Golden Bull Restaurant

It used to be my folks favorite place in the 1990’s.
But brunch is to be avoided at all costs. After successful senior dinners with my folks for the many years in the 1990’s, something is seriously wrong if they can’t if do anything right for a Sunday Brunch. Limited choices. Burned and overcooked food. They are ignoring their best fans, the local friends and families from Pacific Palisades, and Santa Monica, not just the gay community.

Tucked away in the canyon with a fresh ocean breeze that will make your date press in tight. Super cool casual feel and always romantic. My wife and I come here often for date night and feel as if we’re so far from LA yet so close. Appetizers, steaks, salmon, house salad… actually, its all good!

The service was great! Loved our waitress. I ordered the 10oz Filet and it was amazing! Cooked just right! The Christmas decorations were beautiful too. Defiantly a great local Resturant you need to try if you want a great steak & good times!

I love this place. If you’re looking for that little local place where everyone knows each other and their patrons have been coming in for 50+ years, this is the place.
This awesome little steakhouse belongs in some small town, instead it’s nestled in North Santa Monica. The prices are VERY reasonable, and the steaks are excellent (especially for the price!).
My favorites are the Halibut (if they have it, it’s very fresh) with a lemon butter caper sauce, or the teryaki top sirlion. The Manhattans are excellent as well!

You’re going for the old school vibe and actually quite delicious red meat. Prime rib was phenomenal tonight. Our entire family of four thoroughly enjoyed their meals. It’s a throwback and the staff have been there forever — super nice people and it’s the type of restaurant that you hope stays around another 50 years.

Very friendly staff, food was hearty and enjoyable! Loved the early bird (before 7pm) specials! We were for sure the youngest patrons there tonight but it just added to the ambience. The only reason it didn’t get 5 starts is because we had to walk through the cocktail lounge first and it looked a little dingy and smelled unpleasant. Once we were in the dining room everything was nice and clean!

I think my granddad would have loved this place. But seeing I am now a granddad… well, it is priced right.

Hadn’t been here for more than 20 years. This is the steakhouse of your parent’s era, but updated with fresh vegetables and contemporary salads. Not expensive and with a cool old school ambiance and a bar to order a martini.

Go for the drinks, leave before the food comes. Their salad is straight out of the bag and their lobster tail was over cooked. If you’re not concerned about taste, then this is the place for you. Fine for drinks as it’s got the kitchy appeal, but not much else would draw me back to this place,

I fell for the great reviews and nostalgia. Went to the GB for their early bird prime rib. I think the carpeting was last shampooed in the Reagan administration. I sat in the bar, which looks like it’s out of an Elmore Leonard novel. Despite the reviews, my Old Fashioned was light on bourbon. Bagged lettuce salad with bottled dressing, grey prime rib with no flavor, microwaved baked potato, some veggies (best part) and they toss in an undrinkable glass of what appeared to Gallo Hearty Burgundy (reminded me of college). And, I got food poisoning. Double yuck on this place. If you want a pretty good prime rib, try any Flemings on Sunday night for $ 29.95.

Golden Bull. One of the few remaining relics of Santa Monica’s past. A remnant of a sleepy, affordable blue collar town. Unpretentious, easy, and comfortable.
The funny thing is, I grew up a stone’s throw away from the Golden Bull but never came here. It was considered unhip, stale, only a place where boring old people on budgets go.
Fast forward to 2014 and look at what Santa Monica’s become. A congested tourist trap with a hot spot restaurant on every corner built to break the bank. That’s why a place like Golden Bull which has 1990s prices stands out.
Their early bird special from 4 pm to 7 pm has incredible meals. $ 20 for a 12 oz prime rib with two sides… and that’s the priciest thing on the early bird menu! Most entrees are $ 12 – 17 for early bird, and $ 15 – 25 during regular. Everything comes with soup or salad and your choice of a carb, and the portions are huge! Where else do you get so much for so little?
I got the most expensive thing on the regular menu, the 16 oz NY steak for $ 32 (two sides came with, I got the soup of the day and fries). It was very good. Juicy, savory, and comparable to the finest steakhouses which would charge nearly double.
Cocktails were stiff and priced at $ 10 for premium martinis, so the price only goes down if you’re not picky about your choice of liquor. I’m so used to $ 15 premium martinis this was a nice change.
Is Golden Bull going to get written up in LA Weekly? Does it have groundbreaking experimental cuisine? Imported dishes from across the world? Incredible «mixology»? Hot model staff? None of the above. But if you want big portions, solid food, old school service (and booths), and REASONABLE PRICES, come here.
If you wanna blow $ 250 for two and feel unsatisfied feel free to check out the neighbors: Giorgio, Sam, and Hungry Cat.
Here you will spend $ 50 for two and be stuffed!
Valet is $ 4, which is also a steal.
Side note: Golden Bull was a gay restaurant decades back, now it’s just a gray restaurant.

Old school place just above PCH. The service is always good the food is amazing and generous. The prime rib is a favorite of ours.

