Roy

Our meal was absolutely delicious! We have lived here for 22 years and I can't believe it has taken us that long to discover this great restaurant. Yes it is very weird with Covid and this is obviously not what it's normally like (outside and a bit chilly) but the food was outstanding and a very good value. We hope they make it through this nightmare pandemic. We will definitely be doing their take-out often in the mean time!!

Loved Roy's! Great food on their pandemic special menu. Reminded me of the 3 course meals I had in Paris. Cocktails were fantastics, enjoyed the wine and the chocolate mousse for dessert. Restaurants like this make it a treat to enjoy eating out again in the pandemic. All employees were diligent in their hygiene and outdoor seating was well set up and comfortable. One of the highlights of my recent weekend in Santa Barbara. Would eat here again.. definitely a place I'd be a regular at if I was local.

Roy was completely overwhelmed on Thanksgiving, which resulted in the worst Thanksgiving meal ever for our family. It took 30 minutes to seat us and another 30 to take our order. They neglected to tell us that they had run out of bread, mashed potatoes, and gravy by the time we were served. They also ran out of one of their two dessert choices. The worst was when they served us the minuscule pieces of pumpkin pie, the creme anglais had been replaced (as my son found out when he took a big bite of it) with HORSERADISH SAUCE. Who does that and offers no apology, but just slaps down a bill?

Nobody greater us. Nobody acknowledged us. Customers were frustrated. Were not being tended to. Zero service. Had Thanksgiving reservations at 6:30, made 30 days prior. Arrived 6:15. The hostess did not say hello. Nothing. Horrible experience. Waiting 75 minutes total and standing outside. Customers were not receiving salads/bread/food or dessert. The one waiter was very overwhelmed. One busboy, one hostess. No service. We left. We have been a loyal long time diner at Roy for 10 years. Never did get food. Had to beg for water.

There was NOT enough help on Thanksgiving, who does this ??? No hostess, no bartender, two waitstaff for an entire place. Arrived at 6, seated at 6:10,drink order taken at 6:25,food order taken at 6:50, had to beg for soup, being diabetic and almost ready to faint (after waiting for 35 minutes, they ran
out of bread, (how do you run out of bread??? never got DRINKS or salad, finally got soup at 7:15, walked out at 7:45, NO FOOD...HAPPY THANKSGIVING. Worst experience I’ve EVER had in any restaurant.

Food was good, but a few heat lamps would've helped immensely. It was
really crowded on Thanksgiving, and all did the best they could under the circumstances.

Went for Thanksgiving, they overbooked and we waited a while for our table. The server tried to put us in a corner by the door where people were all standing waiting for tables and for their takeout orders. I told her we would not sit there and have people right on top of us as we were eating.
She finally brought us over to a normal table it took her forever to bring drinks we had to beg for water and for napkins several times.
It was a prefixed course menu that came with bread when we asked for it she said they ran out.
Then the turkey was supposed to come with mashed potatoes when it came out they were potato pancakes I asked her why she said they ran out of mashed potatoes.
The sides were very skimpy, tried to get a bit more stuffing, but she never brought it and I gave up at that point. The dessert was so tiny it was ridiculous.
The tables next to us were complaining and some people got up and left. We should’ve left.
This was a train wreck, I came in from Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with my son. What a disappointment and embarrassment. I would never go back to this place, really one of the worst dining experiences I’ve had.

The restaurant had the incorrect menu posted on their website. When we arrived it was a different fixed menu at a higher price, but less value for the money. I am assuming they didn’t have enough staff to handle the business because the service was lousy and we were the first seating of the evening. The food was not even edible. The salad was okay, the soup was bland and the turkey was dry. We ate only a few bites and left. Would not recommend this restaurant.

It was 8 years ago when we were in Santa Barbara last and I remembered what a fantastic meal I had at Roy’s We were back into town this week and we were ecstatic to find Roy open and still serving exceptional food and the best Long Island ice teas around. Their pandemic special is unbelievable for quality,quantity and price. Roy is a treasure

We were first to arrive just as the restaurant opened at 5pm, and we were quickly ready to order, but the waitress somehow got distracted, and after seating two other couples some 5-10 minutes later, took their orders before returning to us. As a result, we were got our food an hour and 15 minutes later after the other two couples. The food was good, but we had no intention of spending two hours before we could finish our meal.

We love Roy and have never been disappointed. The Covid precautions were spot on and we felt very comfortable with our dine in experience.

What a great value for a $20 prix fixe menu! Terrific chicken Marsala and ravioli, plus all of the included courses delicious.
Possibly the best value high end dining experience in Santa Barbara.

Menu was bland, waitress was hard to get a hold of, our steak had to be remade 3 times to make sure it was medium rare and not a bloody mess. Drinks were over priced and felt like the alcohol was being skimped out on. $20 meals but not worth the experience.

We sent three sets of guests there on the same weekend and, as always, they came back very happy. Roy is one of our highest recommended dinner spots for our guests when they visit SB.

We had a delightful time at Roy's! It was our Anniversary and Santa Barbara is our favorite day trip. Roy's has built some outdoor seating and although there us some street traffic it's not bad and they are in a great location. The menu they are running is fantastic! Soup, salad, entrée...everything fresh (they make their pasta from scratch), delicious and all for an incredible price. We will definitely return to Roy for another incredible dinner.

Great dining.

Love Roy’s! Delicious, intimate, local!
Great value and fun to sit outside.

Amazing we love ROY!

Probably a better restaurant under normal circumstances but the constrains from the virus did not help them

It took 30 minutes to receive our drinks. 45 minutes before we received our appetizers. Waiter and waitress did not check in with us while we sat endlessly. It took 1 hours and 20 minutes to receive our entrees. Food was lukewarm. Overpriced. Manager was not assisting his team. He walked around aimlessly and never even talked to diners waiting for their food. Do not eat here. Horribly mismanaged.

