I won't go back..... The place was FUNKY, and not in a good way. Drink servers should NOT have nasty, dirty, fungus ridden fingernails.....it's just NOT OKAY! Dirty is as dirty does.... That being said.....the wait staff were friendly .....I imagine they are what keeps the place afloat! The food was...... okay. read more

I've been driving past this place thinking it is a run down dive of a bar these past few months, now I know its a half decent lunch alternative. It is heaving this afternoon, had to settle for a seat at the bar, the snior citzen club of Pinole seemed to have taken all the tables! It's nothing above average food, the BBQ sauce is pretty non descript, but I wasn't expected a gourmet feast or anything like that. i'll go back, but I won't be beating the doors down to get in! read more

So sad my boyfriend and i always eat here the last couple of times we have the food has been so bad. I think they might have gotten a new cook? Not sure but i always order the same thing and so does my boy friend. The chicken on my salad was old and hard the salad was small and the The greens looked old. They also told me they changed the way they make it. And not for the better might i add. The turkey on my boy friends sandwich was under cooked. So sad cause i think after this i will never go back. Rip embers read more

My husband and I have been going to Embers for breakfast for years. The food was always served hot, but the last few times we went the food was served burnt and cold! We won't return. read more

Normally the service is great.. Today the service was crap! But food was good as normal.. No soup and the server had an issue.

Embers is the kind of place you go for old school American MEAT and Potatoes! the portions are HUMONGOUS a normal person would never be able to finish their triple combo, ribs, ham and beef. you could order that for three young children. the Salads are old school iceberg lettuce, beets and beans with the top three dressings. they make their own sauce (very mild) I have to spice it up a bit. The staff are wonderful and the prices are low. I strongly recommend the French dip or one of the large meat combos. read more

When first hearing of this place, I thought it was Chinese! My bad haha. Visited this restaurant on a tuesday afternoon for some lunch. I ordered the half ribs, half chicken combo. I was asked if I would like the sauce on it or on the side. Now I love me some sauce all over my ribs so I said on it! To my surprise, the ribs and chicken were smothered in what looked like a watered down gravy. It was definitely NOT what I was expecting. This gravy? was not even good. I didn't eat more than a couple bites, the leftovers went to my dogs. So I left hungry and upset. I wish they had a description of what their meals are prepared, that wouldve saved me a lot of grief. My friends didn't really enjoy their meals either... On a happy note, service was really friendly and attentive. To end this review, I would not recommend this place to anyone :[ read more

This place is great! Good food and good service! You can always depend on Embers giving you a satisfying meal!!! I can come here anytime of the day and have breakfast... It's the best!!! So lucky to have such a gem nearby!!! read more

Traditional diner. Nothing special. I've only had breakfast at this place. Service lacked -took about 15 minutes for waiter to get us water. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, since it was a Sunday morning. Plates are reasonably sized. Omelet was ok -generously filled with ingredients. Club sandwich was decent. Will give it to them -pancakes and waffles are delish. Yet, not good enough to make me come back! read more

Hot coffee, quick happy service and great breakfast. What more could you want. I always come early as to miss the crowds. The decor is outdated but I don't go there for that, I go for the food and service. read more

We came here couple of times and we had good time. This place had old time feel to it. I saw people with their parents and grandparents. They were telling is that they have been coming here for long time. Nice simple menu. Nice prompt service. read more

The Embers has been one of our go-to places for decades. They've resisted the urge to go pricey-upscale and just keep on pumping out the kind of simple, solid food that keeps the folks in the neighborhood smiling. The meat they cook in their brick oven is beyond description: last year a bunch of us got invited to a party at a certain ultra-pricey steakhouse in Cupertino, and when the beautiful steaks with the mediocre flavor arrived, my date whispered in my ear, "we get better steaks than these at the Embers!" Can't argue. Love their salads, too. A little secret that's not on the menu: you can order any of their barbecued meats instead of bacon or sausage for a truly-wonderful-breakfast. The hamburger-lover in our pack sings the praises of the Emberger, and the spud addict adds a plug for the fries. But be warned -- their Achilles heel is what they call Barbecue Sauce -- it's a drab gravy-sort-of-thing that steals points from the meat. Give it a pass, and you'll be fine! read more

