Downtown Cafe Bar & Grill

I really enjoy this local community spot. Good food with a solid happy hour and live music

Fun, good service, drinks and food. Live music and Dancing aplenty. Great date spot or way to get out of the dog house, intimate garden setting or bar inside. Wonderful, Fun a favorite spot to visit to Listen to live music, dance, eat and drink. Time well spent here many nights.

Terrible service, arrived about 6 pm, took over 45 minutes for server to come take an order, had to track her down. Had to get my drink at the bar, the rest of the table got their meals, were able to finish them and I was still waiting, over an hour for mine, (and it was just a flatbread) NO concern for customers, talked to manager nothing he could do about it, no apologies, left before I got my food, Just make sure not to order food when the place is crowded. The band was great but I Won’t order food again there… and this is not not the first time this has happened.

Nice place to get together with friends or work lunch. Great food and drink. Come here hungry and ready to drink.

Great Food, Drinks, and a HUGE selection of craft beer, TV’s everywhere and live bands that play regularly!

Pretty rad. Lots of good beer on tap, cool staff and bomb ass food. Happy hour all day Monday helps get rid of your case of the mondays. Was kinda weird that the music was playing but had no vocals. Like someone should be kareokeeing it.

I liked the fun atmosphere out on the patio with a live band playing. The sampler appetizer was pretty good but the steaks weren’t. Me and my best friend both ordered the rib eye. Our steaks were full of fat and just 2 bites of lean meat. The blue Hawaiian was tasty. The service was alright. It was a busy Saturday night so I have to cut them some slack for taking awhile. I would recommend this place. I’ll just try something other than steaks next time.

I was on jury duty and decided to come here since it’s super close to the courthouse. The food was really great and came out within a reasonable amount of time — I ordered a bacon cheeseburger and fries (super tasty). The only thing I didn’t really care for was the service, which I don’t think would be fair if I blamed everything on the waitress. I saw only one other waiter there, but my waitress seemed to be the only one running food to tables, getting refills, etc. She just seemed very overwhelmed and I’m sure that’s what affected her attitude. While it wasn’t slammed, it wasn’t necessarily dead either.
On a positive note: They do have a really excellent happy hour!

Love this place! Food was awesome. Had fish tacos and the Swiss burger. Damned fine burger! Service was great. WE WILL BE BACK!

Great local place for Happy Hour. Haven’t had a bad meal yet and their happy hour pricing is great. Have a great selection of beer on tap! Happy hour is daily from 2−6pm. Sometimes service can be a little slow when busy, but the food has been worth it.

I had to laugh at the 1-​star review posted by Hrman A. that alleged the Downtown Café was a «whites only» establishment. Mr. Hrman A. wrote «I guess we found the first restaurant for ‘whites only’ in El Cajon. Will tell everyone I meet in El Cajon from now on to stay away from this restaurant!»
Wow.
Mr. Hrman A. might be surprised to learn that the Downtown Café is owned by a Hispanic gentleman, and that the same Hispanic gentleman also owns the Por Favor Mexican food restaurant two doors down.
Mr. Hrman A.‘s scenario of this Hispanic owner running «whites only» restaurants is so patently absurd it nearly defies explanation. I submit the real scenario was this: Mr. Hrman A. came to the Downtown Café with an attitude and treated the staff rudely. Nobody wanted to serve him, no doubt. Perhaps Mr. Herman A., who announced he was «asian» in his review, felt he was entitled to special service on that account. Who knows, but it was a busy night, as he admits. Still, according to Mr. Hrman A. the ONLY possible reason service was slow MUST have been discrimination against «asians.»
Well, poor Mr. Hrman A. is looking pretty foolish here. As he admits, he breathlessly signed up to Unilocal with the express purpose to slam a popular restaurant with a completely unsupported allegation of racism and discrimination. Shame on him. I can take a good guess what the «A» in Hrman A stands for.
Incidently, shame on Unilocal also for allowing these types of reviews by Mr. Hrman A.
Posting a fair criticism is one thing, but making nasty unsupported allegations is another. I flagged Mr. Hrman A.‘s review to Unilocal and received Unilocal’s response that they saw nothing wrong with it. You know, free speech and all that. But now that I’ve called out both Mr. Hrman A. and Unilocal,it’s probably a safe bet Unilocal will delete my review and not Mr. Hrman A. s review.

Our favorite local Happy Hour destination! Haven’t had a bad meal there and have had everything from the tacos, sandwiches, pasta, triple cheeseburger, fish and chips, wings and my absolute favorite the blue cheese flank steak. Superb!
Great beer and the bartenders work their ass off when pulling double duty waiting tables on week days.
Thumbs up!

