Upper Crust Trattoria

Upper Crust has been a reliable neighborhood restaurant for years. (My original review, years ago, gave it four stars). They have recently changed their menu, and not for the better. Some of our favorites are gone. More importantly, the food that we ordered was not up to their previous standards — it looked and tasted as though it had been prepared well in advance, refrigerated or frozen, and then warmed up, i.e. microwaved, prior to serving. (I can’t say that it was, but that’s how it tasted). Our last visit was very disappointing, particularly as this was our «go-​to» place. Hopefully whatever is going on in the kitchen can be rectified quickly. We’ll stay away until it is.

I’ve been eating the Chicken Caesar Salad at Upper Crust since I was in college 15 years ago. This place has only gotten better!

Everything from the artichoke appetizer to the Caesar salad and lasagna is below average. Stay away from the chicken cordon bleu. Burnt on the bottom and the potatoes were undercooked.
Save your money a
Be go elsewhere.

I’m so sorry, but the food was just not up to par. Not at all. I felt cheated having to pay for a meal I could barely eat. It was way too salty, very dry with parts over cooked and others under cooked. We still tipped our waiter as I didn’t feel it was his fault. But they really need to step up their game.

At first I was a bit confused as the hostess didn’t seem to be «with it». She said it would be 40 minutes for our party of 5, at around 8:30pm. A booth got up and left so we watched and figured they would set it up for us. We finally asked if the booth was available. Her response was «Oh, you want a booth?» Uh, let’s see… wait 40 minutes… we didn’t care that it was a booth as long as it wasn’t at the bar!!! Ugh! She sat us at a much larger table that was suddenly available, go figure! Good thing the food was really good. Everyone was pleased. I ordered the Chop chop salad with no dressing, and olive oil and balsamic on the side. Yum!

I have many fond memories of this establishment as I’ve been going for years (10+) with my family, however my visit the other day completely turned me off from ever going again– it has been my first visit within the last 2 years.
When I first walked in there was nobody waiting in line before us, so my family and I waited at the hostess stand to be seated. We waited a long time as several servers, management, and bussers walked by us, not even acknowledging we were there. Finally a manager walked up, looked at us and I told him how many were in my party– but his answer was «ok, but I have someone in front of you», not even a polite way of saying it. He had seemed to offer that couple a drink at the bar, but didn’t offer us even water or a menu to look at while we waited!
Finally we got a table, however no kids menu or mention of it for my toddler. The server took a very long time to come over and we had already decided on an appetizer, however he didn’t even ask if he could put one in for us. After receiving our drinks he finally brought bread. I mentioned how I was sad other tables received oil/​vinegar to dip the bread in but we didn’t. We had eaten almost the entire basket before the server brought the oil/​vinegar.
After receiving our appetizer and meals, everyone seemed to even forget we were still paying customers. Dirty plates piled up on our table, my iced tea was low for a very long time before anyone refilled it, and nobody came by to even check if we needed boxes. The most annoying part was that there was only one other table in the entire restaurant and the manager and his wife (another server) seemed to just stand there and talk to those guests the entire time instead of having the manager offer us the same hospitality.
Normally I would speak to the management about my experience, however knowing the manager was the one providing the worst customer service/​experience I turned to this to let others know. I’m extremely sad that a place I have been going to as a kid is now ruined by this horrible visit.

My husband and I stopped here on a Monday night after some Christmas shopping. I’ve been here before and the food was good. I went to the restroom and NO toilet paper and NO soap. Gross! We left. Restaurant wasn’t even busy. That means the employees aren’t using soap!

Very rarely do I get the time for a long lunch during the workday, and absolutely never do I get to have a midday cocktail.
With the year ending and a few vacation hours to spare, a friend and I met up to pretend to be ladies who lunch and shop all afternoon. Upper crust was a great choice. I had a super tasty gluten free pasta option and a cranberry martini. Thankfully they had just gotten Tito’s vodka in (corn based). I also appreciated that there was a bit extra left in the shaker, so the bartender sent our sever with a small glass full of the extra drink.
Good service, good food, good drink. If I were to complain about anything… It would be how close the tables are together. I didn’t particularly feel comfortable having any serious conversations while being SO close to every other table nearby.

