Black Point Grill

I wanted to make a reservation 2 months in advance for 20 people for «standard breakfast», no special requirements. And was told they were too busy, even after I explained that we have been coming there for nearly 25 years and it was for the morning after our wedding…
Highly disappointing, and clearly
they don’t care about long term customers or making money.

My experience matches many of the others posted. I arrived at 11:20… between breakfast and lunch. Don’t do that! You fall into a black hole evidently wearing your restaurant camo and completely invisible to staff. I left at 11:40 and headed for Ocean Cove. They smile and wave when you come in. Give you a menu and a glass of water. Kind of what I expect?

Our waitress was super sweet! I don’t remember her name, but she said she was new. She was a young brunette. The food was delicious! My husband had the pork chop (yum) and I had one of the specials. It was a shrimp scampi with asparagus-​also yum! The view was gorgeous!

I have been going to the Black Point Grill on and off for years. I think something must be going on especially after reading the recent reviews. The service was just terrible in every way. The bartender refused to look at us when we were waiting for drinks (since we had to wait for a table for quite awhile). We finally gave up. The hostess seemed unconcerned about long waits. Then we got into the dining room and actually it wasn’t particularly full… however it took more than an hour for our food to arrive… and our waitress never stopped to let us know whether it would be there soon. I had to ask… when I mentioned the service was really poor that night. the waitress told me never to come back! Wow! I’m sad as Sea Ranch is one of my favorite spots on the coast.

Had the best dinner here. Amazing food! It was my servers first night her name was Jessica and she nailed it! Great place, great staff.

Great breakfast, wonderful dinners. A must if you are passing through or staying in Sea Ranch.

Boils down to terrible, slow service and subpar food. Here’s the rundown…
We waited 30 minutes after we were seated for any service. Didn’t even take our drink order or acknowledge we were waiting.
When the waiter arrived, he commented to us, «My name is [name] for when you want to complain at the end of the night.» We couldn’t tell if he was joking, considering we’d been waiting for so long. It was pretty awkward and set the tone for the rest of the evening.
We literally had to ask for everything. Can we put in our drink orders? All the other tables have bread, could we also have some? Great, got the bread but could we have butter? This continued throughout dinner.
Finally, 90 minutes in we were served our meals. The food was disappointing. One dish was supposed to be served with a penne type pasta, but arrived with spaghetti. Server responded, «looks like they didn’t have penne, so they gave you this.» Wouldn’t it have been better to ask us before assuming that was ok? Also, my fish and chips were soggy. The fries must have been sitting out for a while.
As we looked around the room over the evening, we could see the displeasure on other guests’ faces. Everyone just looked frustrated and bored. One table got up and left after their appetizers were served because of how poor the service was.
We felt a sense of relief when we walked out of the restaurant. Just happy to get out of that place.
It really is a shame, as we were guests at The Sea Range Lodge and loved our stay there. But given the very few restaurant options in the area, knowing that the lodge restaurant is poor makes us less likely to return.

Service very poor. Ordered arugula salad with chicken. Was given a plate of arugula with small amount (three slices) of chicken. The salad was to come with Point Reyes blue cheese and hazelnuts. Have had it before and is really great when it comes the way it is described on menu. Mine had no cheese and what looked to be planters peanuts scattered throughout. They were NOT hazelnuts. I asked about the cheese and server said, «oh yeah, I guess he (who?!) forgot the cheese.» No problem, I figured she (server) would bring the cheese – she didn’t. I mentioned 15 minutes later to manager that the salad was not served as described but was actually «arugula on a plate» and he said, «oh ok I will share your concerns with the chef.» Then off the manager went, never to show his face again. What?!! That’s it? For a $ 15 salad you don’t offer to make it right when you have been given TWO chances to fix your mistakes? So disappointing. Neither the server nor the manager took the charge off of the bill. The attitude was: «yeah, whatever. It’s not what it was supposed to be. Ok. Whatever.»
Wow. Just wow. Maybe the worst service ever, not to mention the least consistent adherence to what is being described on the menu!

We just had hamburgers in the bar. We spent $ 35 on two burgers. The menu says there is cheese on the burger. The wait person asked if we wanted cheese and my husband asked for cheddar. She did NOT
there was an additional charge if one asked for a cheese other than the one on the menu. We are not talking about an exotic choice unless one puts cheddar in the exotic category! The salad dressing was loaded with salt. The server said she would mention tell the kitchen about the problem. She did not offer to replace it. We live in the area and want the Lodge to be successful. The current owners/​management are doing their best to alienate the locals.

