Baci Bistro & Bar

I so meant to say Kyle the bartender is the best.
Food was excellent. So busy on a Wednesday night had to sit at the bar. Nothing wrong with that. Comfy seats.

We came here for my sister’s graduation dinner and it was a pleasant meal for our party of 8. I ordered some type of white wine pasta, she got lamb chops that were delicious, and the rest of my family had variations of steaks and pastas.
The only problem with the food was that my uncle ordered a very rare steak that came to him almost burnt, which was a bit awkward. Our server apologetically took it back and brought him out a new one though. Other than that, I believe the food to be very well done, and incredibly satisfying — no skimpy portions here.
Service was decent, we rarely saw our server & I was nearly dying from thirst half the time because my water cup was empty, but he was nice enough.

I tried to find a reason not to give this place 5 stars but my Bolognese dish was delicious and better than most. My buddies salad was perfect and healthy too. The service was good and the place is a nice place to escape and relax.

My sister and I went for brunch and loved it, so now I can’t wait to bring my boyfriend here for dinner. The food was amazing, the drinks were fantastic. The service was perfect, and our server really knew her menu and what to suggest. Easily one of the best restaurants in downtown Pleasanton.

This was one of places open at 3:30 pm on Saturday in downtown Pleasanton. They still served breakfast and lunch. You get seated right away, the ambience is great (see pictures) and they have over 7 unique cocktails, on top of it, wine and bottled beer (no beer on tap). I started with mimosa, I ordered my cheeseburger and caramel apple martini. Burger (medium well) is great, very juicy angus beef. Caramel apple martini tasted like a candied apple. My husband ordered sangria, he says «perfect balance of wine and fruit juice. Then he ordered eggs Benedict on English muffin, which he says was delicious because it had a great interplay between crab, the egg, and avocado. I recommend this place for brunch, romantic dinner, friends hanging out and s group party. Service was fast and friendly as well. Thanks, Miguel (our waiter)!

I took my best friend here for a momentous occasion. I digress…
It was 6:30 PM, Friday night. Not too busy, and Open Table reservations were honored for 7 PM at the early time. Thanks! So far, great service.
Sat down and waited 5 minutes to be acknowledged by any wait staff. OK, they were busy…
Finally got water. Had to beg and plead (twice) for bread. Finally got the bread, and saw 4 small slices.
APP…
Ordered a «Pizzette» flat bread pizza which came out fairly quickly and was delicious.
Entrees …
were the ribeye (Steak Frites, yes!!!) and the filet mignon. Both were cooked to temp requested and served perfectly. The truffle fries served w/​ribeye were good. Not too truffle-​y.
Dessert…
I opted for the tiramisu (pictured) and my accompaniment selected a Tawny Port. No complaints, for sure, on the food.
Once the wait staff finally got the idea that we drank water like it was going out of style, the two came around more often, but it would’ve been nice to have that treatment earlier.
All in all, I felt like the price point of this restaurant was about 15% too high. They charged San Francisco prices ($ 144 with gratuity for 2 for above mentioned items) but not in San Francisco.
I won’t go back, but not because it was particularly bad, because it wasn’t. But if I am going to front nearly $ 150 for a two-​person dining experience, it’ll be seaside! At least then, if I have to wait 15 minutes for water, I can just jump in and get it myself.

The food takes a back seat here.
Both, my eggplant and risotto, were crudely prepared and bland.

Ordered two specials of the day for lunch… gazpacho with crab and a flat bread with chicken. Both were outstanding and the service was excellent. The blend of flavors for the gazpacho could only be done by an extremely talented chef.
We shared a Bananas Foster which also spoke to the chef’s talents.

We got here at 1:06 — it’s unfortunately 2:05 and we still do not have our meal… I am not a fan of bad reviews but hopefully they will fix the issues.
Pros:
— cute place
Cons:
— took over 30 minutes to get our water, we ended up just grabbing it ourselves.
— 1 hour still no food
— service was awful…

Sunday, 1pm, we are a walk-​in party of 3. Ordered 3 coffees, 2 dishes of steak (med) and eggs and the beet salad with chicken and steak. We work in the industry so we are very patient and understanding! But after an hour we started wondering were our food was… So we asked our server… Her answer… Oh 10 more minutes… We got busy! … Busy… We were the last table to get in and the restaurant was half empty… We left… This is all what we got in the hour we were seating… 3 coffees, and one more round… We were charged for the first round of coffee.

