Cellar 9 Restaurant & Bar

I have been informed Cellar 9 has indeed closed.
It’s a shame but I can’t say I’m surprised.
The location was awful & the food was going downhill.
It didn’t help that the 1 time I met the owner, he was not a happy person.
I was rooting for a local place. Guess this wasn’t the right one. :(

Had an OpenTable reservation for Cellar 9 tonight for my team, arrived to a closed restaurant. No signs indicating they were closed, phone call to restaurant still had a message on the machine. OpenTable, although they sent me a reservation confirmation yesterday, said my reservation was cancelled, and no longer shows the restaurant in their list. So, I’m guessing they closed a the end of September. Too bad, was a good restaurant with a bad location.
Also ran into a couple who had a Groupon wondering what was going on. Bummer on that front.

The service was good. We were promptly seated «by our waiter» as the owner or manager just watched from the bar. Kind of strange.
For an appetizer we tried the fried risotto croquets. The risotto was a bit dry. The dipping sauce was way too spicy.
For our main dish we had the short ribs with polenta and the fried tilapia with mashed potatoes. The short ribs were ok, not real tasty but very moist. The polenta was very good, creamy and flavorful. The tilapia was a bit bland. It was cooked perfectly though. The mashed potatoes were ok as we’ll.
Overall I would consider the food «diner» quality and no where near the quality for the price.
The 18% gratuity added for «coupon» users was surprising as I have never seen this before. I can understand the issue of diners tipping on the discounted price and not the pre-​discounted price, but that was not right for a restaurant «trying» to act more upscale then they are.

I find the décor and the menu are miss matched and awkward. From the name of the restaurant and décor, I expected a long wine list, cocktail menu, and interesting bistro food.
In my personal opinion, this place is playing too safe on the food menu to the point that it is astonishingly boring and overpriced. It was not even a Gastro-​pub menu. The menu feels as if you are at Costco standing in front of the refrigerated packaged prepared food shelf.
I was a bit embarrassed for them when I saw Mac & Cheese with truffle oil is on the menu at such price (not even as a side dish). You see, consumers are highly educated and a bottle of Truffle infused oil is not unusual to be found in the home kitchen anymore. I would say it is not something that the restaurant would proudly offer in the menu. (as a side dish? highly understandable) Of course, we did not order Mac’n Cheese with Truffle Oil. I also do not want to see the word «Tilapia» on such an expensive menu.
I had Baby Back Rib. Although it is not too bad, I felt the sauce is not special. Cookie cutter, the Sysco the restaurant supplier would supply for catering. The food was plated as if a kid helped Mom at home. I understand putting BBRib on hot fries makes sense, but anyone could at least put a little more touch of «color» to be visually appealing.
Salad is drenched in the dressing. That’s my bad. I should have the dressing on the side. I do not understand the small salad plate is placed on top of the red napkin though.
My hubby ordered gnocchi. It is too difficult to maintain the appetite to consume the large quantity of carb as a main dish. If they cannot come up with more variety of interesting foods on the menu, then they should at least switch to «tapas» style (i.e. smaller portion) at much less price so you can order a variety of food.
Wine selection… Not interesting enough for me but not too boring. I found tons of wines in the list that I have tried before, but I am not entitled to complain about it because I am a wine drinker trying different wine each night throughout the year. That said, are those not priced a bit higher than the industry standard?

After reading some of the other Unilocal reviews my friends and I were more than a little bit worried with using our groupon here. To all of our surprise the food and service was excellent. For starters the crispy calamari and sauces were amazing. The breading on the calamari was perfectly done and the chipotle ranch sauce was also well done. For the main course i had the blackened catfish with corn-​shrimp succotash. The catfish was seasoned well and the succotash went will with the polenta, Our server Jose was excellent and kept the bread baskets flowing which was a very nice touch. Groupon users should be warned that they charge 18% gratuity on bills with coupons but when the service and food are that good 18% is more than reasonable. All in all I will definitely go there again.