Horrible. First off, $ 4 to «valet» my car-​which means you getting in my car and parking it 7 feet from where I am standing and then when I pay and pick it back up you hand me the keys to get it myself is called «PAY TO PARK» not valet. Not to mention all the bird Sh%$ on my hood now-​really?
The service is sloooooooooow, the food is like dog food and the ambiance is bearable at best.
My suggestion is to spend that hard earned money on anything else. Even Taco Bell would have beaten this place.
Yuck and now I have to clean my car — —

A stones throw away-​but yet light years in every difference-​from Giorgio Baldi on Channel sits the back-​in-​time Golden Bull Restaurant. This is not a ‘throwback’ place going for the trend, this is the absolute real deal. If there was an updated version of Back to the Future, I have found it here. And yes, part of me didn’t want to leave. Charge up your flux capacitor!
Was craving a chocolate milkshake after a rough night further south on Channel, but the girl working hostess/​server apologized, for they didn’t have a blender in-​house. Since I had mentioned chocolate, she said there was a terrific-​when-​warmed-​up chocolate cake they were known for. I wasn’t initially in the mood for cake (and it was stifling hot so close to shore even though it was evening) but I figured I was going to get my fix somehow.
I waited near the bar and checked the place out. There were a couple of booths across from the bar with some old-​timers enjoying their meals (no early birds here I suppose, for it was after 7pm!) and the bartender came around, making sure I was doing A-​ok. Everyone that passed from the kitchen to the dining room said ‘excuse me’, and I knew I couldn’t be in LA, much less present-​day since everyone was so polite. Where are these people from?
I was really hungry and due for a long trip home so I asked the server if she had any bread to spare, and she gave me some generous slices, with butter in a separate bag. This was consumed by the time I reached my destination, crumbs all over the seat, but I didn’t mind.
By the way, after 15 seconds in the microwave, that cake was ultra-​delicious, just as she promised, and not just because I was starving, either. Sometimes you just want a slice of plain chocolate cake, minus the exotic chili-​powder, hint of mint, or molten chocolate center and in this case, they delivered!
Golden Bull is certainly not your fancy joint, but if you want consistently friendly service and homestyle good food in general, this place is worthy of a visit.

I have come here off and on for the last 14 years. (The length of time I’ve lived in LA). I have always left happy. And today was no exception.
My NY steak was perfectly prepared and delicious. My baked potato was cooked to perfection.
The drinks nice and strong.
The service good.
This place IS old school. With lots of aged patrons. It’s clean and tidy. It is not this week’s restaurant du jour. if you want that go elsewhere. I have never experienced what some others claim they have.
Good food. Good drinks. Happy me!!!

We arrived at this establishment around 9pm on a Thursday night and they were already out of the prime rib. Very disappointing. So we went with a steak and a chicken Marsala. It was ok. One thing that happened, I’m not sure if it was on purpose or truly an accident. The waiter over charged $ 45 for drinks. The food was itemized. The drinks were not. That’s why I partly think he was trying to pull a fast one. Nice try buddy lol. All in all. It looks crappy from the outside but looks like fine dining on the inside. The bussers were very nice but I would not fine here again:/

When you think of they current version of Santa Monica you think of a new age community that is pure organic/​sustainable/​local blah blah and blahing. Now, this is mostly a good thing. Yet, from the ashes of the past if the Golden Bull. This restaurant is so out of place it isn’t funny from its location, menu, décor and prices. Now, this is a good thing!
I have been in a few times and it still shocks me. When you drive up to the place you sort of think that the sign on the restaurant must be from 50 years ago and the place has been closed that long. Well, open it is just as much as the wonderful fancy pants. G. Baldi just a hop, skip and a pesto jump down the road. Entering the place it is the oldest school possible. From the crowd, to the bar, to the tables and chairs. Sitting down and getting a menu, served by a nice bunch of waitrons it is traditional American with meat being the focus and the pricing being really inexpensive for this type of food and portion. Now, do not expect a Wolfgang’s quality piece of prime meat but we already sort of knew that didn’t we. Couple of solid hits. The pepper steak is really good as is the prime ribbie. Sides and salad come along with the meal and no they don’t have lobster mashed. Be real.
So, this place serves plenty of bull, without much bull. Bully for us.

Golden Bull restaurant is a local establishment that looks like it has been around for a long time. It brings me back to a place in childhood that can rarely be found in Southern California these days. I’m reminded of family dinners, with basic, well cooked food.
Nothing here is fairly unique or sophisticated. I ordered a steak, and it was flavorful and cooked well. Along with the steak came mashed potatoes. These were also very simple, well made mashed potatoes.
Do not come here expecting a one of a kind meal. That’s not a bad thing! There are plenty of hipster nonsense places in the area that will provide you with a unique dining experience. They can blend up kale, quinoa and chia seeds and serve them to you in form of enema.
If you can’t handle the gluten or have some sort of irregular peanut allergy then I would suggest another restaurant. But, I’d also recommend that you don’t reproduce, so take my suggestion with a grain of salt.
If you want to take your family to a nice, casual dinner, I recommend Golden Bull Restaurant. You won’t experience anything new, and the food here is good. I don’t always need glitz and glam when I eat.

Old school and a little bit full of themselves but at the end of he day the food was really good and the service was tolerable. Called first to see if there was a wait and was told no wait, arrived 5 minutes later to a 15 minute wait. Once seated, we were greeted promptly and ordered drinks. No draught beer available!
Placed our food order, and waited and waited. Clearly there was an issue but the server acted like there was nothing wrong. Other patrons who arrived after us were already eating.
Once the food arrived it was really good, worth the wait. Good luck figuring out the bill, it’s hand written like in the 80’s so your not sure exactly what you’re paying for.

This place hasn’t changed since it opened in the early 60’s. Nothing trendy or flashy here, just good food are ridiculously-​low prices, friendly service, even free parking.
The bar is a bit of a celebrity hangout as the night goes on, and it should be, the drinks are generous and delicious.
But go before 7PM for the early bird special (on Wednesday the prime rib is less than $ 20, including sides, salad, and a very bad glass of wine). It’s classic California food – meat, seafood, pasta.
A half block from the beach in Santa Monica Canyon, it’s great fun to come here on a foggy night for some old-​time good food.