First Street Ale House - Livermore, CA

First Street Ale House
2086 First St.
Livermore, CA 94550
(925) 371-6588
firststreetalehouse.com

The small outdoor patio at First Street Ale House is almost always packed during dinner hours and with good reason - a large selection of ales, great service and reasonably priced good food. I'm not a beer drinker, but my husband enjoyed the Pyramid Apricot. We shared a mushroom-swiss burger, garden salad, crumbled bleu cheese burger and garlic fries...and the garlic fries were awesome!



Here's the scoop on their specials:

- Happy Hour is M-F from 4-6 (Tuesday all day) and it's $1 off all pints
- Pint Night Thursday is $5.25/first pint, $3.25/refills and you keep the glass (the sign said "Gordon Biersch Marzen or Hefeweizen")

Big White House - Livermore, CA

Big White House
6800 Greenville Rd
Livermore, CA 94550
(925) 449-1976
bigwhitehouse.com

The sign said: Big White House Winery & John Evan Cellars and Tasting Room. But it was actually an A-frame barn...just in case you think you're lost! Anyway, we came here during Livermore's First Barrel Tasting Weekend and tried their Sangiovese, which was decent but I didn't love it. I'd like to come back for a regular tasting, as I think I might enjoy that peach champagne I heard about...

Rock House Sports Pub & Grill - Livermore, CA

Rock House Sports Pub & Grill
1840 Portola Ave
Livermore, CA 94551
(925) 960-9110

We ate dinner here for the first time tonight and arrived starving, so the food should have tasted really good based on the hungry factor, right? Negative.

Our server Brittani was no help in adding any stars to this rating, she even brought out the tab midway through my dinner and came back a minute later to try to collect it. Call us old-fashioned, but we typically don't pay until we're finished eating...!!!

The mixed green salad was delicious for what it is (note: they didn't bring out any bread, so either they don't offer it or they forgot.) The veggies were also delicious and the fries were pretty awesome, too. Unfortunately, we were paying $20 for a New York Steak and $17 for Baby Back Ribs and neither one of them were very good.

DH ordered the steak "medium" and they brought it out cold the first time, then well-done and warm the second time. He told the server it was well-done and he had asked for it to be medium and all she said was, "Oh, sorry" and walked away. Out of my half-rack, there were only two ribs that were decent; the others were dry and tough. Good thing I asked for fries because that was mostly my dinner. Poor DH, he ordered mashed potatoes and they were pretty bland.

If it wasn't for the fact that we used a Restaurant.com $25 gift certificate that we bought for $2, I seriously would have had diner's remorse...I would have much rather spent the money just about anywhere else. But since our total only came to $20.16 (including the 18% gratuity they tack on as a part of the gift certificate terms) I guess I'm not complaining...so DH just ate his well-done New York Steak and I settled for a couple of good ribs and we'll call it our last meal there.

One star for the salad and fries. This experience wasn't terrible enough to be a zero star rating, but not good enough to make us repeat customers. Well, they do have 1/2 off appetizers on Tuesday...maybe we'll be back for that one day, but definitely not for a meal.



Dinner for two including tax and tip: $20.16
(courtesy of a $25 Restaurant.com gift certificate)