Portofino Bay Restaurant & Bar

Awful food. Period. Would you like mechanically pressed chicken with that? How about romaine lettuce in place of arugula for your arugula salad? They don’t tell you they’re out. They think you just won’t notice or care. Choking and need a glass of water? Don’t ask the bartender for one. You’ll have to wait until your order has been placed. The only good thing was the polite waitress.

Beyond Terrible!
This place is a complete joke I should of gone on Unilocal before going there, just now seeing all the bad reviews… Agreed with the other review on here dj/​band is very obnoxious when your trying to have a nice dinner, this restaurant is all over the place.
You can clearly tell the owner has no experience in the restaurant industry
The staff is extremely rude and so are the owners, took a very LONG time to get our food when we did get our food it was pretty gross… The couple sitting next to us seemed to agree and said that they didn’t like their food either and the owner treated them pretty bad when they complained about how long the food took
What a shame this is such a nice place and location, too bad the wrong people got involved.

Keep trying Portofino Bay hoping things will change … One year later consistently disappointing. The best location on the lake and food is terrible. Staff turns over monthly and new staff has no experience, no training and no clue. They try their best but it’s chaos.
Go for drinks, sit on the deck with gorgeous views of Castle Rock Lake and go to one of the many burger/​beer joints for dinner.

Umm… Medium rare prime rib? More like well done. Great location but service and kitchen lacking to the extreme. Would love to see this place make it but it seems cursed.

Band was awesome Friday night SuperTuesday their band name
The venue is set up for large groups to hangout and listen to live music
Beers were a buck a can cheap!
All and all a good night out
This bar is in the water at castle rock lake !

Stopped in for a drink. Was told by the staff «I’m not going out there yo serve you». She was talking about the outdoor seating at the restaurant. She was very rude and told us we needed to come into the empty restaurant to order. We left.

If this is a TL;DR post for you, take this away from it, totally not worth it.
We had a party of 8 on July 3^rd around 5:15pm.
Our server was Michaela.
So here’s the thing, I used to work in the restaurant industry, as a server, hostess, and appetizer chef. I tend to be very empathetic during dining experiences because, I get it, we all have bad days. However, Portofino Bay was just a hot mess.
The restaurant is strangely laid out to begin with. People coming in from the marina have to walk directly through the restaurant, which with only one door open to the outside, it tends to get pretty warm in the restaurant. In fact, I’m still sweating.
If you come in through the main parking lot you have to walk through a tiki bar area with loud music playing and karaōke. Whatever, that’s not going to be a tipping point for dining.
Our server was nice but it’s clear that it’s clear that she hasn’t been waiting tables long, (also quit tip, when your table is clearly staring you down it’s best not to make eye contact while standing idly and giggling and whispering with another server).
Our salads came out and then once we had finished our salads we waited for another 15 minutes before our appetizers came out. When we finally did receive our appetizers our server didn’t give us any appetizer plates so we had to use our salad plates. Once again, not a tipping point but a little annoying.
We had ordered wine and mixed drinks but were never brought out any water or ever asked if we wanted water, which would have been nice because we needed something to wash down our entrees.
When our food did come out, our server wasn’t around, so another server brought it out on the tray and then proceeded to keep his back to us trying to get the attention of the other female servers behind the station. One only merely commented, «that’s not my table». As he was continuing to look away from us, we were trying to get his attention to let him know that we could figure out who got what food. He wouldn’t acknowledge us so we just stared at our food and waited to be put out of our misery.
Speaking of entrees, you’d think it’d be hard to mess up multiple entrees but they did. My Fettucini Alfredo was as dry as the Sahara. Clear that the noodles had been premade and then left out to dry. My boyfriend had the gnocchi with blue cheese. There was literally just a pile of blue cheese and maybe a little sauce? We couldn’t tell. He requested some marinara on the side but that couldn’t even fix it.
My boyfriend’s father had a shrimp skewer with vegetables and fries but the fries never made an appearance and our server was seldom found so we couldn’t inquire about our missing fries. His vegetables were dry, evident that they weren’t steamed, but rather just microwaved from some prepackaged nightmare.
Looking around at other tables it was clear that people needed refills or just their food in general which never seemed to come without a prolonged waiting period.
It seemed like there were bussers but they didn’t bus any tables without being instructed.
Overall this restaurant is just completely unorganized and severely lacking in communication. You can keep apologizing but after the 5^th time, it no longer retains it’s meaning.
While the view was pretty, was it worth it? No, absolutely not. Unless you’re already wasted and don’t mind the wait, I’d avoid.

We thought going back a year later the restaurant would have hired better servers and a better cook. Unfortunately, Rachel G. We must have just missed you as the service and food was awful for us too! We will never go back unless restaurant changes it name and owner

They held the restaurant open to serve our large party of 13. Service was ok — some unintentional comedy from the main waiter but they were attentive (we were the only patrons). Food was average — some liked but others didn’t. But we had a great time and the location is cool.

