Rooney’s Irish Pub

Stopped here en route to home from SD. We wanted to catch the tip-​off of Game 6 of NBA WCF. What a find! Nice ambiance, excellent service. And now we know where Orcutt is!

Love this place. The food is always good and the servers are pleasant. The jalapeño margarita is the best!

I want to like this place, I really do. The problem is the food. I have yet to order anything which would make me want to return. It’s just mediocre. Not bad, but just boring and uneventful. Please change up the menu. The bartenders are great, so they have that going for them.

This has got to be the worst service I have ever received. We had reservations for 17 and did not get our food for almost an hour and a half. A large group seated after us received their food before us. We had no silverware and only 2 menus. Our food was not good. Some had hamburgers way over done while another was so raw. The owner even came over but only cared about 2 «named» people at our table. Server was tipped although he should receive it from the owner. Never again will I visit or eat here. It was unbelievable.

My boyfriend and I walked in to a waitress that seemed annoyed that she had to help us, she sat us down without menus and we waited for 20 min before stopping another waitress walking by to ask if they were still serving food. She told us they served food until 10pm so my boyfriend then asked if we could get a menu and she seemed annoyed as she checked the time and said we still had a COUPLE MINUTES and went to grab us a menu. She came back and said we could order from the bar whenever we were ready so we thanked her and I checked my phone to see how much time we had and its 9:22pm… More than a «couple minutes» and would’ve been an hour if we got a menu when we were first seated. Worst experience I’ve had here, seriously no one wanted to help us. We walked out. Service here is great before 9pm but after that don’t bother, they seriously could care less.

Travelling home from San Diego, we decided to find a spot to watch the Warriors game. Boy, we got lucky finding this spot! First of all, the staff was very friendly and attentive, and the place was clean and nicely decorated. Kind of like a modern Irish Pub. For starters, they give you some homemade chips with a special dipping sauce. That was so good that we took our leftovers home. For our entrée, we ordered the Shepherd’s Pie and the Beer-​brined Chicken. Both were really good and the meat from the Shepherd’s Pie literally melted in your mouth. If you’re driving down 101 and looking for a place to eat, this is definitely a spot I’d recommend stopping at!

Traveling up the coast we were staying in Santa Maria. The hotel gave us a list of places to eat and Rooney’s was our pick after seeing the photos of the pics on Unilocal.But I must say that photos do not do this food justice. It was absolutely delicious. We each had a small Caesar salad, the Shepard’s pie and bread pudding for dessert. The Irish beer on draft is enough to visit this place. The Shepard’s pie was not like any other Shepard’s pie I’ve ever had. Braised short ribs on a bed of cheddar mashed choice potatoes, piled high with arugula and drizzled with beef gravy pearl onions and peas. Beyond delicious. The ingredients in all there food seemed freshly prepared not from cans freezers or boxes. A feast for our taste buds. The bread pudding had Irish whiskey toffee sauce and ice cream. Might go back just for that. Well done.

The shepherds pie was extremely tender meat, and everything was delicious!!! I ordered a side of cornbread which was also excellent. My husband and I split it all and were so full.

The service was pretty inattentive, despite it being not at all crowded. We wanted lunch on a Sunday afternoon; we didn’t realize that lunch didn’t start until 2:00 even though every other day you can get lunch at 11:30 when they open. You get there on Sunday before 2:00, you have to choose off of a «Sunday brunch» pub menu with very limited selection. Totally unexpected and weird.
Fine, OK, let’s see what they have. Bottomless bloody Marys for $ 15, OK! Having 2 would make it «worth it.» Only they make it darned difficult to get more than one! You know how when you order a cocktail, you usually are asked constantly if you want a refill (to get that sweet, sweet increase in the check total)? Well, if you order the «bottomless,» be prepared to be ignored and have to ask numerous people for service to get another. After the first one, NO ONE came to check on us and we had to ask 3 different people for a refill or to at least pass the message along. FINALLY got one when we were almost done eating.
I know that restaurants have to watch their costs, but it just seems like such an F-​U to the customer when you fall over over yourselves to refill regular drinks, yet disappear when you have a «bottomless» customer. Not cool, Rooney’s!
I notice that the owner responds here to positive reviews but never the negative — even if they mention the same server which I think we had. I read a lot of reviews mentioning the poor/​lacking service. Is that not important to them?

