Paradise Grille

Slow service, poor food, maybe it was just a bad night for them, but that’s no reason it should be a bad night for us.
I was there several months ago, I see that they closed up, no wonder

The second visit faired no better than the first.
The hostess asked us whether we had reservations. Really? I hate this pompous question even at full and fancy restaurants. This restaurant is neither. Despite knowing that this restaurant has been flooding the market with groupons, coupons, and deals to attract diners, we politely replied, «No, we don’t have reservations.» The hostess rolled her eyes.
The booth in which we sat had crumbs and the inside of the menus were beaded with water. The crab cake appetizer may be the worst I’ve ever had: small, crumbly, and extremely sour. We exchanged them for their «signature» appetizer: the calamari. The calamari was lightly breaded in a kind of flaky tempura batter. It fell right off the squid upon forking. A generic Chinese sweet chili sauce was dumped not uniformly over the mish mash of squid, batter, and bland Styrofoam noodles.
The bistro steak was two temperatures overcooked and bland, only with a subtle peppercorn flavor. The cioppino had a nice spicy tomato broth. But that’s about all it did well. So much parmesan cheese was baked on top of the stew, it tasted like lasagna. The noodles were way overcooked and the shellfish was gross.
Although the wait service improved since our last visit, this place has a lot more room to improve. It remains a beautiful venue whose only real charm, now, is the bar.

I don’t know why this place isn’t rated higher. I think people might be expecting something different. The target customers for this place are residents of RSF and the wealthier residents of Solana Beach. It is right off the freeway just the other side of the fairgrounds, so I guess a lot of naïve people wander in not knowing this.
My girlfriend and I dined here for our birthday celebration and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The only problem was that the flank steak one of us ordered was originally overcooked, the server took it back with a moments glance. Other than that, everything was great. The food was very good and seasoned perfectly. The wine selection is huge with some great wines, and the service was impeccable.
The restaurant has a few seating areas; formal in the front, booths and bar in the middle, outdoor bar and lounge with more seating in the back. We sat outside with heaters and it was perfect.
Happy hour here is really fun too, great mix of people and not a bad place to network also. This place is definitely on my summer happy hour list with the great outdoor bar.

Paradise only has 3 stars? Am I missing something? Honestly, I’ve always avoided this place because of the sheer fact that it’s located in the Flower Hill strip mall in Rancho Santa Fe. It screams overpriced generic food, but it’s not! From reading some of these reviews it appears that the grouponers are going on a rampage for various reasons. Not sure what happened to everyone else who gave it 1 star, but we had a good experience.
Since I was driving, I finally managed to drag my boyfriend in here the other night, kicking and screaming. Not a fan of strip mall restaurants, even he was pleasantly surprised. We strolled in right before closing time thinking they were going to turn us away, but the hostess was so accommodating and sat us in a big booth downstairs by the bar. The waiter was super nice and friendly too and didn’t hesitate to answer all of our questions.
We split the Paradise salad with greens, macadamia nuts, mango and hearts of palm yumm. I had the Del Mar pizza with chicken, tomato, avocado. It was thin and tasty, so good. Being a Solana beach native, naturally the boyfriend had to get the Solana burger with pepper jack, chilies, bacon and avo, which was pretty much made for him.
I was impressed and I didn’t think it was overpriced considering the location and the casual yet classy, beachy atmosphere. We will definitely be coming back.

Been here a couple times, food is good, Happy Hour is overrated.
Ultimately though, here is why they get 2 stars. I recently received an email stating:
«Want to be rewarded with 30% OFF your entire bill?
Here’s how you can:
Write a truly great review on
for Paradise Grille and we will thank you with 30% OFF your entire bill!
It’s easy. Just print the review and bring it in to show us how loyal a rewards member you are!
This offer will only be through the month of May, and can not be combined with any other offers or discounts. «
How is that even legal? They are bribing people to write good reviews, even if they are false? The best part is that it goes on to say :
«Most restaurants hire a company and pay them money to manage their Unilocal reviews. We feel that this is not right and we want our reviews to come from our real, loyal guests. »
UMMMMMMMM, how is bribing people to say nice things better than having someone manage your Unilocal account (also uncool.).
Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE my coupons and discounts, but this makes me never want to go there again. EVER.