Absolutely great food and service!
We had to switch my husbands bday dinner here last minute and we had 40 people in attendance with an hours notice the staff gladly took our reservation and did an amazing job of serving everyone! Every order came out correct and within 20
Mins of us ordering! We were all so pleased with the quality of both customer service and food! And our head waitress, Jessica, did an amazing job of keeping all orders straight and correct and coming back around often to refill drinks or bring any additional items that had been requested! I can’t give the staff that night enough praise on the awesome job they did serving such a large group last minute!

Car show Wednesdays mushroom swiss burger and margaritas are good oldies music and great ambiance patio summer time meal… Lots of crowds supporting car show and eating/​spending money in El Cajon CA!

So, the food is mediocre, the drinks quite good and the music is random. I give it 5 stars for the last item– a good jam place should be random. This means that every now and then you will hear great stuff. But always there is a chance for great stuff. The Sunday afternoon my wife and I was a blast. Some mediocre stuff but also some incredible music. Fun fun.

I have to admit that I was really excited when I saw this place as I was driving around even though the rating was less than four stars (our usual threshold for deciding on a restaurant). Sad to say how disappointed we were. Guacamole and salsa was bland. My fish and chips were oily and lacked «crunch-​ability.» We also had the jalapeño tortellini that tasted like a TV dinner. The café has a nice ambiance, but the food doesn’t top off the experience.
I would nominate this place to get rescued by that guy on the food network.

Sorry — nice weather but awful Fajitas? Tortillas tasted like .99c store bought — veggies tasted boiled then thrown on the Not To Hot skillet they were served in. Usually fajitas are served still cooking in red hot skillet–
No sour cream guac salsa included all extra charge — only .75 each — but come on $ 13 for these fajitas — include these items. — Margs tasted like Slurpees. Don’t set in street patio — you’ll hardly never see your server and continue to finish your meal with empty dishes all over the table — busses are needed I think– oh well. — it is in El Cajon so can’t expect much. SKIP IT!

Came here last night for some drinks. Had a real nice experience. After reading reviews from people here onYelp I felt it necessary to write my own review. I feel some people just need to hate. I wonder if any of these haters have ever written a good review. Enough about them.
We came in and sat at the bar. The bartender was polite and attentive. After talking to him about the large selection of micro beers that they had he made offered a nice selection of IPA’s.
The owner heard our conversation and offered to make me a cocktail made with Ballast Point liquor and sculpin IPA. I think it was an experiment. He called it «Grapefruit Sculpin Long Island» all ballast point ingredients Gin, vodka, rum, grapefruit, and sculpin. It was delicious.
Ask for it you won’t be disappointed.
Service good drinks good. Happy hour good. Definitely recommend this place.

One thing I learned about coming here for happy hour, is that they have a very good one. I came in and learned that their draft beers of the day, during happy hour, are only $ 3 each and that they offer some great eats, such as a pound of wings for only $ 6 and carnitas full size tacos for only $ 2.75.
I ordered the wings with Buffalo sauce which came with some sliced carrots, celery, and blue cheese dressing, but what I found them great to eat with, was the house salsa that came with the carnitas taco (
). The wings were great and had a very good crispy skin and tender meat. The Buffalo sauce was mild in heat and had good tang to it (
). These were the perfect match with the cold Pilsner I drank with them.
The carnitas taco was generously filled with tender and savory carnitas and came topped with melted cheddar and Monterrey cheese (
). These tacos are their own style because they do not come with the traditional chopped onions and cilantro, but rather some chopped Romain lettuce. The tacos was very good and it was enjoyable to eat with the side of salsa it came with (
).
Service was good, perhaps a little hit and miss, because a few times I need to flag someone down, given the inattention. However, everyone I dealt with was very nice.

Typical bar food… but there is something really comfy and fun about it. I don’t spend much time in El Cajon, so am unfamiliar with downtown. I had been at a nearby alterations shop with a friend and she showed me to a few cute places. We stopped at Downtown Café for a quick lunch at the bar. She showed me the area where they have bands on weekend night, a cute garden area. We sat down in the bar, where they have a really inexpensive «happy hour» form 2 – 6 daily. We shared fish tacos and potato skins. Like I said, typical bar food… but cheap and tasty. The bartender was friendly and service was fast. They had a nice Pinot Grigio for a hot day. If I were in the area, I would definitely go back.