Better service this time around! I went on a Friday night and it was better staffed! I was pleased with the service and bartender who served us. I will come back to check it out again.

This place is so good, food is awesome, environment is awesome & the employees are friendly. This place is Awesome.

Everything was great. We had a large group come in last minute and they were accommodating. Great service and excellent bangers and mash!

Rooney’s is the best! Great food, great drinks, and great atmosphere! Their Mac n cheese is soooo tasty! I highly recommend coming here.

We had Pork shank and shepherd pie. Hubby also drank pumpkin beer. Everything was very good and lots of flavor. The ambient was nice. Service was excellent.
The short ribs in the pie was tender. Mashed potato was excellent and creamy.
The sauce was flavorful and aromatic.

Great bar/​pub. Totally Irish and great people.
Food isn’t fried or of the fast food verity. Wonderful menu and in house beer. Very friendly servers. I didn’t need to ask many questions as the server knew the menu and the beer to complement my choices. I look forward to coming back soon. I recommend stopping in for sure.

Not very happy, made a to go order to the hostess, I order two Irish nachos and a ruben. Seems to be an easy order. The chalk festival is going on and she says it will be 15 minutes, 35 minutes go by wasn’t that busy inside. She comes out with my order three it in the bag. Get outside to distribute to everyone one Irish nachos to my mother in law,
Second Irish nachos to my wife set my box down. Go and open my box just chips.
So I go in and tell the hostess you for got my ruben. She tells me I didn’t order it it’ll be 15 minutes if I like to order it, argh I say nevermind and walk out. Get back to our table and my mother in law finds a piece of metal from the fry basket in her Irish nachos. She takes it in and the reply she gets from Rooney’s is ok we’ll tell the kitchen.
No sorry
No here’s your money back
No we’ll make another order
Just an ok bye
VERY DISAPPOINTED!!!

Such a cool bar!
The ambiance is good and so are Food & Drinks. The music only gets better with the DJ spinning some good music. They also have a little dance floor which gets crowded soon. The (only) place is open till 2 am. The crowd is also good. What else do you need from a good club?
Good food, good people and even better music to dance on. 5 stars to this one!

Two check-​ins, two weeks in a row. And I live in SLO!
Actually a friend lives down here and told me about this spot.
The beer selection is amazing. Easily one of the best on the Central Coast. Every craft beer lover will find a handful of breweries and beers they love here.
The burgers are absolutely massive and actually will be cooked mid-​rare when requested. Fantastic.
Their chips are our chips, their fries are not chips but fries. (Just a nod to the U.K. here ;)
No casks. For a place priding itself on Irish authenticity I find the absence of casks to be saddening to my heart.
They do serve a good selection of beer from across the pond, though to be fair most of it is British and not Irish… odd. But I like British beer, so… it’s a win for me.
The appetizers are good and I would recommend the wings.
The service I have had here has, both times, been super awkward, like the server felt bad asking for our orders and was way too timid. That was annoying.
But the food is quite good, I’d say when in the area, don’t miss this spot.

Well to be honest this is the One Of the coolest bars here in the central coast ,
Yes… Yes… Yes. Is in old Orcutt ‚
But great food and great people this Irish restaurant had what you looking for from Karaōke on Tuesday and Friday and Saturday great DJs come and have fun with your friends ;-)

I was visiting a couple good friends who live in the area and we decided to grab a meal and a pint at Rooney’s. Good call!
Their menu features your typical Irish pub fare along with a few seemingly random items (Thai shrimp, fish tacos, etc.). I was really inclined to order some comfort food and had it down to either the fish and chips or bangars and mash. Went with the mash.
When the waitress came out with the food, I was taken back by the portion size. Holy cow! It was a mountain of bangars, mash, and arugula. The bangars were cooked well and had great flavor. The mash was creamy. That onion gravy was delicious. And I loved that they topped everything with arugula. It was perfect on a cold night in the Central Valley.
They had a few craft beers on tap. However, do you really want craft beer when you go to an Irish pub? I paired my meal with a Black and Tan (Guinness and Bass).
Service was adequate. The atmosphere is what you would expect. They appear to be busy on the weekends so you may have to park a ways down.
Overall, I enjoyed my experience and would definitely stop by again if I’m in the area. Check them out if you get the chance!