I was a local who went to 2nd Street sometimes daily in the 90's. One of the owners was usually there and the food was always incredible. It was a comfortable local place where you walked in and felt at home. The food was always incredible, and the prices reasonable, even in tourist season.
All that has changed. Someone decide to go upscale and the result it poor at best. Walking in the door, you instantly see this is not the place you remember. Now it's cold, sterile even. The bar is chopped back out of existence and the dining areas are all trying to be upscale. The menu is now a listing of ridiculously over-priced fare. At our table of six, we each ordered a different dish. We always loved the place and even with the changes in decor though it would still be good. On the contrary, simple items like a reuben and steak sandwich were now portioned so large as to fee 4 people, yet were boring, poorly prepared, yet plated in an egotistical, over-pretentious fashion to make you think it was something it clearly is not. Upper scale dishes such as seafood were obviously canned/frozen, not fresh which is an incredible shame so close to the bay. There are side dishes such as ""traditional southern ratatouille"" that come congealed in a wonderful towering mound, held together by the chef's love of a ring mold. Being a southerner, there is nothing traditional about ratatouille. Compounding the problem was the fact it was about 4 inches tall, 6 inches wide, and constructed of about 85% carrots, 10% green beans, 4% squash, and about 1% tomato. The base of any ratatouille is tomatoes, but no matter since the entire thing was lifeless, tasteless, and basically watery as if warmed from a bag of frozen vegetables from Wal Mart. The price for this mess was $20. It took over an hour from ordering to receiving (place was NOT busy) and to pay $20 for a dish containing about $5 worth of crab meat and 50 cents worth of carrots was disappointing to say the least from this former local favorite. If they have a new chef, he should quit now, and maybe try his luck making pancakes at IHOP. The local charm of 2nd Street is gone, replaced by extremely over priced, bland, and poorly prepared food; as well as sterile decor and pointless water features. Save yourself some money and just go to one of the local chain restaurants.
Pros: Clean,
Cons: Bland, over priced food, trying to be upscale, but failing!
more