inn while on business trips, and thus have had the complimentary breakfast at the Northwoods Restaurant many times. After a while I came to see that Dramatic Differences in food quality, preparation and presentation from day-​to-​day are quite simply determined by who is cooking. A 3-​star rating is an average of «really great» on some days, and «won’t be back» on other days.
On the days when my favorite cook is behind the counter, the scrambled eggs are wonderfully enhanced with a variety of vegies, potatoes are perfect, and the fruit is always varied, attractive and delicious.
On the other days, it is scrambled eggs that vary between a bit runny and over-​done with long strings of spinach, the fruit is not attractive and multiple times I have found many rotten grapes in the clusters and melon cut deep into the rind. If I knew in advance who was cooking, I would make a choice to go elsewhere on these days (and there is at least 1 great option nearby).
Many thanks to Lloyd for some wonderful breakfasts in Crescent City. Though we have never met, I know that you clearly take great pride in your work, treating guests like you were feeding family and friends.
Service is consistently very good to excellent, the environment is comfortable.
Because of the dramatic inconsistency in food, I cannot comfortably recommend The Northwoods Restaurant to colleagues and friends when I am working in the Del Norte Co area.

The Northwoods Inn Restaurant located on the premises of the BEST WESTERN PLUS was very good to me. although I can’t speak to their menu for lunch or the dinner I will speak about the breakfast buffet that comes with the room from the Best Western on the same premises. no kidding I eat a lot of these restaurants where you or blood falei breakfast buffets and I gotta say this with my top one it says that this was a winner I mean ham steaks fresh fruit and sausage bacon eggs old omgz with stuff mixed in them explain it was wonderful several kinds of juices in the juices were nice not watered down I like that alot pancakes wow it was excellent excellent breakfast buffet and it’s another reason to stay at the hotel next door is the quality of the breakfast anyway that’s my word on the North wouldn’t Northwoods restaurant and I like it

One would think that a small town, restaurant used by the neighbouring hotel, would be at least. affordable. The menu was way over priced, not San Francisco bay people, not even close. I was expecting $ 15 — 20 and found $ 25 or more. Ambiance of a Black Beat diner.
Oh. the dinner bread was tasty.

This restaurant was such a wonderful surprise. The food was amazing. Great Valentines buffet. The very friendly owner prepares the best cuts of prime rib and ham for his patrons. Lots of locals dine here. Apparently they have a similar buffet for all other holidays. The crafty and cute decorations are made by his talented wife. This is definitely a restaurant that is all in the family!

Awesome breakfast! Clean, cute restaurant. Was very quiet when we got there. At first we were thinking the breakfast menu looked a little small but we both saw items that sounded good so we decided to stay. We were seated right away and our waitress also took our drink order and was back promptly with it.
I ordered the avacado scramble and my husband ordered biscuits and gravy. Our food came out pretty quickly. It looked amazing and tasted as great as it looked! Fresh food, piping hot and cooked perfectly. The portions were generous and I love the cottage potatoes and that they did not skimp on the avacado like most restaurants do. Our friendly waitress came back to check on us and top off my coffee.
Great food and great service! We will be back!

Let’s best honest here. There is no fine dining in Crescent City. There was 20 years ago (I’ve been coming here fishing annually for 20 years and know locals who have been here for 60 years.) but those days are gone. In fact, decent restaurants staying open is a challenge now-​a-​days.
With that said, there are good places to eat and Northwoods has to be one of the best, at least compared to other places in Crescent City. Northwoods is a good dinner spot. The servers are satisfactory. And, their daily soups are normally good. (That being said the Clam Chowder was watered down but the other four we tried in two days were solid. The best part is a fresh, clean salad bar with real greens and good dressing. It’s not loaded with the Costco bought cheap stuff.
Honestly, I’ve always ordered seafood here. And, when they say «fresh». It’s almost always fresh, frozen. However, there’s parmesan crusted halibut has always been good. And, if you like cippino, theirs is pretty darn good. We tried the prawn dinner one night and they were good, but seemed like regular shrimp, not large prawns.
The downfall was the breakfast. If you stay at the adjacent Best Western you get free breakfast coupons. It’s much, much better than a continental breakfast. However, when the food is cold it doesn’t matter how much is available. It’s a waste. The food on the buffet was cold the first day (and this was at 6:20am. We didn’t return the second. The ham, eggs, even the pancakes were cold.
Regardless, I think it would be a chore to find a better place to eat in Crescent City. Come here, scale back expectation and you’ll be happy with average food and a great salad bar.