The Kitchen

Guy Fieri was actually here at The Kitchen in Oxnard, CA (my hometown!!). So, it was back in 2011 -who cares. This restaurant is still known for Fieri's presence, not so much the food/service/ambiance. Guy Fieri had the lamb burger- grounded beef/lamb combo with spices/herbs on bread baked by The Kitchen (apparently) -too bad I am a pescaterian. I had:

805 mac & cheese $6 -I assume cheddar, sprinkled with a crispy panko (nothing amazing)
fried green beans $4 -SOOO good. Although, I don't think it's possible to mess up making this, it's pretty basic.

Service was excellent. Waitress informed us of the happy hour specials and was attentive. I had a late lunch there and during those hours there were only a few patrons at the bar. Otherwise, inside it's dimly lit for the afternoon and a bit of a divey, casual feel. I enjoyed sitting in a booth, drawing with the available crayons and table covered with parchment paper-as I waited for my food to arrive. Overall, The Kitchen is A-OK with me. I'd come back to try more stuff on the menu.

I came here for dinner because it was featured on DDD and I had a great experience overall.

The highlight of the meal was easily the beer on tap I ordered. It was a local 805 beer (I think it was called Firestone) but it was amazing. A full beer with a somewhat sweet flavor and minimal hops. It was truly great and went well with my lamb burger. Definitely recommend getting some!

I really enjoyed the lamb burger. I loved its presentation and it had many different spices of which I tasted with each bite. The relish was a unique alternative to a more customary burger sauce. The burger was a bit tough but that's really the only complaint I had with it. Certainly not the best lamb burger but a noteworthy adaptation that's worth trying.

For my side, I chose to get the parmesan garlic fries and I thought they were quite good. The fries on their own are enjoyable but I suggest enhancing them with some parmesan garlic seasoning for only an additional 75 cents.

Not my favorite restaurant featured on DDD but I'm glad I tried it and would certainly eat here again.

I've been here a couple times now and I think what stands out about this place is the cozy atmosphere and the beer selection. Everything else was ehhhhh lol

The infamous lamb burger ($11.95) that was seen on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives was A-OK. I couldn't really taste the lamb but probably because it was overpowered by the sweet red sauce? It tasted like a regular beef burger to me. The buns were nice because they were home made and fries were alright but it wasn't amazing for me.

The two desserts my friends and I ordered were the tiramisu and coconut cake. Tiramisu was moist and delicious while the coconut cake tasted dry and bland.

Luckily, our friend had a groupon and we saved $30 on dinner. I would come back to this place if a groupon is available and I'm craving tiramisu with a flight of beers lol

I feel lucky today... started out the day hanging out with Jay Leno's garage crew at the Mullen auto museum, then had a great lunch at Best Breakfast in Oxnard, then had a great pedicure at Mandalay and now a great late dinner at The Kitchen... it's like my birthday!

Seriously though - The Kitchen is a hidden gem, and I feel really bad for these guys because the location kind of sucks. Their front door is on A street, but you have to come in through the side alley... which wasn't apparent because city of Oxnard code enforcement made them take down their signs telling people how to find their front door. Sucks.

The interior is really cool, looks like you're walking into an old restaurant. The bartender, Danny, was super cool. He talked with us during our whole meal. We even got to talk with the owner's nephew who works there. You can tell it's a realy family atmosphere.

Danny served us food and drinks, we were the only customers at 9 PM but he was gracious anyway. Took very good care of us! He asked for me to tell the ladies to stop by and say hi...so if you're a lady and single, say hi to Danny :)

The food was really good. I had a grilled cheese sans bacon (no piggy!) and onion rings. Hubby had a burger with A1. Everything was fantastic. We finished off the meal with a cupcake and some cookies from the bakery that is attached next door. That's a cool thing too... they bake all their breads/buns daily so you could taste how fresh everything was.

Danny said they cook all their meats fresh so you won't get chicken that is re-heated or partially cooked and recooked. That's good to know!

I had a zinfandel and hubby drank a glass of one of their crafted tap beers. It was a great addition to our meal, the zin was good quality. Can't remember where he said it was from though.

Easy parking, nice staff, good conversation, comfortable booths (pillows!), romantic ambiance, great food and yummy dipping sauces are what pushed me to a five star review.

I really hope this place makes it, you can tell they care about the quality of their food and customer service.

