Lumberyard Tavern

Love this place… food is great, beers on tap are awesome… GREAT servers busting their butts… breakfast is underrated as well… cheers

Every town needs a watering hole that serves a stiff drink without judgement. Lumberyard fills this need in the heart of Encinitas. The spacious interior makes it a perfect location for gatherings or large groups, and they have enough televisions for sports fans from around the globe. It is large enough to feel a bit cavernous on a slow night, however it fills to capacity during special events.
Bi-​annual street fares, classic car nights, and food festivals are some of the many community events that pack Lumberyard to the gills with a standing room only crowd.
I have never felt a strong impulse to order a meal, yet the comfort food of onion rings and zucchini sticks hits the spot in a pinch. I have always thought of Lumberyard as your typical burger venue, but their menu goes beyond beef and extends to cauliflower tacos, apple goat cheese flatbread and even shrimp Kale salad. I would not be opposed to eating there, but in my mind it is still a bar.
The location holds a special place in my heart, at the wise age of 18 I wrangled my first waitressing job with Tomaso’s restaurant which occupied this very space. It is dog friendly, upbeat and has something for everyone.

Love the Burgers here!
The beer selection is great & the waitress’s are all extremely pleasant!

Very reasonable breakfast and $ 3 bloody marys. The service was good and fast. the polace was clean and the outside seating was great. the food came out fast and was really good. I tried the scrambled eggs with bacon. We enjoyed the weather sitting on their patio. What a great place to start a sunday!

My girl said it wasn’t worth writing a review because we’re simply not going to come back. But FYI that mac & cheese with the pulled pork taste like it came straight out of the box.

Great brunch menu and nice, chill and laid back environment. My friend got the Crab /​Eggs Bennie and said it was amazing. I got a custom breakfast burrito — the kitchen is really cool about tweaking the burritos to your liking, which is good for a picky eater like me!
I also enjoy just coming here for drinks. Good crowd, friendly wait staff, nice venue and chill. The way Encinitas should be.

We came here Saturday night with friends and their kids. Had a GREAT time. The Warriors had an unbelievable win over Oklahoma City (Steph Curry is THE MAN!). The food was great; the mac & cheese and pulled pork is legitimate! As everyone else has reported, the Irish Nachos are excellente!
Another great part of our evening though was our server Paeten. He was fast, attentive, and funny! We had a good time joking around with him. He joked back with us and took everything in stride.
All in all — a great evening, great food, great service. Thanks!

I’ve been here a few times and really enjoy the atmosphere.
First time I came for lunch and had the fish tacos — really really good. Like, probably the best fish tacos I’ve had in the area. I’m not sure what it was about them that made them stand out, but every time I think about having fish tacos my mind comes back to this place. I think it’s the jalapeño cream sauce.
Also came here for brunch. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t amazing. I had an omelet that was pretty good, but honestly there are lots of places to get good brunch in the area so I probably won’t return for that reason.
The atmosphere at night is nice, though, and I do like their patio. Great selection of beers.

Came in here on a Friday evening during peak hours and was fairly disappointed with the overall experience. Could tell it was going to be a not so great experience right off the bat when I was greeted by a hostess who was evidently training, but was not yet trained on how to walk people to a table. The normal hostess sat us, we were eventually met by our server and placed our order. The food took forever to arrive, with the server even asking us «why haven’t you received your food?»
Either she had forgotten to place the order or the cooks had forgotten to cook it. The food was bland, I ordered a Chinese chicken salad and found it to be dull in flavor and with a tiny portion of chicken (costing $ 4) added to the salad.
If you do come here stick to warm foods only.

Came here late night after a bridal shower and day drinking to get some grub. The place was pretty slow but we were greeted and seated promptly.
I ordered the chicken penne pasta which was really yummy! The sauce was creamy and there was tons of chicken. It was a little filling for me, so I couldn’t eat it all. My friend got the artichoke which is also a very generous portion and looked amazing. Also making an appearance at our table was the Irish nachos which had some amazing chips that didn’t get soggy and the sliders which are HUGE! I would say two sliders equal a full burger and they give you three of them!
Overall, I really enjoyed the food and the service was great. I don’t frequent North County very often so I’m not sure I’ll be back, but I wouldn’t be opposed to another visit if I’m in the area again!

Always a pretty good visit. I was there on Friday evening still during happy hour. It had a decent crowd, but not packed. I had the TriTip sandwich which was quite good. They have a good selection of probably 25+ taps, according to the menu but you don’t see that many at the bar. I think they may have expanded their offerings as I don’t remember seeing such a large menu of beers, 2-​sided page. The menu of food is not huge and not much in the way of knife and fork entrees. Some pastas, flatbreads and sandwiches, burgers, salads, still pretty good stuff though every time I visit. Bar service is friendly and attentive.

I really like this place. The place not only has a great people-​friendly vibe, it’s incredibly dog friendly as well.
The beer selection is always good — I like that fact that it’s not all hoppy IPAs and among those there’s often a German Hefeweisen when I’m not feeling all bitter. The happy hour food is very good and a great value. The general menu items are OK — my burger on a pretzel bun was once a little oversalted and chewy, which wasn’t helped by the fact that it was on a pretzel bun.
Servers are nice, especially when the Wee Baby Ava is present. The L-​shaped layout of the outside tables means just about everyone gets a railing seat — which makes tying up my dog’s leash easier.
I’ll keep coming back. And by the way, they’re not too far from the Encinitas dog park…

Never experienced such rude service. Katelynn, the girl working here; was totally a piece of work. Her phone seemed more important than the customers. It took a long time until i got helped. It is a great place, but the workers simply destroy this place. I will make sure to stay away from here.