Last experience we had great service and stellar food. This time was a completely different story.
Let’s start with the fact we had reservations for 5:30, were told we could arrive a bit early — which we did at about 5:15, were seated and then proceeded to wait for 30 minutes staring at menus — waiting for the waiter to even arrive on the job. Note to business — you should be able to accommodate at least a drink order!
So waiter finally arrives takes our drink order — 2 bottles of wine, a couple sodas, and water. Waiter disappeared for another 20 minutes before we got drinks. Note: we’ve now been sitting for 50 minutes and nobody has taken a food order — we were ready to order at the drink order, but epic fail.
Finally we ordered… A bunch of appetizers, salads and entrees (there were 8 in our party). Apps came out quickly, but the salads took almost another 45 minutes — and then a few had ordered a split salad — which arrived unsplit, and another salad was completely the wrong salad.
As you can tell this is becoming a pretty casual Sunday dinner having now waited over an hour and a half for entrees to arrive (note the waiter only returned to refill water, since it’s a dump and run operation — no other drinks were offered for refill or asked to order more).
Food finally arrives… Cold… Plates were stone cold, not even warmed… Food was lukewarm at best… (Steaks and seafood suck when it’s cold and pasta is even worse) Waiter offered to reheat a few of the plates — but most of us were ready not to be waiting anymore and just ate our cold meal.
The waiter did at least notice we were unhappy with the food and service — and comped dessert for our table (you earn a star for that).
Overall here we are four hours later finally fed (but not really — already starting to get hungry because the meal lasted so long) we were really not pleased. It kind of sucked — especially when you make reservations weeks in advance — and to find out that the banquet in the back is more important than the locals up front.
TLDR; if you got reservations, show up and find there’s a banquet in the back; immediately leave and go elsewhere.
The burger bar next door would have had better food that was served hot and service that wanted a good tip (and not an 18% large party handout).

Took my wife here for an early b-​day dinner on 10÷16÷15 since it is her fav Italian eatery in SLO. Dismayed to see Raspberry salad /​dressing /​recipe changed (tossing it before serving is WRONG and then seeing no evidence of the dressing, side of dressing provided was more a paste than dressing) and food preparation going downhill. I had special ‘swordfish’. It was rubbery and overly ‘lemoned’ to cover the lack of freshness.
Wife’s dish was a penne pasta w/​marinara that was dry.
Service good, wine good.
Sad, I’ll be choosing another eatery in the future.

A full bar with food that is A-​OK– not great but A-​OK. Avoid the crabcakes – I don’t know what that was– might be the worst ever?. I had the Chop Chop salad which was fine. There was something odd in the taste of the bread and balsamic/​oil opener. Not sure about that. I was in a party of six and everyone ate or most of their food. We had a super nice waitress, Sarah, and the ambiance is cozy.

This restaurant used to be good 5 years ago, now its not edible.
Salad was dripping with vinegar. And it was a Caesar. I didnt eat it. Chicken Marsala was wet and soggy, sauce was bad, pasta was soaked w butter. Halfway through my $ 20 chicken marsala, i thought about not finishing and just having the free bread for dinner. Do not eat here

Haven’t been here in a year or so, but used to frequent the restaurant often when we lived around the corner and always loved it. This visit was last Saturday night with my mom and her good friend for a late dinner. While our table was getting cleaned we looked at the special board (which is a really cool electronic thing) and saw a cucumber Cosmo as the drink special. We all thought it sounded wonderful (cucumber vodka is a new fave of mine) and decided to each get one. The drinks came out and the first thing we noticed was that each of them were an inch and a half from being full. It was enough for my mom’s friend to jokingly say «are you going to bring the rest of the drinks» to the waitress. She just kind of smiled and walked away. I will say we should have insisted on an actual full drink b/​c it was pretty clear that the bartender only made one shaker full and split it 3 ways between our martini glasses. As we are eating we comment to each other that we don’t really taste the cucumber in the vodka. Again we should have mentioned this right away, if my hubby was there he definitely would have. Towards the end of the meal the waitress is clearing some of our things and our friend mentions to the waitress that just as an FYI none of us really picked up the cucumber in our drinks. She looked at us blankly and said «cucumber in a Cosmo?» We pointed out yes, the drink special we ordered, the cucumber Cosmo. She said she thought we just wanted cosmos and kind of smiled and walked away. I can only think the waitress had no idea that was a drink special since our friend clearly ordered the special, the cucumber Cosmo. I don’t know how much the drinks were since our friend paid the bill, but we were all a little unimpressed with how everything went down.
Also, as far as food, I ordered the blackened Caesar salad that I used to dream about and while the salmon was delicious, the salad lettuce was wilted and the Caesar dressing was too oily and not creamy enough for my taste, the margherita pizza was pretty good and the chicken parmigiana was delicious, but the plain fettuccine noodles on the side was a boring choice.
I can’t even say our server was bad, she was just checked out.
Better luck next time, if there is a next time.

Nice service but the food … Well, we have had better.
Others have recently pointed out how sad the salads are. Our seared ahi came on a bed of arugula that «is fresh from this morning». I buy arugula at the farmers market and they are green tasty and peppery; not yellow, spotted and wilted.
If you do get the artichoke hearts know that these are pre-​marinated artichokes in brine and can be tart served on marinara tomato sauce– double tart.