I tried the bbq ribs today. It was $ 27.99 for a rack of baby back ribs. The meat was tender but bland without bbq sauce. With the sweet bbq sauce the ribs were pretty good. The baby back ribs at Felix’s bbq are alot better and less expensive.
The meal came with sweet potato fries and they were pretty good. About the same as at Felix’s bbq.
The outdoor seating was pretty nice. You get to eat under the open sky and check out the mall.
The service was fast and efficient. If I was rating just on the food I would only give this place 3 stars.

Probably the unhappiest Happy Hour I have ever experienced.
Is it that difficult to smile? Can you not at least acknowledge me and greet me? Is it that tough to ask, «What can I get you?» or «Can I get you anything else?» And is it simply impossible to be anything but a distracted, complete jerk? Do I have to literally shoot a flare gun into the sky every time I want something?
For a certain bartender here, the answer to all of these questions is «yes.» Dear Bartender: If your goal was to make our experience completely miserable, congratulations! You succeeded! And I saw you spending considerable amounts of time (20 minutes straight – no exaggeration) with other customers, ignoring the remainder. So, I guess you weren’t having an off night after all. The rest of us don’t count.
I’m giving them 2 stars only because the food is quite good and the drink prices for Happy Hour are solid. Otherwise, negative six hundred stars.
I see from other reviews that poor service here is a persistent and common complaint. Dear Management: Your staff is not well-​trained. Either train them or get rid of them. If you have losers working for you and you keep them on, I blame you.
Gee, I wish there were other restaurants and bars in the area which would serve me food and drinks in a friendly environment in exchange for my money… What’s that you say? There ARE other places which will accept my money and give me good food and good drinks and service with a smile? Seriously? Maybe I should GO TO THOSE OTHER PLACES instead of here! What a concept!
Yeah, that’s sort of the plan, you know.
See you never, Paradise.

I never really wanted to come to this place because when they first opened and were hiring, I applied and they never wanted to give me an interview or even consider me even though I had excellent years of experience serving and hostessing. They wanted your typical white skinny Del Mar looking people, I guess.
Years have passed since then, so my bff and I decided to try it while shopping around Flower Hill Mall. We waited until 11:30 when it opened to go and eat. We arrive there on the nose and still had to wait 10 minutes to be seated. Our server was really nice and efficient. We ordered the wild ono sandwich with parmesan fries and house salad. The bread that came out was really good and that’s where it stops. The dressing was super oily and was hardly touched. My fish was super dry but the mango salsa underneath made it somewhat ok. The fries where the stringy shoelace kind and were just eh… McDonald’s taste better. The service was good, the food was certainly not memorable, I think eating at Milton’s or Coco’s tastes better. This place is certainly pretty inside, but it just lacks the warmth and good tasting food to make it a keeper. Sorry, but there’s a reason why I wasn’t hired here because this place is just no good.

I took the family here to have a belated birthday (mine) dinner with a Groupon.
Big mistake.
With Groupons you’d think establishments such as this would take advantage of our business and try to impress us (so that we may return)? That was not to be. Instead we were treated like 2^nd Class Cheapskates. The waitress’ behavior went from indifferent to bitchy/​condescending as soon as we inquired about using our Groupon. When we asked for a refill on our kid’s drinks, she immediately pointed out it was an «extra charge». Really? Are you implying we can’t afford that either? I dunno, was it the Groupon or the color of our skin that made her treat us this way?
Oh yeah, I’m in Del Mar.
Already pissed off, I observed another «ethnic» couple sit down near us. After they presented a Groupon the waitress gave them the same condescending treatment.
See the pattern here?
In all, the true colors of this place shined through. It wasn’t about the customers, it was about making money that mattered most. The Groupon is what got us through the door, they could at least tried to make it worth our while.
I lost my appetite and decided not to order anything after the initial encounter with the waitress. The interaction with her (and her manager) turned me off. I let my wife and kids eat.
We went to Milton’s Deli nearby for dessert.
I’m not coming back here again.

