The Boathouse Restaurant & Bar

Drove 30 miles to get here based a on recommendation. Got here at 7:15. Got sat down quickly. Ordered drinks and appetizers. Drinks arrived but no appetizers. Waitress returns at 7:50 and asked if I wanted food. (I’m sitting at a table and not a bar, still no appetizers yet). It’s 8:35 and still no food yet. Kept hearing excuses from her and other waitress about food coming out all at once for patrons here. The only problem is that the restaurant is less than half full right now. Our server botched up the table next to me on three occasions, forgetting their to go box. She brought out the wrong drink for my table. Came back and promised she was going to check on the order. Went to the server at 8:45 and it turned out the order never went though. Decided to leave.

Used to be our favorite place at Tahoe. While intentions were good, the service lacked even the most basic fundamentals expected of a restaurant. Appetizers came (40 mins after seating), but no silverware or plates. Drinks and water were missing despite repeated requests. Pasta was ice cold and the bill was wrong. Oh yeah and we were a party of 8 and there was only one other couple in the restaurant. And our bill was $ 490 and the paper napkins were an added touch. Strange experience after years of loving the place. Sadly, we will never go back and we will miss the many great meals and fabulous views we used to count on.

Restaurant is under new ownership, completely new, funky and fun staff! Absolutely scrumptious food, and easily the most beautiful lunch/​dinner spot on the lake. Actually over the lake if you choose outdoor seating. :) We are all working hard to get the place back on the radar! Don’t let reviews from the past prevent you from giving us a try! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
(Breakfast coming soon.)

Amazing view, good food, interesting service… We were seated and our waiter didn’t come to greet us or take our drink order for at least 15 minutes. We ordered drinks and he took our food order on a tablet. One hour passes… we see people that came after we were seated getting their food. We knew something was wrong but there was no waiter in sight to ask. Finally, we are informed that our order did not go through and they were rushing it and gave us a coupon for a free appetizer next time. Another 20 minutes, we get our appetizer and my boyfriend gets his meal. The garlic bread was amazing and my boyfriend’s chicken was delicious! I’m still missing my salad. We ask where my salad is and they finally bring it 10 minutes later. My Caesar salad was okay, nothing special. In the end, they only charged us for my boyfriend’s meals and gave us two coupons for free appetizers. They told us that they were switching over their ordering system the next day, so I would definitely come back to see if the service improves with the switch.

I booked a reservation for my sister’s bachelorette party after my mom heard great things about this place (with new ownership). Upon walking up to the restaurant, we could see the tables on the pier over the water and knew we wanted to sit out there (they preset us at those tables, knowing we’d love it). It was quite the spectacle upon only sitting down. Our servers were Matt and the bartender (cannot remember his name!) and they were both fantastic and attentive throughout our meal. The food was delicious as well – no on had a bad thing to say about their food! I would absolutely go back even if it were just for a cocktail or two. Great job turning this place around!

Beautiful location over Lake Tahoe. The food was great. We really enjoyed our time here. We will return!

Now maybe I went on an off night but I can’t believe this place has any good reviews after my experience. I first ate here when they reopened last summer with the new ownership. The view is amazing and I love the idea of eating on the pier. It get’s a little chilly though so we had to move inside. When we first came here a year ago the food was pretty good but the service was not great. Fast forward to a few nights ago. I guess they had a large party of 15 and were not able to keep up. The waiter informed us when we ordered our drinks that the large party had just put in a large food order so it would be about a half hour before we would get any food. We were going to leave but then the manager came over and said it wouldn’t be that long –15 minutes for appetizers and 25 minutes for dinner. That’s not too bad so we decided to stay. Our appetizers did come when promised and they were good. As we were eating we started overhearing the large party becoming very upset. I guess they had been there for over an hour and hadn’t received any food. After we ordered everything we never saw our waiter again. My husband had to get up to get our water and water refills. After 50 minutes we finally flagged down a waitress to ask about our food. She checked on it and said it was no where near being ready and that it would be awhile. At that point we got up and went down the road to Garwoods to finish our meal. I’m not joking when I say every single table at the restaurant was pissed off. I guess they had one of the kitchen guys call in sick because of a family emergency. I understand things happen out of your control but when you know you are short staffed and cannot accommodate the business you have walking through the door be upfront with your customers and let them know from the minute they walk in. We will not be back!

A great find in Kings Beach! Beautiful outdoor deck on the water and terrific food at a great price! Fish and chips and clam chowder are delicious. Nikki our server was terrific as was everyone else. Ask to sit on the outdoor deck. Family friendly menu at a great price. We will definitely be coming back

My family and I just finished a great meal at the Boathouse. Great service, great food and very friendly staff. They’ve only been open under new owners for two weeks and there was a little wait for some portions of our meal, but we weren’t in a hurry and just really enjoyed the whole experience. As a bonus, there aren’t any better views on the north shore than here.