Came to eat a late breakfast around 1pm on a Saturday. We were greeted and seated we ordered our drinks right away and waitress came to get our food order in a timely manner. I ordered the California egg Benedict which was delicious! The avocados were fresh and the sauce was tasty. My daughters had hash browns and chocolate chip pancakes which I'm guessing we're very good since they ate all their food. My coffee cup was never empty. Overall service and staff here is great and attentive. Breakfast is great. I will be returning for dinner another day. read more

This place is near where I grew up,I do like this place, I order a turkey on a Persian roll,or the rib dinner both are a good choice...once and a while a eat breakfast,it is fair. read more

Food was ok. The place was uncomfortable, it was hot in there. Our lemonades had some black specks on it, dunno if it was because the cups were dirty or if something was in the lemonade. Probably won't come back to this place. read more

Not so much , shame as I live up the street and would have loved to make this our family breakfast place . oh and the service is horrible and they are not welcoming at all ? read more

I don't come here too often as Pinole is just not really a destination, but when I am in the area, I always stop at The Embers and get the "special lunch". My choices are a salad and a turkey sandwich. The salad is just iceberg lettuce and a beet or two, and some garbanzo beans and and I get the blue cheese dressing (I tell them to hold the kidney beans). The turkey is piled high on the sandwich, on a bun with lots of sauce. That is one big lunch, so I can only usually eat just half of the sandwich, which makes for great leftovers later. Who could resist a hot turkey sandwich, drenched in gravy, on a soft white roll heated up later? Most of the food there is big food and is not low calorie. The breakfasts are huge - way too much egg for me. It's comfort food definitely. Sort of a gutbuster, almost induces a coma or at least a nap immediately afterwards. read more

Came here the other night with family and my baby friend. This isn't a 4 star restaurant this is a no frills place with "comfort food". This is one of those places that you have to know what to order. Example: I wouldn't dare come here and order a fancy salad with all the trimmings. Because the lettuce will be brown and wilting and you will get the white parts of iceberg lettuce. We ordered 2 steak dinners (very reasonably priced). Meatloaf was great ! Chicken and Dumpling soup for baby friend was seasoned well and tasted home made. Salad that came with the dinner-see description above.. Waitresses were sweet. I gave them an extra star because: 1. The chefs wear white uniforms and fancy white hats 2. You can see what the chefs are doing no walls to hide anything 3.Next day came back for a bowl of their chicken & dumplings. Even though they changed their soup of the day the chef offered to reheat some for me :) read more

The barbecued meat is good, but their sauce is like Tabasco gravy. Its pretty gross. People bring their own bbq sauce, LOL. They've got omelets which are ok. The service is ok. There's a lot of old people there all the time. read more

First off, I will say that Ive only been for breakfast but I have yet to be disappointed,,Never been especially crowded and I get a seat without too much of a wait. The menu is standard shit.. omelets, pancakes, french toast etc. I always get an omelet.. theres a jumbo jim that has ground beef, cheese and spinach.. thats right up my alley. You can have your standard potatoes or maybe sub them out for fruit or cottage cheese. I usually have a biscuit. comes out warm and melts the butter. pretty damn tasty. The service isn't to the point where theyre checking on you every 5 minutes I guess thats what some people look for. I take it for what it is, and Ive never had a bad time. If you go here, be nice, be local. you won't be disappointed. read more

Food is so good! You get plenty of it. Staff is pretty nice. Great, old fashion place to eat

A friend and I had breakfast here this morning. I hadn't seen him in over 30 years. I had a spinach, mushroom and cheese omlet. It was excellent. I continue to enjoy the food and good service at this place. read more

Not bad had BBQ chicken n itz not on the menu basically ordered da chicken den asked for BBQ sause I think it was frozen Yukk still was ok

Would have been a 5 stars take out was cold when picked up 15min. The time before order was much hotter.but ribs were burnt on under side. These ribs after warming them up was really great. Sauce was perfect. French fries could have been a little more done! The deference between kinder ribs are completely different. Both great for two different menus. THE ONLY THING KINDER RIBS THAT WE GOT WAS TASTER FOR A BARBECUE COOK OFF! ONLY 4 SMALL RIBS FOR TWICE THE PRICE. kinder 2.5Stars. They need to wake up the kids that are serving at kinder aren't doing them justice! read more