My dinner was great but the service left more to be desired.
I made our reservation for 5 pm & a person even called me to confirm, but when I got there I was told that they don’t start serving dinner until 5:30. Huh-​really? I went to the bar since I was the first one there in my party. It took some time before I was acknowledged even though I was 1 of 3 people at the inside bar. It seemed that a group effort on stocking the bar with maraschino cherries was more important than taking a drink order at this time. Once we did get sat at our table we had to ask for our order to be taken since no one had been to our table yet. Our order got passed around to it’s rightful owner then we didn’t get a visit until our bellies were mostly full. I would have ordered more wine, but nobody stopped by to serve our table.
The good news is my burger was delicious and I loved the parmesan & chive fries. I will come back just to get the burger again, only this time I may try the service in the dining room rather than the bar lounge. I’ve been wanting to try this place for a long time so I was really bummed out that it wasn’t better. I know service is hard to come by these days but this place needs some customer service training. Especially the bartenders… eye contact and a smile go a long way.

I had dinner here with a friend the other night because I had a Groupon to use before I moved away from SD. We were there pretty early and it was super dead even in the bar area where we sat. I’m still kind of confused about their happy hour. I guess it’s served in the bar area (where I thought we were sitting) and patio, but since we were on the other side of the divider it didn’t count? The hostess wasn’t very helpful and we ended up not ordering any happy hour specials anyway.
We both had burgers and they were very good — juicy and beefy. I really liked the sweet potato fries, but would skip the $ 2 upgrade for the truffle fries — I could see the black truffle pieces, but barely tasted anything. Our waiter was very friendly and chatty and service didn’t take very long.
Even though my dinner at Paradise Grille was A-​OK, I just don’t think it would be on my radar to come back. I can’t explain it, but the whole experience was just a little awkward. It’s a little pricey for what it is and seems like the kind of place that old (er) people would hang out (go figure, it’s Del Mar).

Came here on the last day my Groupon deal for them was to expire. Deal was for 2 burgers w/​fries (I don’t remember what we paid — something like $ 13-​$ 14?).
It was about 11:30a and the place was pretty empty. The manager asked if i wanted a table and I told him that I’d like to take a look around first as the place seemed really awesome. There are two levels — the first level (upon entering) appears to be the ‘fancier’ section, along w/​the open kitchen I believe; second level (walking down the stairs), is the beautiful indoor bar as well as some nice comfortable booth tables. And they have an amazing outdoor patio as well (it’s weird that we live in the area but we’ve never come to this place).
They have this wine ‘wall’ where you can buy a bottle of wine and they’ll uncork it for free for you to drink there (and take left overs home too!).
Their scotch ‘wall’ was quite impressive as well. My buddy loved the wall. What’s it about dudes and loving scotch ?
Anyhow, decided to sit at the downstairs bar. Addison, our bartender/​server, was amazing. Super nice, super attentive. Sometimes when you let restaurants know you have Groupon deal, they kinda look defeated and annoyed. But Addison was great.
They also served us warm, focaccia bread bites before our meal (see pic). Really delicious (thanks for the side of olive oil and balsamic vinegar too!)
We ordered:
Del Mar Burger: Avocado, Applewood Smoke Bacon, Gouda Cheese, Thousand Island
— Mine came out perfectly medium rare. I think I would have liked a bit more seasoning on the meat but it was nice burger nonetheless. Also, the bottom bun was soggy from the bloody meat but hey, what can they do w/​a medium rare burger. My side salad was delicious — the dressing was refreshing and perfect (see pic)
Solana Burger: Pepper Jack Cheese, Avocado, Applewood Smoked Bacon,
Roasted Green Chiles
— friend’s burger also came out perfectly medium rare. He enjoyed his burger and Parmesan Chive Fries (see pic)
The bill came out to be about $ 26 for the two burgers, no drinks (before Groupon). Not sure if I’d pay that for a midweek lunch for two ppl .
BUT, for sure, we are coming back for their happy hour. Took a look at their HH selection and it’s not bad. And we can’t wait to sit on their outdoor patio — truly looks like a place a group of friends could hang and just chill. The outdoor patio also has a bar w/​a flat screen tv. Booyahhh. Monday night Football anyone?