I have to give this restaurant a mixed review. The main dishes are very good but the salads are horrible. We have eaten here 3 times in the last month. The service is very good with friendly and attentive wait staff.
I have had the ravioli, pizza and meatball sandwich. The ravioli was excellent, very fresh and the pasta was tasty and tender. Meatball sandwich was good, very generous on the meat and sauce was good. Pizzas here are excellent, the crust is baked just right, with the just the right amount of crunch and chew. I highly recommend the pizza with figs, blue cheese and arugula.
Now the salads are a different matter. My companion ordered the spinach salad which consisted of a pile of spinach leaves that were room temperature, dry, chewy and had obviously not been rinsed. I had the mixed salad which was terrible. Again, it was room temperature, dry and looked like it had been poured directly out of a «bag o’ salad» that had been stored on the counter next to the stove. I did mention to our wait person that the salad was room temperature and dry and she told me she would let the kitchen staff know. Alas, next time our salad was the same. I will say though, that the house dressing is superb and at least made the salad somewhat palatable.
So, go here for the excellent pizza or main dishes and avoid the warm, tough salad plates.

The first couple of times we dined here, the service and food were excellent. Last night, poor service and disappointing food ruined our experience.
We were seated right away early Sunday evening. The waiter took our drink orders (two glasses of chianti). Water and warm bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar arrived soon after. So far so good.
But then we sat for 20 minutes with no sign of our waiter or our wine. We finally had to ask another server to send our waiter over to us. He soon appeared with our wine, but no apology. He took our dinner order and left, never having described the specials of the day to us.
The chianti was not too bad. The warm bread was nice, but we had to ask for more olive oil and vinegar. For a table of four, one small saucer of oil was not enough. The salads were just OK, with wilted lettuce standing too long in dressing. Entrees were sub-​par (pesto gnocchi too salty; pasta pomodoro flavorful but disappointing due to rubbery cased sausage; would have been better had they used crumbled ground sausage.) The waiter asked if anyone wanted extra parmesan, one person said yes, but he never got it. We had to ask again, several minutes into the meal.
Ambiance: the drapes on the section next to the parking lot should be drawn at dinnertime. I had to ask that this be done. No one wants to see the gas station’s glaring floodlights and a lot full of cars pulling in and out during their meal in a nice Italian restaurant.
Which Upper Crust used to be.

Went here on a Thursday night and it was really good! Their bread and olive oil is ah-​mazing.
I ordered a chopped chicken salad and it was ginormous. Perfect for my ginormous appetite. Healthy and filling. Yum!
My husband got a personal size pizza. A little expensive, but it was good! Nice that Upper Crust has cheaper options when you’re trying to save money.

Solid 4 stars. Visited twice so far and two very good experiences.
Upper Crust is a family Italian joint in SLO, not the most expensive place in town, but certainly 3 stars up from the run-​of-​the-​mill Olive Garden types.
Seating area is decorated in the usual rustic Italian villa type brick and stucco. There’s also a party room for private events. Very clean restaurant, just a very welcoming place.
Hostess and wait staff are attentive, happy people everywhere to make sure you’re having a good experience.
Most recent lunch visit was some food before a wedding… I tried to eat super healthy due to the pending night of drinking and eating… so I opted for the Ahi and Field Greens salad. Very very fresh, light, and just enough of the protein to fill me up. The father of the bride (whom I was responsible for that day) got Chicken Marsala and just raved about it. Looked very good.
Since it is an Italian joint there are copious amounts of rustic breads and breadsticks prior to meals and salad arriving. I did taste a parmesan crusty bread stick and it was good… so good I wanted another.
We have not yet had to wait long here for seats, or service, or food… so far, so good. Definitely make Upper Crust a regular spot on our travels in/​around SLO.
ENJOY!

Good service, food, ambience, & big portions.
Romantic too!
What a find in SLO on Madonna Road!
Pizza= excellent.
Opportunity for a select few to sit behind or in front of a Fireplace= YES! & it is
romantic & fabulous.
Accomodate special diet requests= absolutely.
A more local hidden gem in a strip mall behind a CVS & Shell Gas station= yep.
Cheap= not really, but decent by SLO standards.
Friendly service= Absolutely!
Wine selection= fair-​good, by the glass too. Fair pricing with a decent selection.
Happy hour= yep, but kind of greasy offerings… like the Calamari.
Anyway, it far far better than many of the chains that you find on Madonna or Los Ossos road.
Great choice for locals & tourists alike.
Far better food than at the Olivey Gardenia…
but not as good as Rosa’s in Pismo Beach.
SLO= San Luis Obispo & surrounding areas.

I don’t know about the food but they pour a decent martini. And Happy Hour is 7 days a week 3−6pm.
I take it back, I stayed long enough to have the Seared Ahi appetizer which was very tasty. Definitely recommend this!