Bodega Wine Bar

11/28/09

Words Cannot Express This Experience

by thrine13 at Citysearch

I've never had an experience like this one. We had been looking for a good wine bar in Santa Monica, and came across this one on Citysearch. It seemed decent, so we figured we'd try it out. When we drove by it, we almost thought they weren't open because it was so empty - on a Saturday night! But we parked and walked by again, saw a few people in there, so we thought "eh, we'll go ahead and give them the business." We walked in, and straight to the bar area where there was a whole group of servers/hosts/bartenders chatting with each other. It was clear that we were standing there and not sure if they should seat us or what... Every single one of them stopped, looked at us, and then went back to their chat. I did a little wave like "hi, uh, should we sit down?" Mind you, we were standing in the middle of a virtually empty place. Not a single person acknowledged us, so we literally had no choice but to walk out and go to Swingers next door. Wow.

• Pros: Your choice of any seat in the house
• Cons: Staff who acts like they're on their day off

09/22/09

Save yourself - much better wine bars in the area!

by katiemarie3 at Citysearch

If I could give Bodega less than one star, I would. I'm not really into complaining about places online, but the way we were treated at this place was so appalling, I feel I need to warn other people before they make the mistake of having an event here.

My sweet fiance reserved the Lido Deck at Bodega for my birthday this past weekend. We arrived to an absolutely dead wine bar. By 10 PM, my group of 20 in the corner was the only reason this place wasn't the saddest scene in Santa Monica. We had a minimum to meet of course, and our friends were drinking up. I won't get into the details but due to seriously poor service, we got to the end of the evening and were accused of not meeting our minimum. When my fiance tried to find a manager to reason with, he was presented with a shady bartender who told him, and I quote: "I don't care what your mother f*%^ing problem is, your card is f$#%ing getting charged." I was shocked. That is the way you speak to a paying customer? And not only a paying customer but someone who kept you from having a completely dead Saturday night? In order to avoid making a scene, my fiance quickly bought a few bottles of wine to cover what was "left" on our tab and we departed.

Not only was the service here completely unacceptable, but the wine was a disgrace. When a Santa Barbara Winery wine is your finest offering, you're kind of giving wine bars a bad name.

I recommend you avoid this place at all costs and definitely don't let them ruin your birthday.

• Pros: None.
• Cons: Appalling service, poor wine selection

04/09/09

Great place to grab wine & apps with friends

by DenaG at Citysearch

Went to Bodega on a Tuesday night with a date and it was a perfect place to meet. The wines are all $8 a glass and there was a great selection. The appitizer menu also offered a good selection and we tried the brushetta which was tasty. I'll definately go back to Bodega again. Scene was relaxed and friendly.

• Pros: Good inexpensive wine list
• Cons: Valet parking costs $5