Front Room Martinez

The food here is OK. That’s why it get two stars, as for the judgmental service and ownership, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE! The comments from the owner as soon as we walked in, «my other customers are not used to you people.» Yes, we were a bit eccentric coming in, excited to eat at the pizza place downtown we hadn’t frequented yet. The entire experience was a drag, from the owners judgey badger attitude to the waitress’s dirty looks. Don’t waste your time eating out here with your family or significant other.

Fantastic local restaurant with friendly staff and very good food. Wonderful location in downtown Martinez! Local gem!

Walking in I didn’t think much of the appearance of the place. But once our food came out I instantly knew why the place was packed. They serve the best burger and steak in town. Honestly I haven’t had a better burger in this county. Kids had pizza which looked delicious and grandma had a steak that she couldn’t stop talking about. Glad to have a place in Martinez to bring the family that has great service and even better food.

How could a restaurant that focuses on American, Italian, French and seafood EVER go wrong?
Let’s ignore the vast number of misspellings and typos that litter the poorly designed menu. Let’s sweep aside the crudely laid out dining room and its Holiday Inn inspired artwork that sparsely decorates its empty walls. I’m even tempted to forget about the compete lack of knowledge and/​or interest that the wait staff held. So instead, I’m just going to talk about the «food».
At a place where burgers seem to be the order of the day, I decided a New York Steak sandwich would be a safe bet. My friend decided on the trout meuniere (spelled meniere on the menu). Ballsy choice. The steak was stringy and tough (I ordered medium rare). The fries were tasteless and oily.
As for the trout: the «glaze» that should compliment a nice piece of fish was instead a thick gravy that was slathered over a dried-​out slab of seafood. Presentation was not a word that seems to be known to the cook staff.
As much as I applaud new restaurants trying something different, my screaming advice is: do one thing and do it well. Doing fourteen things all at 30% is an Ameritalifrench recipe for disaster. Best of luck to the business, but I will not be going back.

I order bacon cheese burger with fries. Was really good had the home made grilled taste. Waitress was great she looked like she had a long day but it did not effect her great service. I will be back.

Consistently Wonderful food and very reasonable prices.
There is no need to go to walnut creek when we have better restaurants in Martinez.
Check’em out!

Been here 2 times and both times ordered to go, so I can’t review the service quality.
First time I had their steak sandwich and fries. It was great! Highly recommend.
Today I ordered the deep dish pizza. I’m more of a regular/​flat crust but time to time like deep dish. It was pretty darn good!
Also ordered the chocolate cake and it was amazing.
Bottomline, the food is solid and looking forward to trying their lasagna and pasta dishes

My husband and I ate here for dinner and we were pretty disappointed. They advertise «Best Pizza in Town», so we shared a mushroom pepperoni pizza. The complimentary breadsticks were dry, and the pizza was just okay. Sightly sweet sauce, canned mushrooms, and decent pepperoni. It’s pretty sad when the best part of the meal is the side of ranch. (I’m a ranch snob)
Pluses:
–Good service
–Decent prices
Minuses
–Subpar ingredients
–Weird ‘sweet’ pizza sauce
Overall: meh
My husband isn’t very picky and he was disappointed too. I think I’ll stick to Pacifica for pizza in Martinez, and maybe try this place again for pasta or another entrée.

The food was amazing we had teriyaki chicken and the tortellini and all was so tummy no complaints! Our sever was great, she was super sweet and and super knowledgable. Will definitely come back again!

Ive ordered pizza here for pickup a couple times since it came to martinez. The regular pizza is not bad considering price, size, taste, etc. Not good but better than these mountain Mikes and domino’s style pizzas. Finally dinned in recently for a long awaited deep dish «quiche like» Pizza.
Don’t waste ur money because it wasnt deep dish pizza. It was a thin dough bottom just piled with way too much cheese. It Looked like Slop! And the pizza was supposed to be half salami, well it only had 3 small salami slices, 3!
Also we had the «fried calamari.» Well sure it was fried, but not at the restaurant. Fried batter was just flaky and falling off (like when u microwave boxed, pre-​fried foods). And the sauce was just ketchup lmao!
Not sure if we’ll ever be going back.