Pros: Good (though not spectacular) food, good bread, nice view. Ridiculously uncomfortable main dining room chairs (hard wood, and the backrest goes half-​way up the back, upright, just enough to stab — designed more for stylish appearance than for comfort, or perhaps designed to increase turnover and get you out sooner). The chairs in the solarium and bar are much more comfortable
Variable service at busy times service (e.g., 20 minutes to get the ordered cocktail when the place was busy, which was brought after the wine that was ordered to be served with dinner). Waitress did not come check on us at all after food was served.
When the place is not busy, service is much better.
I recommend coming very early, to get food service for dinner, and if you want comfortable chairs, sit in the solarium. Allow plenty of time for service.
Understaffed, untrained wait stuff for the most part, but sometimes can be very good. Apparently few in the Gualala area want to work as a competent waitress.

The friendly staff recognize a local with a need and did so with me last week when our usual work table in the fireside room was being used.
A separate dining area was set up for all of us to have our meeting and the wonderful hostess who took care of us was selfless, gracious and lovely in the quality of care she provided.
I am truly grateful for the support this facility offers our community.

The food here is deserving of 3 stars, but once you factor in the expensive price tags, I’d give it a 2-​star for dinner and 3 for breakfast. Our dinner bill came to $ 145 for two drinks, dozen oysters, one soup, one dessert and two fish entrees. The oysters were not good. Avoid these! Extremely small, not fresh and the shucking had really scrambled the oysters. The cream of asparagus soup was the best dish of the night. The salmon and sea bass dishes both lacked salt and were a bit over cooked. The chocolate marquise cake was rich and decadent. Our server was sweet, but service here is a bit slow due to only 2 servers and no hostess.
Had breakfast here the following morning. The eggs florentine were good. Eggs were poached nicely. The $ 14 eggs florentine comes with no sides, just the muffin, spinach, eggs and hollandaise. So you’ll need to order hash browns if you want a side.

We went to the Black Point Grill for a late lunch on Tuesday. We were surprised to see a line of 4 – 5 groups in front of us and no hostess to help. When she returned, she turned out to be one of the servers, and seemed to have to set the tables herself, as well as wait on her own tables (we saw one other server there). It took about 20 minutes to be seated even though most of the tables were empty, so the delay was just that she didn’t have the help she needed to do the job.
The view of the ocean through a wall of picture windows is magnificent! And the food was fine (ordered fish and chips and a reuben sandwich). The food came out with just a bit of a delay… the fish was crispy but maybe a bit under seasoned. The reuben was perfect. The food could have been mediocre and we would still have enjoyed it because of the view. So having good food on top of the view was an unexpected surprise.
Only issue seems to be they were understaffed considering the crowd… our waitress/​hostess did what she could do, and was very efficient and pleasant, so I’d say this is a management issue in not having staff take on the hostess duties and others clear and set up the tables.

Over the past few years, the food at Black Point Grill has ranged from quite good to decidedly mediocre. The service has been similarly uneven. Last night was a low point for both.
First, the service. My companions, residents of Sea Ranch, were greeted by wait staff when we entered, but no hostess appeared for some time. Once we were seated, we were ignored again, this time for even longer. Our waitress was slow and inattentive; bread and drinks took at least half an hour to get to us, and the drinks were not what we ordered. She didn’t know the menu had changed – which means she hadn’t bothered to check after being off for a couple of days AND the chef hadn’t bothered to inform the wait staff of changes. She knew nothing about any of the new dishes, and when asked, told us that chitarra pasta was «sort of cone-​shaped» (I thought the kitchen had substituted spaghetti until I looked it up; chitarra refers to a device for creating squarish spaghetti).
The food was not as consistently bad. The person who ordered the pork osso buco enjoyed the meat and the rice, for example. The baby bok choy that was supposed to accompany it, however, was missing. The shrimp and chitarra pasta dish delivered properly cooked shrimp and pasta, but the saffron tomato sauce was bland and the saffron merely added a subtle, slightly odd taste to the sauce rather than enhancing it. The best thing I can say about my Cesar salad is that it had fresh romaine. The «croutons» were cubes of some sort of bland, breaded fried cheese, I believe. They had a slightly fishy flavor, but that may have come from being fried in the fish and chips oil. They added nothing in flavor and did not provide the textural counterpoint that real croutons would have. The anchovies, on the other hand, had no fish flavor at all. Any flavor they might have had was lost in the very heavy, bland dressing, essentially mayonnaise.
Normally, I might have asked our server about such things as the missing bok choy or the composition of the «croutons.» Our server was wearing a very unfortunate and overpowering fragrance, however, and we all chose to avoid contact as much as possible.
Many of these issues could be addressed easily with a bit of training and some added sense of professionalism in both the kitchen and the front of the house. I hope that management has these items on their list of New Year’s resolutions.

Three stars seems to be the consensus regarding the Black Point Grill. Basically, it’s not awful, not wonderful. The crab cakes are good and the salads crisp with good dressings. Tried the shrimp special and it was a little below three stars — the shrimp were prepared well, but the local mushrooms were non-​existent. Had a strange sauce that wasn’t really needed and didn’t go with the rest of the meal. Recommend that you stick with fish and chips here.