Stopped in hear with my buddies during a camping trip on 5÷30÷2015.
Entrance to the restaurant is totally confusing. You have to walk through some tiki bar type thing, I actually thought that was the restaurant, but it wasn’t so we walked through and then down some stairs and found another entrance.
There is a bar when you walk in and then in the back a relatively small dining room, maybe 20 tables.
We were seated by a girl who buses tables and serves water. She told us our server would be there shortly. That’s where it started.
We waited 10 minutes before our server stopped over. She asked us for our drink order and was about to run away and we told here we were ready to order (we were sitting there for 10 minutes, we had time to figure that out).
We ordered the sampler for an appetizer (fried foods, with mushrooms, mozzarella sticks, cheese curds, onion rings, mushrooms, and asparagus or something. This was brought out relatively quickly by, what I would assume was, the chef, she was dressed in chef clothes. That’s the last we saw of her.
It had ranch dressing to dip, and it was homemade an excellent. All of the items were excellent. No complaints.
We then had our salads and soup brought out. Salads were a great mixture of spring mix and lettuces, and the two of us that had salads, the dressing were homemade, with thousand island and Cesar, nice to see a restaurant making the basic things instead of using bottled ingredients. Our friend with the soup said it was very good.
Then our entrée was served. I had ribeye with garlic mashed potatoes and my friends had the baked hadoc.
The Ribeye was average, it was extremely fatty, it wasn’t medium rare as I ordered but Medium. It was under seasoned also, I had to add salt. But, the garlic mashed potatoes were probably the best I’ve ever had. Awesome.
My buddies enjoyed the fish and said it was very good.
We were done… and waited approximately 20 minutes for our server to return.
We ordered desert, a Lemonade Cheesecake and two Sundays… and from the time we ordered until we were presented with the deserts it took 30 minutes.
When we were done, we had to wait another 10 minutes for our check. The server apologized that they were short handed or something and that they would take something off our check. They must really suck at this because they had a line item on the bill that said «Service Slow — ½ off» for our deserts, so apparently they have this in their system because it’s the norm.
She never came back, we had to go drop it off.
I’d add, that while we were waiting for our desert, the owner (and elderly man) and some lady in jeans and a blouse (totally unacceptable for a manager to dress that way in this restaurant – she didn’t look like a manager at all) and ask how everything was. It was mechanical, they went from table to table (together, it was weird), asking, but when something wrong as brought up, they didn’t address it. We told him (and her) we were waiting and waiting for our desert and they smiled and went to the next table.
Bottom line:
FOOD is very good.
SERVICE sucks. I mean really sucks. Some of the worst I’ve ever experienced.
If you have 2 ½ hours to sit around and wait, go for it, otherwise, go somewhere else.

Awesome view. Can’t wait for the pool and big new patio bar to open! Food has been excellent except once. Service friendly but could improve a little. Overall great though. Atmosphere is great.

Went here last summer and was not impressed. Decided to give it another shot tonight and was very pleased with the changes. Steaks were cooked perfectly and as ordered. Vegetables were crisp and varied. Our waitress was very friendly and the manager attentive. The service was much improved from my first visit. Beautiful view. I had the eggplant Parmesan and felt it needed improvement but I am second generation Italian and have high expectations. The manager deducted that from the bill and offered another dinner. I will definitely go to this place again.

I recently returned to this restaurant because my wife made me (first experience last year was not good). She wanted to give it another try because the view is beautiful and the facility was well kept. This time around was a completely different experience. My steak was juicy, cooked as ordered and delivered by a great staff member in a timely fashion. Salad, vegetables, drinks, desert all very good. I had to ask, what gives? We were informed the restaurant is under new management with a new chef, new manager and new wait staff. And it shows! I can now recommend this place! Stick with the steaks!!!

Been coming to this place since it opened. The service has been hit or miss but the food has always been great. We showed up there last Sunday around 7pm with our family of 13! The place was empty so we were a bit worried, but there is no snow and it was late Sunday. There was only one person working there, besides who was working in the kitchen. I think his name was Mike (I am bad with names) and we later found out that he has only been there a few weeks and is the new manager. Bottom line, we received the best service from him and the food was probably the best it’s ever been from there (and we’ve been here at least 12 – 15 times). If this is any sign of new management, keep it going! I know it’s hard keeping good help and having fresh food ready to serve when you don’t know if your going to have any business.
It is the best food on the lake, unfortunately we only get up to that area once or twice every month or two. We will be there to visit again in a few weeks. Hope there will be some snow!

We’ve been here since 8:15 and as of 9:23 there is no food in sight. Restaurant is empty and this is a shit show.

Hard to rate this restaurant. Awesome view, awesome sun room with view of the lake. Service was slow, even though not too crowded, probably a really small kitchen. They could have sold a couple more rounds of beer if they stopped by our table a few more times.
Food was ok once they came back with the right order for my son (butter noodles is not fettuccine alfredo) and they finished cooking the raw chicken served to my wife.
So, go for the views, have a few drinks, and plan on staying a while.

Awesome breakfast on the deck and practically on the water. My husband loved the Bloody Mary bar. I would recommend the biscuits and gravy.
It was pretty relaxing and looked like they were setting up for a party at the outside tiki bar. We will be back.