My husband and I really wanted to like this place since it’s a convenient location to where we live and we love to support local businesses – unfortunately we didn’t.
The positive: It’s very tastefully decorated, very cozy, has an «upscale» feel to it. Wait staff and service were excellent – thus the 2 stars.
The negative: The food! Ordered the fire roasted shrimp (this was the only thing we liked in our entire meal). Everything else was very greasy with no flavor. I ordered the gnocchi, presentation was great, but again no flavor. I had to add a ton of salt and pepper to be palatable. My husband ordered the tilapia, and it too had no flavor and full of oil.
I really wished we had a better experience.

I really wanted to like this place, to support our local businesses, but let’s just say it’s a lot of sizzle but little else. Let’s get right into it…
Good: Décor is nice, hostess is friendly, waitress pretty good.
Bad: Just about everything else. For the prices, I would expect something like House of Prime Rib or Bobo’s, but it was probably worse than Red Lobster. My meatloaf was microwaved to oblivion and my wife’s red pepper entrée lacked any inspiration and seasoning.
I really don’t like to say anything bad about restaurants since they are here to keep their business going and all, but when I walk away with a $ 60 bill for a badly charred meatloaf and tasteless pepper thing, I expect just a little return in my experience.
I would offer 2 suggestions to C9, as a business owner myself:
— Lower the prices.
High-​end dinners are really scalable in these times, even if you live in an «affluent» area like Pleasanton or Dublin. $ 36 for a 10oz prime rib is waaay too high in any establishment. The newly opened BJ’s next door is going to gobble up your business quick, so you should look to offer an alternative dining experience for those who don’t want to wait 1.5 hrs for a table.
— Get a new head chef.
Not sure where you found them, but there’s a little something called «tasting your food» before sending it out and «avoid nuking food in the microwave.» If you want to justify a $ 21 meatloaf dish, at least make it taste better than Safeway’s.
Anyways, I hope there are some adjustments made to C9, because I really want it to succeed. I really, really don’t want to see them on next season’s Kitchen Nightmares.

Beautiful Restaurant but the food is not very good. I ordered the Southern Fried Chicken and it was disappointing. Nothing much to say but that it has no flavor. I had to add salt to my dish! $ 25 dollars was a total rip off.
Service was good but the macaroni and cheese took awhile (and that didn’t taste good either!)
The Doh’ nuts was the best thing I ordered but you can’t go wrong with something deep fried, covered with sugar and dipped in raspberry and white chocolate. BTW– I wanted chocolate syrup but the waiter forgot it.

I tried appetizer, soup, salad and entrée… ordered a bottle of wine. The only thing I enjoyed was the entrée and I ordered that after the waitress advised me that my original choice wasn’t a good one. I appreciated her honesty and picked something else and it was satisfactory. The entrée and the wine were probably the only thing that I enjoyed… The service was just o.k. and for the price, it wasn’t a great experience. We will not be going back.
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Sad to say that I was disappointed in my experience at Cellar 9. We had been once before, back in the summer of 2011 after it first opened and thought it was great! Every single bite of my prawns was crazy delicious and I was sad when it was gone from my plate. This time, I ordered the prawns again since I was looking forward to the same experience. I was extremely disappointed and underwhelmed at what was presented to me. It looked like the prawns had been sitting stuffed with melted cheese, in a fridge for a while, then heated when I ordered it. The rice that it came with was pretty flavorless and was too watery, as if they didn’t bother giving it enough time to absorb the liquid. My husband’s short ribs were pretty tasty (although slightly dry), however, but it wasn’t anything I felt was worth any amount of money close to the $ 27 price tag.
The one great thing about this place is that the service was excellent and quick. I did appreciate that, as we were ready to get back home to the sitter. I’m not quite sure what this place needs to be successful, other than MUCH better food. I also wonder why they sit all of their guests somewhere other than in the front of the restaurant. Every time I’m in the area around dinner time, I look through the window and see empty tables. It really makes no sense. If you’re wondering about a place, and see that it’s totally empty at a meal time, it makes you kind of wonder why. It’s only human nature.
Pretty sure I won’t be back unless the food changes dramatically.