Amazing food. Great service. Prices as expected for a vacation spot along the coast.
I tried cajun fried green beans — delicious. The ginger carrot soup went well with this. The calamari was tender and well seasoned. The ahi tuna tartar was tasty and fresh, but avocado mostly masked the flavor of the ahi a bit too much. The dessert was delicious — the fruit compote was not all sugar with a little fruit, but a lot for fruit with just enough sugar.
I would definitely come again.

The costal view is amazing.
Ordered tuna tartare starter. The dish was served with a strange guacamole sauce mixed in. The flavor was OK a bit on the bland side. The plating was SO LAZY AND SLOPPY, looked as though the chef gave Zero Fu@ks about his job. As though they would allow fecal matter through his kitchen doors.
The main course looks amazing. Because I was optimistic and hopeful. Taste was overly Asian. Almost overpowered the pallet. Additionally there was Bok choy that I dislike personally so have no input on the taste.
Dessert was the best dish. Crème brûlée. Well done.
My verdict is: a kitchen of infused ideas that become confused. So much so that the flavor turns into bland mediocrity.
Why am I writing like an angry jerk a$$ hole, if I pay good money I expect a solid meal proportional to the cost. I would have been better served eating at a different location in this area.
Came back for breakfast. Was much nicer meal and experience.

Great service — friendly and helpful
Warm bread and love the tart butter.
Starters were great — Tuna Tartar my husband was shy at first because it had to much avocado and looked fresh so he thought it was possibly with lemon but once we had our first bite we were surprised– we were not fans of the wonton chips (over cooked) It was extremely fresh.
The beet dish was excellent!
I ordered the sole and I found it to be bland.
My husband had the pork chop and he found it too sweet (Asian inspired dish)
It’s not about fine dinning–
You can be eating at a hole in the wall place but if you have the love for cooking you Put heart sweat and soul into your art and creativity in flavor and presentation you can taste and see a great dish.
The view was spectacular.

I recently stayed at Sea Ranch for a resilience retreat. Our leader made a reservation for our group a month before the retreat, picking out a wine selection for the table. When we arrived, the hostess stand is no where to be seen. If you do not see the arrow pointing towards the restaurant, you end up walking through the «back» way with no greeting and the wait staff staring at you with an odd look. We were not greeted by anyone until one of our group completely walked around to find a server.
When we were seated, we began to review the menu. We noticed quite a lot of sandwiches and other typical lunch fare. When we asked our server, she explained they had a rather large wedding happening on Saturday and were serving a reduced lunch menu on Friday. We thought of leaving but decided to stay because it was already after 6, the next nearest place was 30 minutes, and it was a Friday which could mean longer wait times for a larger party. So we settled in.
By this time, our fearless leader had told the server three times we had a 6 o’clock reservation with selected wines. She asked us what we wanted to drink. A few of us ordered cocktails and some ordered white wine. The server asked what kind of white wine, our fearless leader responded with — the one I chose when I made the reservation. By 6:20 we made our food order. We sat back and lost ourselves in some fabulous conversation which is seemingly the only high point of the evening.
At 6:30, our fearless leader received a call on her phone. It was the hostess admonishing us for not showing up for our reservation. In the kindest way possible, our leader walked to the hostess stand to set the record straight.
After discussing cosmopolitans earlier in the day, a few of us decided to order one. They were sub par at best — barely shaken and the ratios were way off, certainly not satiating our vision of what we hoped to have.
We all agreed on an appetizer — the roast turkey quesadilla, sliced into six pieces. Roasted turkey to me means real roasted turkey, not deli meat as it turned out to be. The tortilla was stale with pretty much just cheese and half cold deli turkey inside. The chef was not even considerate enough to slice it into six somewhat equal pieces. Very tasteless.
I ordered a massaged julienne kale salad with shaved pecorino, olive oil and lemon. While I love kale and the salad was good, it was essentially a huge plate of chopped up kale. The kale was thoroughly tossed but definitely not massaged. The texture would not have been nearly as rough if it had been.
For the main course, I ordered a vegetarian spaghetti with a saffron tomato sauce. It had zucchini and some other veggies with a thicker than I usually like spaghetti. The sauce was not very wet or very tasty. The others at the table enjoyed their fish & chips — nice and crunchy.
So to sum up —
1 — The server did not let the hostess stand know our reservation had arrived thus resulting in a nasty phone call from them
2 — They knew about this large wedding for a year and our reservation for a month. Yet no one was kind enough to let us know about the alternative menu
3 — Nothing was prepared for our reservation
4 — The food was sub par at best
5 — The busboy was on it, and the most courteous employee there.
Next time I am in Sea Ranch, this place will not be on my list.

Service was excellent, but I shall not tolerate cold bacon.
Bacon, one of the reasons I get out of bed in the morning. You can’t imagine my disappointment when I reached down in blissful expectation, only to feel a cool, clammy piece of pork between my fingers. The only thing that made it worse was the fact that it was a repeat the next day.
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice? 3 star Unilocal review.