Brick House Kitchen

Is something going on with the Brickhouse? I’ve tried to go twice but it is closed. I will be so sad if my favorite Venice breakfast place bites the dust. I can’t take the loss of another Venice classic. Please tell me you are staying in business and keeping the super yummy food the same. We don’t need any more trendy Venice spots taking the place of what made Venice great.

Devastated that our beloved Brick House is closing. This place had the best tofu scramble in L.A., and sitting outside for weekend brunch has been a staple of our lives. Brick House, DON’T GO! We will miss you so much.

This review is based off of just one experience with the restaurant — it will also be my last. I ordered delivery so I can’t speak to whether there is a difference of quality inside the restaurant.
My girlfriend and I ordered the Cowboy Burger, the Cobb Salad, a bagel & cream cheese, and 2 «smoothies». We placed our order on GrubHub and it arrived an hour and 40 minutes later.
The Cowboy Burger came on a piece of barely-​toasted white bread, which sent up a red flag immediately. The advertised BBQ sauce was absent from the burger, but instead on the side, cold. Not exactly easy to slather it on and keep the flimsy «bun» in tact. Don’t even get me started on the fries. I want to say that they were steak fries, but the spectrum of size, shape, and thickness was so wide that it would be irresponsible to label them as any one type. Limp, wet, unsalted and tasteless, I have had better from the greasy depths of a day-​old McDonald’s bag. The meat of the burger was a sickly gray-​pink on the inside, and even the bacon was disappointing. I love bacon, and it’s really hard to make bad bacon, but Brick House is doing their damnedest.
The bagel ($ 3.00) was reminiscent of something left behind on the conference table of a C-​list telemarketing company. The «smoothies», while delightfully colorful, were devoid of flavor, texture, and frankly, purpose. The kitchen should truly be ashamed to call this a smoothie. They more closely resembled a melted slushie.
The Cobb salad was insulting to salads. Akin to the smoothies: cold, wet, and tasteless. I would say more about it, but the salad didn’t have enough substance to speak of.
Would have to be crazy to let any of my loved ones order from this place.

So sad to hear this place is closing in Spring 2015. It is and will have been the best casual vegetarian brunch in Venice. Will truly be missed.
Hope the new proprietor has the same approach to the tofu dishes as the current one, who has been there nearly two decades.
Thanks for the lovely mornings, Brick House. Wish you well.

Food was very dry. Found hair in both my gfs sandwich and my eggs. Bacon was super dry and crispy. Tasted like it was left out and reheated. Lemonade was very bad too. Tasted like powdered drinks. Would never return. Waiter kindly replaced the sandwich. I didn’t bother asking for the eggs afterwards.

Awesome spot!
Had the Cajun Chicken Wrap with the side salad. Our waiter was friendly and customer oriented. The wrap was ten bucks, which I thought was a steal for such a delicious meal.
If you’re in the Venice area and want a cozy destination off the beaten path, this is your joint.
I’ll definitely return.

So, I’m heading to Unilocal to vent a little. I like this place. It’s a go to for me as it’s close to home. I keep my expectations in check and certainly don’t expect fine cuisine or a speedy experience. It’s kind of a lazy experience and the place serves my needs. My greatest problem is the inconsistency. For instance, today they are closed. No sign, no notice, no notation on the website. Granted, it’s Presidents’ Day but, c’mon, what restaurant near the beach is closed on an arguably secondary holiday. I just ask that you be open when your sign outside says and try to give people a meal and pleasant day.

Quite possibly the worst dining and delivery service experienced on multiple occasions.
1. Food delivery shows up late or not at all — don’t ever order from them on delivery sites. They don’t always turn it off and you’ll be waiting for an hr to then receive a customer service email or phone call from a third party saying they can’t reach anyone at the restaurant.
2. Lettuce on multiple occasions was not washed for the salads.
3. Tough jerky like chicken
4. Unreliable hours of operation, they close whenever they want or so it seems.
On the positive side:
Very good pancakes!!!

Live this place, great food family friendly, doggy friendly!