Just like everyone else, my initial attraction to this place was due to them being featured on Triple D.
My love for them has grown.
I've been here so often I've made friends with the staff.
Special shoutout to Stephanie for always being awesome. She always happens to be our server.
They have a massive beer selection that even I am overwhelemed by.
Wednesday night is the best time to come in.
It's trivia night at 7pm and it is so much fun.
Lamar (the trivia guy) is the coolest dude.
I've tried every burger on the menu and none have disappointed.
My personal favorite is the cuban sandwich and garlic parmesan fries.

Hubby and I came for lunch.. No words can explain the Mmmm of their burgers I had a kitchen Kobe and he had belly burger... Omg.. Come here and eat.. All I have to say, Beer not bad either!

Would have been5 stars if they had the sculpins I wanted to try but the server had the whole Place full To herself and bar tending! She's amazing !!

FAMOUS American cuisine found IN OXNARD?!?! That's "The Kitchen" and it's appearance on "Diners, Drive-ins & Dives" with Guy Fieri some time ago. It's nice to see people show a little Oxnard Love, cuz it's rare! Sittin' right in the heart of downtown, close to the Plaza Cinemas, there is ample parking behind the building and street parking on A St. It's pretty low key inside. There's a cool olde world look with its dark wood varnish. Bar or booth are the seating options. Friendly greeting and we sat ourselves promptly in a comfortable booth that was well lit. There is a bit of a draft by the door, so we sat as far away from the entrance as possible for fear of my food getting too cold too fast. Cold food irks me!!! Ivana took care of us during a late weekday lunch. Salads, sandwiches and burgers are here as well as a variety of alcoholic options. What's unique is their burgers. It seems to be their specialty with patty options of ground beef sirloin, wagyu/kobe, venison, lamb, or veggie. What did Mr. Fieri get? He enjoyed the Lamb Burger according to the menu. Apparently, many come to chow down on this to be just like Guy. Ivana mentioned The Cuban sammie as the other popular menu choice. We sampled a few menu items...

*VENISON BURGER ($12.95): Be like Guy? Nope! Went with the venison, since it is such a unique option, and I never had it as a burger before. The benefits of venison over beef? Less fat, less cholesterol, and less calories are the claims. Wasn't asked how I wanted it, so it came medium well, with minimal touches of pink seen on this 6-8oz patty. Moist, flavorful yet didn't taste greasy or gamey. Combined with fresh baked bread, grilled onions & garlic aioli, it was a pretty good tasting burger. For sure, I'd get it again, this time with a request for medium rare or medium.
*BUILD YOUR OWN MINI BURGER ($3.95, extra toppings are $1.25 each): Wifey went with the mini (3oz) beef sirloin, topped with smoked mozzarella, garlic aioli mayo, portabello mushroom & fresh baked bread. She enjoyed it. I prefer NO FUNGUS on my plate, especially that big! Ewww!
*GARLIC PARMESAN FRIES (MINI $3.95): These were AMAZING!!! Perfectly crisped fries with wonderfully fresh sharp garlic and Parmesan cheese mix. Oh, I loved how strong the garlic was! LOVED IT! Finally, someone who loathes vampires as much as me! Hah!
*FRIED GREEN BEANS (MINI $3.50): These things were yummy! Light batter coating fresh green beans. Wonderful crispness, not soggy at all. Ample serving as well. I can see why this is a favorite dish.
*STUFFED DEVILED EGG (3 for $3.50): Flavor today was jalapeño cilantro basil. Bland in flavor, no kick whatsoever. Tasted like a regular boiled egg. Not so impressed with this.

Pleasant experience for today's visit. Friendly & attentive service. Food arrived promptly and hot, except for the "deviled" eggs. Ivana indicated there will be some menu changes in the works because a new chef is taking over. For sure, gone is "Southern Food Thursday" with its chicken & waffles special. Boo! Is change good? We'll see...

I'm a big fan of Diner's , Drive-Ins and Dives (DDD), hosted by Guy Fiete and this is the reason why my wife and I ventured to The Kitchen on New Year's Eve (December 31, 2012). Even though we still love DDD, the obvious conclusion we made during and after our dining experience at The Kitchen is that Guy Fiete had it 100% wrong with this restaurant.

I give The Kitchen 1.5 stars... the reason it actually accrued this many stars is because their Mission Brewery Blonde Ale was a great draft selection and it tasted very good. Given the inability to provide a 1.5 star recommendation here on Yelp!, I rounded up to two but even the 2-star rating is not warranted for The Kitchen.

