Evangeline - CALISTOGA

Service: Dine in Meal type: Dinner Price per person: $30–50 Food: 5 Service: 5 Atmosphere: 5 Recommended dishes: Shrimp Etouffee

Best cocktails, fantastic entrees, and the service is top notch. We frequent this place when in town and have never been disappointed. Service: Dine in Meal type: Dinner Food: 5 Service: 5 Atmosphere: 5

Group of 6. Starters of crab cakes, French onion soup, and beet salad were all o.k. Our wait for entrees seemed long. Entrees were gumbo and shrimp etouffe. The etouffe was awful. The sause tasted burnt. The gumbo was not flavorful. Very disappointing meal. Would not recommend. Service: Dine in Meal type: Dinner

I was so excited to dine at Evangeline on our vacation but the excitement quickly turned to disappointment and frustration. I don’t usually leave reviews online and like to give the benefit of the doubt for sub-par experiences but this was on another level. To start, we had a reservation and were seated promptly. We quickly received our drink orders and apps. The Brussels and bread were great, the fried pickles weren’t my favorite but that’s ok. Where the frustration comes in is after this point. We waited over half an hour (for real, I confirmed on the clock using 10 minutes after check in time as the baseline- we were a bit early so may have been longer than that) until our waiter came back to the table to ask for our order for mains. At that point, other tables had been served, had orders taken, etc. it felt like we were the table that our waiter decided to ignore. Other tables were also cashed out ahead of us, even later in the night when we had our payment ready before them.We were polite, we were ready when he came, I don’t know of any faux pas or protocol we could have inadvertently violated. It felt like he just decided that it was ok to ignore us. We ended up just ordering a side and dessert to get out of there quickly as it felt like we weren’t wanted or cared for there and were not valued guests. I travel frequently, I’m always excited to try new places and appreciative for the work and care by restauranteurs and waitstaff, I was so disappointed to have made such a bad choice at the place where I was on vacation and to have this disheartening experience. It may have just been a bad night but a simple “sorry, we’re busy, I’ll be with you as soon as I can” would have worked wonders to make this a better experience.

Great and cozy atmosphere. But food mussels not tasty, unfortunately Service: Dine in Meal type: Dinner Price per person: $20–30 Food: 3 Service: 4 Atmosphere: 5 Parking options: Free parking lot