New Year’s Eve was a mellow dining experience for me. As people everywhere enjoyed swanky dinner places or visited loud noisy bars, my family and I decided to ring in the new year in an atmosphere that was quiet, familiar, and to adopt an overused phrase: where everybody knows our names. We ate at the Jetty Restaurant, a restaurant that has been our neighborhood favorite for the last couple of years—but it hasn’t always been that way.
Having lived in the Santa Maria Valley off and on for the better part of 40 years, it seemed like The Jetty has always been around. The restaurant was established in 1980 in Avila. The Santa Maria restaurant was opened after that, and in 1982 another restaurant opened in Lompoc.
Since then, the Santa Maria restaurant has gone through several iterations. It’s been the best place to get seafood, a great place to take clients or hold business lunches, and it’s also been the restaurant that used to be a great place to eat. It’s seems it was going through the latter a few years ago when we first moved back to Orcutt. It was so close to our house though, so we couldn’t resist dining there often. Eventually though it stopped attracting us.
Then, a year or so ago we tried The Jetty again and it seemed like a new restaurant. It quickly became one of our favorite places once again for an end of the week dinner out with the kids. In terms of food, price, and fun, it’s hard to beat The Jetty.
The floor manager Patrick Sing and many of the staff members welcome us every time we come in. The staff always takes the time to listen to the stories my 7-year-old likes to tell; once he had the attention of three servers as he told them of one of his adventures.
And when it comes to making sure our meal is to our liking, Sing is hands down the best. Once my husband asked for soy sauce with his meal but the restaurant didn’t have any. In just moments, Sing returned with soy sauce for my husband after running out to get some. It’s this customer service and welcoming atmosphere that has won our affection once again.
The food has also stepped up in both the preparation and selections. There is enough variety to make it a great family dinner choice. The menu features dishes like chipotle salmon (my fav), fish tacos, and mahi mahi, along with seafood favorites like clam chowder and fish ’n’ chips. There are even interesting starters like fried pickles, fresh-cooked potato chips, and fried mac ’n’ cheese bites.
Despite the selection, we tend to gravitate to favorites like the Jetty Trio, which consists of a mug of clam chowder, a nicely chilled salad, and a slice of garlic bread; broiled Alaskan cod; and the fantail ship basket with fries. Other popular fare includes popcorn shrimp baskets, clam strips, and chicken strips.
For those not in the mood for seafood, burgers or chicken nuggets are available as well.
We topped off our New Year’s Eve dinner by sharing a piece of chocolate lava cake decked out with a scoop of ice cream, whipped cream, and hot fudge.
The atmosphere at The Jetty is bright and fun. The kids love the décor with all of its fishing nets, wooden pilings, signage, and old-timey fisherman pictures; it’s kind of like a nautical Applebee’s. My husband and I love the fact that we can almost always catch a game on one of the restaurant’s flat-screen TVs.
Of course, the best part for the kids is a post-dinner trip to the treasure chest. There is a large treasure chest in the restaurant filled with small toys, and kids are welcome to pick out a prize after dinner. Needless to say, the kids always leave happy. It was in this spirit that we left the restaurant and climbed into the car to finish our New Year’s Eve celebration at home. As we drove, a song came on the radio and I commented on how much I liked it. The kids quieted so I could hear it, and then in the middle of this romantic song came a kazoo solo—one of my jokester kids decided to add his own music thanks to the kazoo he found in the treasure chest at The Jetty.
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