Food here is consistently good but the service is terrible (unless you’re lucky enough to get Rhea). The past 2 times we’ve been there, it took forever to get out food despite the fact that the place wasn’t crowded at all. Even delivery orders take well over an hour to arrive. I guess I should expect it because I keep going back for more, but if they don’t get their act together soon, we will have to find somewhere equally convenient to frequent.

Went for my daughters birthday brunch today. We ordered and they brought us amazing fresh squeezed orange juice. We were excited and waited for our food. And waited. After one hour they apologized and brought us our plates in 3 increment and still had not finished my daughters hash browns. This was not acceptable. The eggs were not served hard as requested. When we expressed our displeasure at having to wait an hour, all we got was «sorry» and our bill for $ 50!!! promptly given to us before we barely dug in. When you are competing in a neighborhood full of amazing restaurants, you need to be to on your game, at the very least, comp the birthday girls meal or something (sigh…I miss Omelette Parlor). We left feeling horrible, what a waste of our precious time on a special day. After 17 years, I will NEVER go back.

My brother is home and wanted to go out for brunch. It was a Sunday so we decided to try out the Brick House Kitchen, seeing that we always walk by it. I had been here once before and did not enjoy it, but we decided to give it a second chance.
Man, what is wrong with this place? Four of us sat down at 11:30, and they were pretty busy (all of the tables outside were filled, but I think everyone was done eating). We sat inside and it was hot. We ordered. Mind you, we didn’t order anything crazy or anything with a substitution.
It was now noon and the waitress came over and told us that the food would be out soon. It got to the point where we were talking with another table about how long it was taking and that it was just crazy for a Sunday brunch for it to take this long. People were bringing up their own bills to the counter. At 12:20 we decided to tell the waitress that if our food wasn’t out in 5 minutes, we were going to leave. The table we were talking to left.
At 12:25, half of the food came out. It then took another 5 – 10 minutes to get a third plate out. The waitress told us they were short on kitchen staff. On one of the dishes, the toast wasn’t even toasted. On mine (I ordered a vegan tofu scramble), there were a TON of problems. 1) I did not even get my toast. 2) The hash browns were burned. 3) The tofu was cold.
My mom had to ask for her food to be boxed up to go. When we opened it up when we got home, it was really sub par. The only good thing that happened was that the waitress removed one of our meals from the bill, so at least she was trying.
I feel really bad for the waiters and waitresses here. They are trying their hardest, but it’s just obvious that something is up in the kitchen/​management. I had to take our bill up to the counter to get change and the guy had to give me change from his own wallet.
I will never come here again. There are TONS of good places to try on Abbot Kinney, so why bother?

Saw that this place is dog friendly, so we took our well behaved dogs to lunch with us; went inside to tell a host we were at the patio.
A few minutes later menus were brought out and two waters, one with something floating in it. I asked for a small dish for my dogs; no dish was brought (not their fault).
After about five minutes, our order was taken. Asked server to recommend between two options; her response…“what about them?”
About 25 minutes later, a salad (dressing on the side) & wrap and tuna sandwich was delivered.
Nothing fancy about this order, real simple. Bread was toasted, dry — I asked for non-​toasted with mustard.
One refill on water and soda — seemed to take a while.
Wrap was sitting in dressing, soggy — this is why dressing was asked for on the side.
After we ate, it took about 15 minutes to get our check. Waited and finally went inside to pay. I tip based on service; this did not deserve 15% but I’m nice.
Realized when I was inside that there was no one inside eating — just staff talking to each other — I am not exaggerating, it was just staff; this was at around 2pm on a weekday.
Our server had no personality at all — if you’re having a bad day, stay home or fake it.

This place is pretty good. After you search for 15mins to read all the different no parking signs and find a space you can settle in on the outside porch of this place. When you think no one saw you don’t worry they did. The staff is alert and available and will greet you in minutes with table settings. The atmosphere is friendly and really like a dive bar restaurant. It definitely looks and feels like a neighborhood pitstop. I suggest any lunch item which is surprisingly more tasty than the breakfast choices. The house coffee here is tasty. I had eggs with mushrooms, spinach and hashbrowns and was constantly seasoning it myself just to get flavor that wasn’t there. My aunt had the BLT and it was really good. It’s inexpensive here and the plates are huge but not much to write home about. I’ll go back again because it’s quick and convenient.