Absolutely amazing food! Weird how you don’t know these places exist until you stumble upon them on a starving lunch hour. Now I’ll never forget it!
Starting off with some soft, warm bread and some glasses of water we were already loving the whole feel of the place. After a while we were able to take our orders and decided on the jumbo prawn scampi and dill salmon, which we were both incredibly impressed with. The prawns were meaty/​super juicy and the scampi had amazing flavoring. The salmon was also cooked perfectly and the entire meal wrapped together wonderfully. I highly recommend both dishes.
The only down side to our time was the service; it took a good chunk of our lunch hour to have our order taken. Luckily the food came out quickly, but other than that our waiter was non existent. No refills, no check ups, even though there was only one other party. A little step up in that department and this place will literally be golden!

Perfect. Close to my business (smileLabs of Pleasanton)
Had to fix a sign last night. My wife and I stopped by for a quick bite. GREAT environment. Actually felt like I was in SF on inside. Took a corner spot.
Bread great. Olive oil on table.
Perfect. really great night.
ONLY NEGATIVE w2as DOG on Patio. Almost left because of it. Glad i did not .but maybe think about that
Thanks Baci

This is an odd review for me as my previous experiences with Baci have been at least 3 star worthy, if not more. However, tonight was bad. The flavor of the food is the only reason this place doesn’t get 1 star.
Came here for dinner with family. 5 minutes after being seated we hadn’t met our waiter yet (nor had we even gotten water, but another table that showed up after us had both already). This was the way the rest of the night would go. Our waiter stopped by once to ask if our food was okay (maybe 2 minutes after we got it) and then we didn’t see him again until it was time for the check. Service was slow, even for a slow Sunday night.
Onto the food. I started with a Caesar salad that, previously, had been really good. Tonight? The lettuce was warm and the «napkin holder» shaped Parmesan cheese was probably just as tasty as an actual napkin holder would have been. Then came the chicken parm. The chicken itself was perfectly cooked, moist throughout, and just perfect. The rest of the dish was a wreck. There was significantly more sauce than noodles (I felt like I was eating stew after about 5 minutes), and quite possibly the worst thing an ITALIAN restaurant could do to chicken parm, the cheese on top wasn’t actually melted (and seemed very similar to packaged shredded mozzarella).
Having come here for a few years now (once or twice a year) I can tell you this. If you’re looking for great food and good service, this is not your place. If you’re looking for a slightly overpriced subpar tasting meal that looks great, this is where you need to be (mostly so I can avoid being around people like you as I won’t be coming here again).

Due to my diet for my upcoming Vegas trip, I ordered a salad for dinner. I got the Tuscan kale salad and added chicken to it for an extra $ 4.
The salad itself was amazing. Delicious curry toasted chickpeas and an amazing lemon vinaigrette. This is where I learned that I like goat cheese. Everything was good, except for the chicken which was dry and just did not help the salad at all. I wish I didn’t get it, but I was worried just the salad wouldn’t be enough.
The waiter was very nice and was even able to split up our tab with no problem.

I remember going here maybe 5 years ago… the only thing I remember was the WATER!
They put a bunch of fresh fruit and veggies in it and it tastes delicious. Please message me the recipe!!!
95 degrees today and I am REALLY longing for it…

Come one, come all, there’s a new chef at Baci’s and its gone from great to fantastic. I had lunch there today with a dear friend and enjoyed a terrific flat bread chicken appetizer seasoned to perfection along with a sea bass entre that was so light and flavorful. The sauce was so beautiful, I took a photo of it before I ate it. Everything was elegantly presented and the service was spot on. Nice job everyone,
I will be back soon!