Nothing really special about this place. Except for their scotch selection. They offer over 50 types of scotch and have around 7 flights you can choose from which start at around $ 15.
Food was decent, service was decent, prices are decent, décor is decent. The scotch is really the only thing that might bring me back.

Pricey, but tasty.
Used a Groupon, and ended up paying an extra $ 20 on tip, tax, a beer, and iced tea.
The focaccia was delicious and fresh. Inspired me to make my own.
The salad that came with my firecracker shrimp was overdressed, so I didn’t touch it. But other than that, it was great.

I’ve been here a few times. The bbq burger was delicious. one of the few places that can do a good fancy burger. the sweet potato fries was bomb.
minus 3 star due to the crappy service everytime. like seriously do i have to be a rich upper class white american male and dress up and look all fancy to have a damn burger in del mar and get some decent service. the fast food joints across the street offers better service then here.

Ok, so I was hoping to have a somewhat decent experience, living not to far from this place, I had heard some poor reviews, and from my cousins as well, so I was hoping to prove it all wrong.
We were seated outside, near the fire pit (beautiful, nice, warm).
The server came and greeted us, then we didn’t get to see her for almost 10 – 15 minutes after that.
We ordered a bottle of wine, it was pretty cheap, $ 18! (great plus). Even the hubs shared with me, when he usually ALWAYS gets beer.
I asked her about gluten free options, especially with the Soba Noodle Thai dish… she says «I’ve tried it, and doesn’t taste like wheat, so it’s probably not.»
I ignore the implications of that statement and proceed to ask her if the chef has any gluten free options other than «that», and she says «the white linguine noodles is not wheat, because it is white.». I kind of look at her and ask her to ask the chef, and she says ‘oh, yeah, the chef is starting to look into Gluten free options.“
I roll my eyes to the hubby, and she comes back with her response. She says that the Thai Soba noodle/​vegetable dish can be ordered with «double the veggies» and «hold the noodles», which is ultimately what I ordered. What I got was a bowlful of red onions mixed in pure coconut milk that was thick, with barely any other veggies. (Maybe a scattered red pepper, that is ALL). And this is supposed to be «double» the veggies. It came with four pieces of shrimp on it. Look at the picture, you’ll see. And, it was $ 22!
My hubs got the Demi Red Wine Burger cooked «medium rare» and instead got a pretty well done burger. It came with fries.
My daughter got the kids meal Mahi Mahi fried sticks, which was so fishy, she couldn’t eat them (and she is a goooooood eater usually, my family can vouch for that).
My son got the chicken strips, can’t go wrong, he ate them up.
So, we get the bill after being done with our dinner for a while, and sitting around for about 30 minutes after we were done (horrible service, no one came by to ask us if we needed anything, maybe one water refill, no question as to if we wanted more drinks, for the kids either). We sat around, and finally she comes by.
She gives us the bill, and they have overcharged us for the kids’ fries ($ 6 for a plate of kids fries, when it should have been $ 1.99. She even pointed it out to us originally when we ordered it.
$ 20 for the bottle of wine, when it clearly stated $ 18 on the menu.
$ 3.79 for kid’s size lemonade, and they charged us for a peach lemonade, which we did NOT order.
We were so frustrated and wanted to leave at this point, that we simply didn’t complain, but just decreased the tip amount (even though we would have been better off changing the bill… we were ready to leave!
I wouldn’t recommend this place again. The view is nice, the fire pit nice, but forget the food and horrible service. Maybe we’ll come back for a bottle of wine, but make sure they read their menu first.