This place needs to make a new Unilocal page for themselves… All the reviews are from Last year, and it now has a new owner, chef and the entire staff is new…
The food is quite possibly the best food I’ve ever had.
The view and setting is about the best in Tahoe.
The new owner is there working along side his staff and seems very cool.
Full bar, indoor and outdoor seating, ON THE WATER…
It’s a little spendy but totally worth it.

I would not recommend this restaurant. The atmosphere is weird and the staff are also odd. They frequently stand around and stare and then run off quickly. The one dish we ended up trying, as we were trying to leave without being rude, was mac and cheese which was very good but how do you screw that dish up?!

Love this place!!! Jim is amazing as are the rest of the staff!!! Let the location and the like music

I am transferring my previously written review to here. At the time I wrote it, Unilocal had not yet added this new restaurant’s information to their site and I had to submit my review under «Captain Jon’s, the previous restaurant at this location, but it is really for The Boathouse. I updated a couple things because I have driven by since and know that they at least have signage up now.
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We dined as a party of 4 about a week after they opened (early July 2014). They were still using Captain Jon’s phone number and possibly their online reservation system and the old signage was still up. Their website wasn’t up yet so we had to call them to learn what was on the menu. I did and they offered to read or email me the menu (I opted for the latter). We wanted to go there that night and decided that unless the menu looked ridiculously expensive we’d eat there anyway. It turned out to be within reason, which is a good thing. We didn’t see the menu until we arrived at the restaurant because they didn’t email it to me until about 10:30 pm! As a previous reviewer noted (under Captain Jon’s posting), the new Boathouse menu is very limited. There were 4 main course items (scallops, mahi mahi tacos, some kind of steak, and pork chops). (I see that there are 5 today.) We saw other potential diners sit down but then leave as soon as they saw there was no fish on the menu.
Good things: food was quite good (we ordered a roasted romaine salad and the scallop main course), but as was true with my previous review of breakfast at Captain Jon’s, the most special thing is getting to sit on a dock, in the fresh air, on the lake. We also were treated to the full moon rising. A+++ for ambiance that night.
Bad things: apparently they decided to save money by hiring totally inexperienced wait staff. Our waitress, cute and friendly, but obviously way underqualified to be a server in what is purporting to be a fine dining establishment, couldn’t answer any of our questions about the menu items. Simple question — how big is the salad? — was answered with hemming and hawing and, well, I guess I think its pretty big but then I’m a small person. No actual details about the salad, such as that it consisted of two halves of the heart of a head of romaine or that it was lightly grilled, but I’m guessing she had no idea even what romaine lettuce was. She admitted only having eaten scallops for the first time that week. Fortunately, there seems to be a good chef in the kitchen, but the service left a lot to be desired. Being cute and friendly does not excuse the staff from doing their jobs well. I admit that the memorized spiels you get in high-​end restaurants can seem pretentious, but it at least shows that the servers know about what’s being served that night. Really, how hard could that be with a menu that consists of only four main course options? Get to work, Boathouse servers. Owner, you need to have higher expectations for your staff and make them work harder for their tips. Your restaurant’s survival depends on it.
Another uncomfortable thing was the tablet they use for processing credit card payments. It’s not particularly discrete to have to designate your tip amount while the server is standing there waiting for the tablet back and the display doesn’t clear after you click ‘enter’. You can choose from among a selection of standard percentages for tip, but then you get to hand it right back to the server with your choice prominently displayed. I don’t know if I would have done otherwise, but I gave her a 15% tip because I felt sorry for her. In retrospect, I should have given less because she needs to learn how to deliver good service first.
Bottom line: The food and setting were good, but if the Boathouse doesn’t get its service act together pretty soon they’re going to get too many bad reviews to survive. If you’re not in a hurry and don’t mind a limited menu, cross your fingers and give them a try. Being on the lake made up for a lot, but not all, of the negatives. 5 stars for the setting, 4 stars for the food (for the price), and 1.5 stars for the service. That could be easily remedied, so I wish them luck.

This place has a great view. The water tasted foul even after adding a lemon I was still quite horrified. Very few diner choices on the menu two of which were unavailable. The salad we had was good, when our entrée’s arrived I was in shock. $ 29 dollars for 4 oz piece of lamb chop, prepared well but the sides mentioned were literally not there. I would normally have made some kind of a scene but my girl friend does not like the critical condescending side of me. I was coerced to leave without mentioning my severe distain for this place. I drove straight to Safeway to buy meat and cheese to calm my nerves then had some amazing ice cream.

I was very impressed by the food… halibut ceviche tacos in a rice paper shell and pork tenderloin with crispy brussel sprouts… what a find on the water at Tahoe! I highly recommend giving this new chef a try!