Yum! American comfort food and a free glass of wine.
My fiancé and I had a very nice dinner. We visited during the week and were promptly greeted when we walked in.
We were seated in a nice dining room that was modern and warm. Right away our water glasses were full and bread was served.
We each ordered a glass of wine that was delivered quickly. Our dinners were great, pork chop and stuffed prawns. I received a free glass of wine that our server suggested I try with my prawns. Both of us enjoyed our meals very much.
My only suggestion to Cellar 9 would be to lower the prices a bit or add a vegetable to the entrée. Most veggies had to be purchased as a side and seemed a bit pricey.

Why is the rating on this restaurant so high?
Here is my breakdown:
Atmosphere– 3 stars
Service — 3 stars
Food– 1 star
Regarding the food: I ordered the «Salmon» which came with mashed potatoes. To be blunt it was OVERCOOKED, DRY, AND LOADED WITH SODIUM! I couldn’t believe what I was tasting. After every bite, I was reaching for a glass of water just so I could quench my thirst. The mashed potatoes were also dry and tasted like a quick mix someone would buy at a grocery store. Definitely not coming back.

My visit was 1÷13÷2012. I went with my wife to check out this new place and it seemed to have good reviews; our visit was far from average.
The waitress didn’t seem to know the menu and then the item she suggested she said they only had one more left, to me that didn’t seem fresh.
The restaurant didn’t have any specials, seems odd for a want to be upscale restaurant.
The food was nothing special at all, very bland, nothing was over or under cooked, just didn’t have any flavor in it.
Finally, at the end we ordered dessert and my wife ordered a coffee; we received the coffee and then about 10 minutes later the waitress asked if we wanted some dessert; this left a bad taste in out mouth and we didn’t feel like having any dessert. She didn’t charge us for the coffee, but we felt the service was subpar and the food fell short as well.
There are many places around that are better, especially for the cost. I’ll pay for good food AND good service, if the service is subpar but the food is good I will come back, but that wasn’t the case here.
To top it off, I called and left two message after our visit, one on Monday and one later in the week, either the staff didn’t forward them to the appropriate person or the manager didn’t really care, either way. This makes me not want to try this place again.

I don’t understand all the good reviews. We came here for a private group dinner. This place would have received a one star from me if the appetizers weren’t decent. The cocktail hour consisted of calamari, margherita and mushroom truffle pizza which were all fine.
The dinner however, was horrible. We had a filet mignon which was tasted and looked like cheap meat. It had no flavor. You could seriously buy better cuts at Safeway. I had two bites and was done. Most people’s were cooked medium rare, but the person in front of me had was well done. And for the service… what service? After your meal is delivered the servers were non existent. No one asked to refill my water or wine glass we had to flag people down. Not worth a trip!

Came here for Jennifer F’s surprise birthday dinner. Her husband found this place on Unilocal and made reservations. Nice tall ceilings, warm ambiance, and it was well decorated for Christmas. You can tell this place was fairly new. There was a Christmas party going on in the room, but noticed that the rest of the restaurant was not too spacious.
Everything on the menu sounded tasty. Sophisticated version of classic American comfort food. For starter, I had the mixed green salad with apples, pecans, and red wine vinaigrette. For $ 7, the salad was way too small. It’s not even worth sharing so you may want to skip the salad and get the calamari instead. The calamari was good, especially the batter. If you enjoy drinking Cabernet Sauvignon, you may enjoy the Educated Guess Cabernet.
For dinner, I had the Boneless Short Ribs with mushrooms, onion strings, and creamy polenta. I’m glad I ordered it since the short ribs were really good and it just fell off the bone. Portions were pretty big. The mushroom sauce was good. Wasn’t too crazy about the onion strings as there was too much of it on top and it got soggy with the polenta. I was surprised to see white polenta as I envisioned it to be yellow, but it was still tasty. As the menu said, it’s DEFINITELY creamy all right!
My husband had the Baby Back Ribs. The ribs were tasty as well and also fell off the bone so it was easy to eat with a fork and knife. Not chewy meat at all. Also, it was a clean dish as the BBQ sauces actually came on the side, not on the ribs so you don’t have to worry about getting your hands dirty.
Service was pretty good. They replenished the water refills. I was surprised to find out that they were initially going to charge a cake cutting fee, but since the server kind of ruined the surprise of the cake, they waived it.