Never again! After listening to my coworker for a spot to try for lunch I had knew I had a bad feeling but I went ahead and rolled with it. The place is in a great little Venice neighborhood very close to abbot Kinney and the beach which is nice.
The food on the other hand was terrible. I ordered the chorizo breakfast which had no flavor, my hash browns were overcooked and tasted stale and stuck together, the black beans were cold and eggs were just not good at all. You can look at my plate and it just doesn’t even look tasty. The only good thing was the coke i asked for which was refreshing and very good, not flat, and my coworkers fries that he had with his burger.
The waiter was doing his best since he was the only one in there and it was 2 tables occupied but just took forever to bring the bill when we asked. It just wasn’t good at all. As you can see the majority of my reviews are 4 and 5 stars, its rare i write a 1 or 3 star cause I’m pretty easy to please but this place just wasn’t cutting it at all.

We went there the other day for an early breakfast, we had to wait more than 30mins to get waffles french toasts and eggs, not only it was long but the food didn’t taste good at all, expensive for what it is, only good thing is the location

Ordered delivery via grubhub. Took them over 1 and half hour to deliver to 1.6 miles away. Chilaquiles was inedible and soggy mess with no taste. They decided to substitute a quesadilla for my Dijon Chicken dinner on their own. Which was also cold and nasty after the unsealed sour cream was spilled all over. First and last try! stay away!!!

Its not often I write a really bad review, but this place deserves it. To be fair, I have never been to the restaurant. Only ordered online, from a couple different websites.
I only order from this place because it serves breakfast when I’m hung over on sunday to my door. But the terrible service regularly puts me in a bad mood. Today, for the sixth time, they have failed to give me everything I ordered. Each time they claim it was the websites problem, and not theirs. Its really annoying to get HALF my order when I have a bunch of friends over.
They regularly forget things like syrup. So if you get the cuban roll or french toast, you probably will want to make sure you have some at home first. You will also find that the cuban roll, my favorite item on the menu, is regularly different. Sometimes it has cheese, meat, sauce, butter, or none of the above.
You can expect every order, even if you are right down the street, to take at least an hour.
Nothing they serve is really worth getting. Its all pretty bland café food. And pretty expensive.
Ive ordered probably a good ¹⁄₃^rd of the menu at all times of the day trying to find what might be good, but I still havnt found it. Brick House, you have failed me for the last time.

I actually love this restaurant. It is Old School Venice: by which I mean it feels like you’ve been dropped in the middle of 1976 and you better just chill. If you can deal with that you will find this a great place for breakfast (especially) and lunch too. My very favorite is the Breakfast Burrito — it is so big stuffed with great things that invariably you have to bring home half of it. And they also have the Wall of Fire tabasco/​hot sauce display and a local bulletin board that lists things you won’t find in most trendoid (new word) restaurants such as where to find poetry classes, meditation groups, roommates (as well as quite a few alternative free magazines too). If you are looking for something chi chi, don’t come here. If you want some great food — come on by.
p. s. I would like to share a personal experience I had here. I was just a customer who ate here occasionally when in 1999 I was told that I might have a brain tumor. Of course that freaked me out big time. Having no family to talk to about that I decided that I needed some comfort food and came here. The cook and staff didn’t know me but we started talking. Soon the faucet behind my eyes began pouring. When I got up to pay the bill and leave, the owner patted my hand and said something to the effect that «this one’ is on me».

I had a good delivery experience here via Grub Hub.
I was staying in the Marina and made a note to the delivery man to please come up to the apartment and get let in by another resident which he did.
The food was good. I got the Chinese chicken salad with grilled chicken (must nicer than the boiled chicken that most traditional Chinese Chicken salads have) and the soup of the day which was a vegetable. The soup was very hearty yet flavorful chock full of zucchini and squash, tomato, and a tasty broth.
I haven’t been to the restaurant but I would like to check it out next time I am in Venice.
Overall the delivery was prompt and the food was well packaged and fresh.