Now onto the less-than-desirable attributes of our dining experience at The Kitchen:

-From our arrival, I realized I hadn't coordinated receipt of a tetanus booster that morning which was absolutely necessary due to the lack of cleanliness. The food debris was plentiful in the bar vicinity, the bartop was unkept as was the dust on the wine and cocktail glasses. These issues were nearly rectified by the creative spelling of 'Gift Cirtificate' on the bar mirror, but the filthy conditions were too much for a poor attempt of written English to overcome.

-We were at the bar for 17 minutes before we were acknowledged for service. We verified the hours and our 11:30 arrival time was after their published opening time of 11:00. This delay occurred while the kitchen and wait staff yapped outside of the dining areas, but still let patrons know they were simply being ignored. Dare I recommend the reader that it was New Year's Eve?

-My wife ordered a pinot grigio which, although the wine was fine, came in an absolutely disgusting class. Apparently a tetanus booster isn't the only medical requirement to dine here... I now would include a yellow fever vaccination to counter the bacterial and/or viral contamination poses by the grotesque glass.
Despite these misgivings, our sadist tendencies reared their ugly heads as we persevered with our lunch. Granted, grilled artichoke and parmesan fries are difficult to screw up, but the diligent staff at The Kitchen successfully ensured our meal was substandard. The 'grilled' artichoke was simply steamed (at least it was cooked) and the fries were unimpressive. Given the ah hem... quality of our appetizers, we elected to then cut our losses and take our discouraged appetites elsewhere.

We've had very solid dining experiences at all previously DDD-featured establishments; however, this time Mr. Fiete has it all wrong. If you want to: expose yourself to landfill-esque sanitary conditions; be ignored despite being a willing-to-pay customer; and consume unimpressive food then The Kitchen is for you. If you're not a freakish sadist then I recommend you take your hard-earned monies elsewhere. Did I mention it was New Year's Eve?

The Mission Brewery Blonde Ale was good, though...

I don't know how to start this review! I could give a small description on how I found this restaurant (my brother) but I'm not!

I follow them on facebook, they announced that they were going to have a brewing class for $45, OK sign me up (I did) told my friends they signed up.

OK, so we started our experience with a Red Beer followed by a lighter beer. Both of them were good, however I preferred the Red One. In the process we got to taste: Acai (Muito bom) beer, XX, Stella Artois, Speak Easy, multiple Firestone, Humboldt, one from Oregon, and others. Blown away with the service. Basically for the 3.5 hours that we were there, the bar tender made sure that we had some type of beer on our hand, and she would check up on us at least every 5 minutes. Beer was amazing, that alone was worth the money!

The food: amazing! We started with onion rings. Let me tell you about the onion rings, they were amazing! The onion was untouched, however the breaded part was fried just right, so when you bit the ring, you had the outside crunch, followed by the soft onion bite, delicious. We also had fried Zucchini (that was done in 2 minutes) also done just right. The different kinds of sandwiches we had: Cuban sandwich was my personal favorite, the meat tasted really lean, really tender, done just right, lots of favor, probably my favorite. They also have simpler sandwiches, ham and cheese, also good, their mayo really gives it a kick, along with their bread. Their vegetarian, my least favorite (not to say that it was bad) however great option if you don't want to eat meat.

Hufff..... What makes this restaurant a 5 star though, it's hands down, their staff. Why? Well, their staff knows what they are doing. The bartender for example explained to us what she was serving us (what kind of beer it was). The staff who works there for sure love to do what they are doing. They are excited to cook what they are cooking, and also love to serve the type of beer they are serving, they are fanatics. It seemed that whatever they were doing before they open this restaurant was just a past-time, but then they decided to open this restaurant. Our brew master for example explained (and expressed) to us, how much love he has to beer. Plus points for that!

Anyways, I recommend this place if you enjoy beer (awesome selection), restaurant got a little busy after 12:30pm on Saturday. Good place to stop for a couple of beers! I forgot to ask about their happy hour, but definitely I will put them on my list! Good summer place to go to!

This restaurant serves beer, Way better than any beer festival I've been to!!

I really love the speakeasy setting this restaurant has created!
The menu is completely different for downtown Oxnard, but in a good way.
The food pushes the envelope towards the affordable and diverse.

I hope this restaurant can survive and become a staple in revitalizing a broken downtown Oxnard.