The pluses: Service was fast and pleasant. The place is clean and feels «new». There is a big screen TV (which was playing Soccer — Barcelona v. Arsenal (no sound)).
My waitress brought 2 big warm pizza dough type breadsticks with butter after I sat down. They were probably the highlight of the meal.
I ordered an Arnold Palmer, and it was tasty but I was never offered a refill.
For lunch, I ordered the hot chicken sandwich with onion rings. It came on a sesame seed bun, already «schmeared» with mayo, a side of red onion, pickles, lettuce and tomato. It had a white cheese melted on top.
The chicken itself was a breast but had been cut very thin. It was sort of rubbery and spongy at the same time. In one spot I’m not 100% sure it was cooked all the way despite being so thin. It looked very much like the frozen Foster Farms thin-​cut breasts they have in the freezer at Costco. The bread itself reminded me of a bun that you might buy at Safeway (not the bakery section) when you are looking for the cheapest bun you can find for a big party. I didn’t particularly like my sandwich.
I was hoping the onion rings would save the day, but they weren’t homemade and reminded me a lot of something you might also get at Safeway in the freezer section and cook in the oven for a bit. They weren’t very crispy either and seemed a bit undercooked to my liking.
The sandwich also came with a slice of cantaloupe. It’s February and cantaloupe is definitely not in season around here and the cantaloupe itself was not very ripe.
They did bring around a free small bowl of ice cream with a bit of chocolate sauce and whipped cream. I didn’t really want it but I appreciated the gesture. Arguably I might have gotten a piece of one of the cakes in the window that looked interesting, but probably not as I was feeling a little grossed out by the chicken.
So I can’t comment on any of the other items — maybe the pizza is a better choice?

Amazing service, great food. What more can I say? I was greeted very warmly when I walked in, and the kind man insisted that I sit down and relax. The restaurant name really fits the culture and atmosphere – I was very impressed.
The food was superb. Exactly how I ordered it, and they were very attentive. Speed of service was amazing, and I felt that they were very tuned in.
The place was spotless, very clean, and nicely arranged.
My advice: if you are in this area, eat here. These are the types of local businesses I love to see succeed, winning customer loyalty one-​at-​a-​time with good old fashioned great service and great food.

It’s nice to be blown away by service! From offering refills on tea soda bread sticks and free ice cream the restaurant is unbeatable. Speaking of breadsticks they’re made from the same pizza dough are at least 18 inches long and an inch around. Delicious! You may want to ask for and light mayo as it was a little heavy on the club sandwich. The meatball sandwich was tasty with generous amounts of cheese on a fresh toasted bun. She gave us breadsticks to go underscoring how generous this restaurant is!

So glad I finally tried this place today, it will for sure not be the last. We had two Pizzas one cheese and on of the Chinese pizzas both were really good. No more round table for us. And to top of the good pizza the staff was incredibly nice. the man gave my son a bread stick while we we waiting, which I took a bite of and it was really good too. Can’t wait to try some other things there, and help support this great local business!!!

Wonderful service, great food, what a great addition to downtown Martinez.
The Front Room used to be another pizza place that was terrible, so please try the new Front Room!
They even capped our meal with a complimentary ice cream dish each!