[late post] aww, sweet pre-​bday surprises togo… part 1, din:
— Baci Crab Cakes w/​apple coleslaw & caper aioli ($ 13.95) …i once thought they were the best i evr had… still good…
— Seafood Paella ($ 28.95) …lots of seafood, lil rice… literally 1 scallop tho…
— Sautéed Clams Linguini in a white wine lemon sauce w/​parmesan & chili flakes ($ 23.95) …pretty taste… but w/​lots of clams, lil pasta…
i’ve dined there several times over the yrs… as good as you’re gonna get out in the east bay ‘burbs, unfortunately… nothing in comparison to all of the sf restos i’m used to…
usually decent food… but on one occasion, i ordered the pork chop, which was way overcooked, dry & bland… had to send it back tho i hardly do that… yes, it was that bad… they were all confused about how to do it right… i told them it should be med well at most… finally came back, but a bit under… more on the medium side… i ate the more cooked parts & packed up the rest to finish cooking later… guess what? i got sick from it… then i haven’t went back evr since…

We had a great lunch outside in quaint downtown Pleasanton. The sandwiches were large and delicious. The bread fresh and perfect. It came with a vert nice salad… or you could have fries.
The wine list… by the glass was reasonable. I would go back!

Our bi-​weekly meetup group went to Baci Bistro last night, and frankly, we gave them a challenge. We had a group of twelve for dinner at 7 pm. They were able to accommodate us. Four more from our group who did not RSVP and the restaurant said they couldn’t be seated with us and they tried to put them at another table. We decided to squish in tighter so we could all be together. That’s why we go out. For friendship. We put in our beverage orders and my wife mentioned to our server that we are friends, separate parties, that just happen to like to sit together. Except for 2 pairs of us, we are all singles and need separate checks. Not only did they refuse to do this, they also said that they would not accept more than 3 credit cards for the entire group of 16.
We have been going out like this as a group every two weeks for about 2 and a half years without this issue. You see, with modern POS systems, it is incredibly easy to do. We’re casual friends who only see each other at the meetups. One person picking up the tab for others to reimburse later is impractical for us. They could have worked it out, found a way, but they didn’t want to make the effort. They’d rather lose our business, and alienate all 16 of us and those we share the experience with. Kudos to any restaurant that feels that they can do without roughly $ 400 worth of business on a week night… not to mention potential future business from us, our friends, relatives, and others who read this review. Or are they just stupidly arrogant. To the owners, I suggest you watch Mystery Diners, Restaurant Stakeout, etc. and find out how to treat and NOT treat customers.
I made a scene… I have a problem with injustice. My wife and I got up and left, quickly followed by the rest of the group when they realized why. We went to the Elephant Bar and were treated with the respect any customer deserves. We were seated together and the server EXPECTED us to want separate checks. Guess where we’re going (and NOT going) next time.

We had a mixed experience at Baci. At 7pm on a Thursday we arrived for a birthday dinner for my wife for the two of us. We were greeted and seated in a friendly and prompt manner. The restaurant takes reservations for 4 or less only via opentable, so I did make the reservation and added the note that it was a birthday and her name. No mention was made of this through our visit, so if you are looking for that special bit of attention, it doesn’t seem to be available.
The servers name was Ignacio, and he seemed pretty new at his job. Not that he did a bad job in any respect, just the skills were not polished, minor errors really. Stuff I do not expect at a place with entrees starting at $ 20 and most are over $ 30. Those issues aside the place was clean and the service and staff were friendly and accommodating. More about that in a bit.
When we arrived a group of 12 or more was seated in the middle of the restaurant. A couple of people in the group, one woman in particular, wished to converse quite LOUDLY, detracting from our experience severely. I tried giving her looks, which she returned seemingly looking not at but through me. This is a small restaurant, one room actually, so you can not get a secluded table at all. Another guy in this group started giving his attention to the NFL game on the TV at the bar (which is situated in the middle of the restaurant. He gave loud approval and applause when his favored team did something he liked, even though he was sitting halfway across this crowded, small dining area.
I don’t know where people learn to behave like this? We had enough of the loud boorish behavior and asked if we could move to an open table outside midway through our entrée, and the staff was very helpful, starting up an additional outdoor heater and moving us outside. The noise from the loud motorcycles passing by on Main St occasionally was sweet relief from the cacophony inside.
The food: the food was the highlight. We ordered from the three course menu for $ 34.99, a great value considering the entrée item was full size, and included a smaller starter (which had a soup or salad option) and dessert. I had a 16 oz ribeye and my DW had the cioppino. Both very enjoyable and nicely prepared. The cioppino had a generous amount of seafood in it. The menu description adds the word «Spicy!» — but it wasn’t spicy. Good flavor, but no real kick. We had cheesecake and tiramisu for dessert, both very good.