Ok, this is more like 3.5 stars. Unilocal?Are you listening? Can we get the half star option?
On to the review. I took the wife here last month after reading about it here on Unilocal and thought it was worth the try. Reservations were a piece of cake to get. The place was easy to find except the entrance was on the side of the building which was a little weird. Inside Cellar 9 is very nice. It’s a little dark, soft colors on the wall and comfortable seats. This is a great place for date night.
The service was a little off. The waitress forgot my salad and we seemed to wait a long time between visits. My martini glass was low for a long time before she stopped by to ask if I wanted a refill. None of this is earth shattering, but it does diminish from the experience.
The food was good. I can’t say it was great. I had prime rid which was cooked perfectly but it was a little tough. My wife had a pork chop which she seemed to thoroughly enjoy. The bar poured good drinks.
Overall, this is a nice place to go. I imagine some of the rough spots will be smoothed out as the staff there gets some more time working together. Will I be back? Sure I will.

Should read 4.5 stars and apologies to Sam Cooke for what I’m about to do to Another Saturday night…
— — — — — — — — — — — —
Another Saturday night and my friends are hungry
They’ve got some money ’cause they just got paid
Now, how I wish I had mushroom pizza
truffle oil chases the blues away
— — — — — — — — — — — -
So if you didn’t get the not so subtle inference via song lyric, we went to Cellar 9 on Saturday night. After trying to decide between this restaurant and Coco Cabana, we checked Unilocal for both, and opted for here… and I’m so glad we did. What a great restaurant. Here’s why:
***Awesome food: We decided to eat tapas style so we ordered a bunch of apps, pizza and veggies. The calimari with the trio of dipping sauces was fantastic and the pizza with mushrooms drizzled with truffle oil was so good we had to order another one.
***Awesome service: We had the most personable, lovely server who turned out to be (cue music) the owner. These folks have a lovely story about getting to open this restaurant and it made me so happy that we are supporting them. On a technical serving note everything was great (water always re-​filled, plate changes executed, serving plates cleared promptly etc)
***Awesome experience: The restaurant is really warm and inviting for being situated in a strip mall. They have done a really nice job restoring interesting furniture, mixing textures, and using color. The ambiance, mixed with great service and food makes it such a wonderful place.
So happy I discovered Cellar 9. It’s Awesome to the third power and I’ll absolutely be back.

Dublin really needed a restaurant like this! The interior is beautiful and not stuffy. The menu is not overwhelming, but has a variety of entrees and appetizers.
We met the chef and it was great to share our suggestions and hear his explanation of the menu. Many items come with one side or none to keep the price point low. Veggies are typically additional and seasonal. Watching my weight I appreciate that the portion sizes are not ridiculous. I think it would be simplest to have entrees all a la carte or include one choice of side.
I had the fried calamari (a special treat) and thought it was great! A little spice, lightly breaded and perfectly cooked. I enjoyed the trio of sauces. I also had a spinach salad with pecans, raisins, berry vinaigrette and humboldt fog goat cheese (omg, the cheese is awesome!).
Kid friendly (they have a kids menu!) and there are no peanuts on the menu as the chef shared his kids have several food allergies including a peanut allergy.

Here is a more formal review of our experience at Cellar 9:

Update: saw their online menu, and sides of veggies have been added… will have to give it another try!
A provisional 4 stars… but our dishes were from good to mediocre. Sadly, they do not yet hit the mark of 2 of Danville’s best American New spots.
Greeted and seated in a cool booth… friendly and efficient. Nice room. high ceilings… modern warm décor, comfortable.
Wait staff was eager to please… and did a great job. Prices were reasonable. Nice wine list… staff does need to know a bit more about the wine.
The great… the calamari stood out as our favorite dish… cooked to perfection. This is hard for me because I am a huge fan of the *Genoese* style with the lemon… but it was perfect.
The good… meat loaf and mashed potatoes were nice.
The mediocre… the scalloped potatoes needed lots more cream, they were dry. The *spicy* shrimp appetizer was not spicy, but hot… way too hot.
Sadly missing were any vegetables, except salad. Seriously… not a veggie in site.
The experience was seamless, including sending the shrimp back… and that means allot to me. Add veggies, a fish entrée besides salmon, some cream, and a great dessert menu, and you will get all 5 stars.