Lumberyard is frequently the afterthought in Encinitas, but nobody quite ever seems to know why. They have an excellent draft selection of craft beer, they’ve got good food, and their prices are in line with the other places in Encinitas.
It’s a really excellent place to watch football on Sundays. They’ve got good brunch food and all of the games on TV. You have to get there early otherwise all of the good tables get scooped up and you’re stuck sitting underneath a table staring up at a 75 degree angle.
They have off-​street parking, which is convenient, although it’s tough to find a spot during midday hours. Overall, it’s a really great place to go. I think I should go more often.

Great ambiance (even though it was Halloween), good food and the servers were having a good time. The fish tacos were the best. I would like to return sometime on a «normal» day.
Our party of 8 had a suburb time!

The food and ambiance deserve 4 stars, not 5, but the service we received today won that 5^th star for me.
I had asked friends who live between La Jolla and Oceanside to recommend a kid-​friendly place to watch football, and one of my friends recommended Lumberyard. I needed a place to meet an out-​of-​town friend for lunch who was with her husband and FIVE children.
I called ahead, and while the hostess seemed concerned that there might not be a table ready that big in 30 minutes because they were busy, she also promised to keep her eye out and work to get us a table.
I arrived before my friend and her family, and she greeted me, explained they were going to seat us outside as soon as a couple parties left, and I told her we were really hoping to also watch football. Instead of getting frustrated (as I might have done), she took a moment and then told me that the large booth might be opening up. It opened up just as my friends arrived, and we have the perfect place to sit, corral the kids, eat, and watch some football.
Then, the serve was consistently cheerful and helpful. She kept her attention on us even when kid-​type requests were getting yelled around the table. She listened carefully to my friend as she ordered for each kid, told her of course they’d get lids for their drinks, and then calmly and professionally took the adult orders.
One of the orders had been, «a cheeseburger with no meat,» with a wink from mom. The server thought she meant to just bring a cheeseburger. Really, one of the little ones wanted grilled cheese, but if you call it that, she’ll insist she wants a burger. The server apologized and fairly quickly brought back a bun with American cheese (which is exactly what my friend said quietly to her when the burger came out). She didn’t charge us for the miscommunication, and it was all resolved quick and easy.
When our server wasn’t able to check on us for a longer period, she had someone else come by, check on us, and refill waters.
I don’t travel with kids a lot and I was really impressed that they were so chill about a rowdy table full of funny kids on a busy Sunday afternoon.
Also, I had the tuna melt and it was better than most tuna melts. It’s just the mood I was in. The other food looked good too.
Thanks for the great service on a busy day, Lumberyard!

Hm. «meh.» Is all I can really say. While this place isn’t bad, there are some issues that will ultimately prevent it from being a hit.
1. Let’s talk about hosting — when your sign says «please wait for hostess,» patrons don’t really expect the hostess to acknowledge them and then proceed to play with the TV remote for 5 minutes while they stand around. If the TV is that important, then I’d suggest serving it some food and trying to extract payment from it. This way, when people stop showing up, you’ll still have a customer.
2. Redo the description for your tri-​tip sandwich. Nobody in Cardiff refers to it as crack, except maybe the crack smoker who wrote the description. It is a mediocre, overpriced French Dip. Bully’s does a better job.
3. Work on your décor. You’re half way in between «super hipster» and «old man of the sea 1970s fish restaraunt.» Pick one. Your central lighting should be swapped out.
4. Less IPAs on the beer menu. Beer diversity is your friend.

I came here on Sunday to watch football with my friends. It was busy, but not overly crowded and not obnoxiously loud. Parking was a little bit difficult, the parking lot was full so I had to park on the street a couple of blocks up the hill. The place had a variety of people, but not the college kid loud crew that you would find in PB. There were some families here with small kids and babies which I would take any day over those college kids.
Best part: $ 3 mimosas and bloody marys from 9am-​2pm! And they werent overly diluated with juice. They also have $ 7 manmosas. My friend had to ask for more OJ to mix in because it was too strong for him. The staff hands out raffle tickets (for free) for a chance to win a prize. The day I was there it was some sort of T-​shirt and a Chargers jersey. As for the food, I cannot comment as I ate right before I came and didn’t eat any food.
The staff was super friendly and the service was good. As for the most important part (the football watching) they had multiple TV’s with different games on. There was a piece of paper attached to the TV to state which game would be playing on that screen and at what time the game started. That’s a good heads up as to where to pick your table location.
My friends and I were able to sit at a booth the entire time and were strategically located to see the Chargers game for them and the Jets game for me. There was a short wait to be seated.
I would have to say this has been one of the best football watching experiences I’ve had. I will definitely be back soon to watch the Jets kick butt!

Went their 2 times and got the same menu, crab benedict.
The first time, it was good enough to think about coming back again.
The second time, WTH?! The taste was so fishy. I would say it was rotten… Yuck!!! I couldn’t believe that they served such an awful dish… they should have made sure the freshness before they cooked.
The service was ok, so the reason I gave them 2 stars, because of the above reason. I won’t come back again. Bye-​bye…

Came here on a Friday night for dinner around 8:00. Parking was easy since they are located in a shopping center. In fact, parking was the reason we chose this restaurant over others on 101. We were happy with our choice. There was no available seating outside, but plenty inside. The restaurant is a little bit on the louder side since it seems to be more of a gathering place for groups. Looked like plenty of beers on tap.
We ordered the turkey & havarti sandwich (split it), but had it in a spinach tortilla instead of on bread. It was good! It came with fries or a salad and we had the salad.
Our server seemed new, but he did an ok job! I’d go back!