We had to wait 35 minutes past the reservation time, which was no big deal. Cars going down the road with very load thumping music were a little annoying. Soup and salad had no flavor and hardly any of us ate it, main courses were not good. Steak was mostly fat and gristle, beef Wellington was probably about 3 ounces of meat. There were veggies on the plate, which did not show on the menu and one of us who hates veggies got grossed out. Service was terrible. Waitress came by every 15 minutes and threw the next plate at us. Drinks ran out and were never refilled. Had to ask for everything twice. Guess you get what you pay for

I feel terrible writing this review during such a tough time for restaurants. I also should note that the restaurant stated Open Table kept their reservations active even though they were booked. We kept seeing people show up and have to be turned away. It is important to note the place only had 6 or 7 actual places for people to be seated when we arrived, so they could really only accommodate that many. Our table had been given to two other patrons, and the waitress asked them to move. We were at a 2 top with 3 people, so we started off very cramped.
The menu options are essentially a choice of entrees with soup, salad and dessert for $20, which sounded like a great deal, and their menu looked good. Unfortunately for us, that night only one waitress/hostess was working, and the owner was in the kitchen cooking. We did not see any other staff, although they could have been working in the back. It appeared they were a bit over their heads. We ordered the raviolis (2 orders) and spaghetti. After an hour, we had only received soup - which we had to ask the type bc it was never told to us (Potato Leek - served lukewarm but not bad). Our salads never came, and when we asked about them, the waitress apologized and said she forgot. We told her to forget about the salads as we were hungry for entrees. She told us they had to hand make the raviolis so that was why they were taking so long. The “marinara” sauce was the consistency of tomato soup and an odd dark color. This was in both the ravioli dish and the spaghetti. ravioli were flat, not stuffed with anything and uncooked,not al dente. The meatballs were over done and hard to chew. What was more puzzling, is they added some sautéed vegetables to the already soupy plate topped with what appeared to be canned beets. The food was just really bad. As I stated, this place could have just had an off night - where no one knew how to make the items on the very limited menu. Heard beef well is good as well as chicken Marsala.

We loved our date and 3 course meal! Highly recommend

Love the food very good

I honestly don't know how they can afford to have a deal this good. For twenty bucks each, we got salad, soup, really yummy bread, and crab-stuffed salmon for me, beef wellington for my boyfriend. Amazing.

The food was great we wilp be coming back again soon.

Very pleased with the service and the atmosphere, the food was great too!

Food was delicious. Waitress was young and slow.

But altogether pretty enjoyable.

They are doing a $20 prefix menu right now with limited outdoor seating and aside from being on the street (not their fault all they can do with the current rules) the food was very good and the value was exceptional. I would recommend this restaurant.

Roy never disappoints, amazing Chicken Marsala!!! Homemade soup was very delicious!!’

As always, Delicious food!!

My favorite spot in Santa Barbara! You can taste the quality of the food here. It has the, “hole in the wall” feel, but the food and ambiance of the location give it a class of its own. Shouts out to chef Roy for always giving me, and all the people I recommend this place, a wonderful experience.

The staff was great, and the outdoor seating area was super cute and cozy. The food, however, was not great. I would highly recommend going for drinks. But eat elsewhere.

Really enjoyed it, tenderloin was perfect and the service extraordinary friendly!

Amazing. Nice and short, just like my third marriage.

Slowest service ever and they didn’t even have forks or plates available literally told us we had to wait for some and we spent 2 hours waiting for food. Extremely understaffed and unprepared and super mediocre food.

Valentines Day at Roy was the busiest I’ve ever seen. Nevertheless, the busy waitstaff were pleasant and the food was fantastic!

We don't usually make reservations but realized we'd be in town on Valentine's day and it was also a Friday night, so figured places would be crowded. We made a 7:45pm reservation at Roy through OpenTable. We arrived early at 7:30 to find a line of couples waiting to be seated. We stood in line for about half an hour- no one greeted us or explained what was going on, we just had to talk to others in line and figured out we all had reservations. My husband spent several minutes trying to get a drink at the bar while we waited, with no success because their bartender kept disappearing. Finally, we got seated and got bread and water (we'd been told the bread was homemade and fantastic, but it was just dry, sliced wheat bread). Twenty minutes later, the woman at the table next to us finally flagged down a server (literally had to wave both arms in the air) and asked them to come take our orders. When our server did appear, she was very nice and friendly. However, we didn't actually get our entrees until after 9pm - at least 90 minutes after we'd arrived. Our food was pretty good, but very overpriced. We'd looked at their menu in advance, but they were doing a "special Valentine's menu", which meant they added on about $15 to every dish and included a small salad, a piece of chocolate cake and a glass of champagne (which I couldn't even drink because I'm pregnant). So overall, the food was tasty but not worth the wait or the price and we definitely would have gone somewhere else if we'd known.

Roy is one of my most fav local spots. Valentine’s Day was a fiasco in their.. Guess they just weren’t prepared for such a crowd. We’ll be back, just not on Valentine’s Day!

I don't mean to be dramatic, but this dining experience could have been the 9th circle of hell. Service was exceptionally terrible; we got our food 1 hour and 21 minutes after ordering. The food was uninspired, totally lacked flavor! The waitstaff would not make eye contact (like they knew their restaurant was filled with unhappy patrons) and when we asked our waitress to check on our food after 1 hour, her response was "I already did!" and she explained that everyone's food was taking a long time. Ok? And she never offered us more bread or anything. Anything would have been a better alternative than this restaurant. I felt so happy leaving!