Today I met Alan in Martinez after my exercise class at the Y. He was getting his car detailed before our impending trip to Ashland, mainly to get the dog schmutz out of the back seat so we can carry passengers w/​o embarrassment. I picked him up at Kaiser, where they had taken him to wait, since they don’t have a waiting room. He had a restaurant in mind on Main Street, but when we went in he found there was little on the menu that he could eat on his low sodium diet. We looked across the street and saw the Front Room, so we walked over. We were greeted warmly by the owner and encouraged to seat ourselves wherever we liked. There are a variety of tables, w/​sturdy straight backed chairs w/​cushioned seats. Very comfortable. We were given menus and our drink orders were taken. We both had iced tea.
I asked the waitress if this place was related to the Front Room in Vallejo. It seemed likely, as the font on the sign and the menu was the same. She confirmed that it was the same owner. I used to meet my high school friend Annette for lunch at the original location on Redwood Street. I remember loving their pizza. I don’t remember whether she and I met when they moved to the waterfront location, but my work team did and we’ve held department gatherings there. I really liked it. This location has been open for three months. They start the meal w/​a basket of their breadsticks, which are delicious. They come w/​pats of butter if you’re so inclined. I was in the mood for a salad and ordered the shrimp avocado salad, which came w/​a choice of dressings. I chose red wine vinaigrette. Alan ordered a steak sandwich medium rare. It came w/​a choice of onion rings, fries or minestrone, I think. He chose the fries, no salt.
Alan’s sandwich arrived first, a thick, juicy piece of steak on a roll. The fries were steak cut. Alan pronounced it the best steak sandwich he’d had and the bite he gave me confirmed that it was terrific. The steak came topped w/​sauteed mushrooms and onions. It was about $ 12.95, very reasonable for the quality and amount of food. It says clearly on the menu that all sandwiches come w/​mayonnaise, so he was able to have it held. My salad was also fresh and delicious, w/​a mixture of romaine and iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots, a few olives, shredded cabbage, a good amount of tiny shrimp and half an avocado. The dressing came on the side. Very tasty. It was $ 11.95. At the end of our meal they brought us complimentary ice cream, vanilla w/​chocolate syrup. Alan didn’t have any, but I did. We may be back when it’s my turn to have my car detailed. Otherwise some other time, but we’ll be back.

The Front Room is a GREAT addition to Martinez. The owner and staff are always friendly and attentive and the food is excellent and consistent. Some of my favorites are the drunken chicken, the steak sandwich, the pot stickers, and the pizza of course!
Delicious!

First time here for a late lunch around 2:30pm with a co-​worker. The staff was warm and attentive. We munched on appetizers and all of them were tasty. Calamari, fried zucchini and mussels in garlic butter. The owner treated us to a couple of sorbet desserts at the end of our meal. A perfect sweet ending to a relaxing dining experience with a friend.
Thank you Chai (please forgive my spelling)…I’ll definitely be back!

This place is awesome! All aspects of our dining experience was great… the food… the staff… the atmosphere… the cleanliness… the owner… etc, etc. If they keep up the high standards they should do well.
We dined here on the spur-​of-​the-​moment, so we had no preconceived notions nor influence of other Unilocalers review (s). We were greeted with a warm attentive greeting as we entered, they accommodated our seating request, took our orders without any type of impatience as we inquired about menu choices as it was our first time. Service was prompt.
The menu offers a variety from pizza to pasta to sandwiches. to salads… to appetizers to burgers. As a side note the slightly higher prices at first stuck out to me, BUT after eating their food I can now see they use quality ingredients which raises the bar, no fillers/​frozen stuff here! I don’t mind paying more if the food & service are top notch.
They started us out with WARM bread sticks & fresh butter (yummy!), followed by our delicious order of fried zucchini sticks, which were fresh & light NOT greasy or heavy. We ordered burgers w/​fries/​onion rings. All the food was cooked perfectly to our specs & the portions were large. If that wasn’t enough to fill our happy bellies we were informed by our waitress the meal came with ice cream for dessert! WOW! What a nice surprise. It was a perfect ending to a nice meal. All the other patrons around us were also praising their food choices. Next time we are going to try the pizza and/​or pasta.
Go check it out. Business will probably pick up as word spreads but be patient even if there’s a line, we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Go enjoy yourself and explore downtown Martinez… plenty of street parking and its location is safe and clean. Afterword go take a stroll around the marina area! ;-)

My family and I checked out the recently opened Front Room Martinez for dinner over the weekend. My dad has been to previous locations in San Francisco years ago which was under the same owner. The menu offered a variety of pastas, burgers, steaks, seafood and pizzas. The service was excellent from beginning to end. We were warmly greeted by the owner and were immediately seated. Along with our calamari appetizer (which was great!), we were given an order of pot stickers on the house. A very generous gesture. The pizzas were great but the best part of our meal were the burgers and fries. Each meal includes a small ice cream dessert which I thought was pretty cool. I can’t say enough about the service at this place. It was top notch. We are definitely making this one of out regular spots whenever we are in the area.