I’ve only been here for lunch and drinks — so based on that, I’m pretty happy about this place!
The Dungeness crab bisque was superb. It was creamy, and you could definitely taste the crab. I would also highly recommend the grilled mahi mahi avocado sandwich, the BBQ braised short rib sandwich, and you can’t go wrong with any of the burgers. I have not tried their brick oven pizzas, but it’s definitely on my list.
Also, I must comment on the service. Everyone was super friendly, and the bartender made some amazing drinks for us. I was pretty happy they served Red Rock — one of my favorite red wines.
I love the outdoor seating… since we’re in Del Mar, the weather is usually fairly nice. We usually sit by the firepits — it’s a nice place to sit and a have a cocktail or two on a chilly night because the fire will definitely warm you up.

Came here today for dinner with the girlfriend this weekend, and used a
certificate. We had the Firecracker shrimp, Atlantic salmon and the Short Rib Pappardelle. Service was good, nothing stood out besides the water guy re-​filling my glass because I was so freaking thirsty.
Overall I thought it was delicious. The portions were about average, but very filling. The shrimp was very tasty and tasted like an Asian-​fusion dish. I’ll totally come back for the firecracker shrimp and have that for lunch (it’s on the lunch menu), it was that good. While the salmon was good, it was uneventful. The Pappardelle was very good, we both thought the sauce was excellent and went perfect with the short ribs. It was a great dish.
Was about $ 60 for dinner/​tax/​tip and a glass of wine with the certificate. While it was a little on the pricey side without one, I thought it was a good deal and would probably come back for lunch.

They only get a third star because of the buy one — get one coupon from the Del Mar Fair.
The Restaurant.
Straight from the Tommy Bahama catalog. Plantation shutters, dark woods, palm leaf fans all speak «Paradise». This was the most enjoyable part of the Paradise Grille.
The Service.
Blah. The attractive hostess isn’t really the friendliest and seemed aloof as to what’s going on. We stopped by with a sleeping 1 year old in a stroller and the hostess brought us straight to the stairs. Meaning we had to take the sleeping kid out of the stroller and walk down the stairs. There is a «handicapped lift» you could take, but the best way would have been to suggest to walk outside the restaurant and go down the ramp to the patio (which is where we were sitting).
Waitress
— Openly complaining with the hostess that they haven’t been given their area assignments. We were left at the table for 10 minuets without a waitress. I guess no schedule, no service?
When she did come, it was «are ready to order a bottle of wine, an appetizer, are you ready to order to order your entrees?». Very rushed.
More Service issues — A pet peeve of mine is when you order a salad or appetizer. The host/​hostess should hold off on sending the entrée ticket until we’ve received the salad and appetizer. Nothing is more frustrating when both come out at the same time. There is no room on the table, and the entrée starts getting cold.
* Note that the bus boy was probably the best server there. Did a good job serving and cleaning up.
Food —
Downhill since last time I was here (2 years ago). Nothing justifies the high prices, though the meal itself was average/​above average.
–Mahi Mahi fish and chips was good, but not for 18 bucks.
–The kids chicken tenders was a flattened chicken breast with panko. Very good for a kids menu item.
— Two iced teas came out to almost 8 bucks?!? Not even good Iced tea.
In summation, even with the buy one, get one coupon it was still a pricey venture. Between the mediocre service and the food it makes it difficult to go back here.

Chill location, prices aren’t bad for the area, and the staff is friendly. Came here for buisness and had a really good dinner. I got these ribs that were to die for. Bomb sauce, it was like a passion fruit bbq sauce, served with this apple cole slaw, hell yeah, couldn’t ask for more. Meat was very nice and tender.
If you want a cool place to go eat, reasonable prices and great service, come here.