This place needs remodeling from the inside their food is more expensive than Danny's and is not even good I cook a better meal than this people I will never come back here again read more

I come here about once a month with my friend for breakfast. I am particular about my food and have to say that it's perfect every time. Frances and the rest of the crew give us awesome service every time we come. We have never had a bad meal here. Love this place! read more

The Embers - Barbeque Near Me - Pinole, California

The food here is great. Love there food just the waitresses are SNOBS N RUDE AS HELL, good place to order and pick up and go home & eat in a nicer invironment, instead of snobby waitresses. read more

Good breakfast spot, good breakfast plates and good service in the morning that is. At night it all changes i went there for dinner and the food was ok but the service sucked. They were trying to rush people out after letting them in so they can close up shop for the day. I recommend this place for breakfast but not for dinner. 3 stars A-ok. read more

Unfortunately I have to change my review to a two star. There would be none for the ribs which is the reason I went there. The last two times they tasted like boiled meat. Awful and bland. The staff of nice so I guess I leave two stars for them. Sad this place used to taste as good as the smell from the oven. Not anymore though. read more

I read all the negative reviews before going for breakfast yesterday and I must say I was very aprehensive. I don't know what restaurant they went to but it couldn't have been the one I went to as the restaurant was one of the cleanest I have been to and the food and service was awesome. There were 5 of us for breakfast and all were impressed. I did catch hell for my warnings to all my friends after reading the awful reviews. I had the special of the day..Eggs benedict on canadian bacon with hash browns. We had a wonderful waitress who never let the coffee cups go empty.The service was very fast,etc.. all in all,a very pleasant experience. From now on,I will take the comments on YELP with a big grain of salt. read more

Embers is my families go to for breakfast and lunch! The staff is always really nice and make sure you have a great experience right when you walk in! Love it here. read more

I used to come here as a kid and really liked it. I would always get the ribs with their house sauce. It's not really a barbecue sauce it's like a gravy. It's kind of acquired taste. You can get barbecue sauce if you want. Today the service was great as it usually is. A couple of us had sandwiches, breakfast and barbecue. Breakfast was good as usual. Sandwich was okay, sliced meat a little dry. As far as the barbecue, sliced meats, and fried, or baked chicken do not order It is dry cold and old. The Only Thing Worth getting from that section in the menu is the ribs,or Burger. Everything else is dry, taste like I has been sitting there all day if not a day old and then just reheated or dumped in the fryer when ordered. We had a little joke going. Do you want some fried chicken jerkey,or sliced turkey jerky. Needless to say we ordered a couple of the meat plates and the only thing we ate were the ribs. Everything else in them bbq plates/combos were definitely old and not fresh. Oh the fries were great. Nice and crispy like they were twice-fried. Also the salad was good, and fresh. The word to the wise either breakfast burgers salads sandwiches soups and maybe the ribs. But stay away from the fried/grilled chicken and the sliced Meat combo you'll leave hungrier than when you came in . The only reason I'm giving him three stars is because of the breakfast and the service. read more

I love the Embers Special Lunch Beef with sauce on the fries. Been going there for years!

I used to go here once a week when I was working around Richmond Hilltop, but because I live out of town, I rarely make it here anymore. The best Tri-tip sandwich! the last time I was here, I waited too long and the latina waitress had an attitude. It looks like they might have changed employees. read more

The Embers reminds me of a typical American diner that serves not only BBQ dishes with its own sauce, but fried chicken, burgers, steaks and breakfast all day. When I eat here, I usually get the "Special Lunch" with beef on a persian roll with their house sauce on the side so I can dip my crispy fries as well as my healthy size, all meat sandwich in it. It is a popular dish. The service is good with ample parking in the plaza lot. read more

This morning my husband and I decided to go to Embers for breakfast. I had heard good things about Embers and he had eaten there in the past and liked the food so I was excited to try it. It was pretty packed when we arrived had to put our name on a list and wait for seating. While waiting my husband noticed flies on the wall, I assumed it was because we were waiting close to the door. The wait was only about 10 minutes, not bad for a holiday. Once seated we noticed that there were still flies on the walls surrounding us. That should have prompted me to leave but we had a busy day a head and needed to get going. I ordered the chicken fried steak and my husband got the corn beef hash, we both got the house fries with our meals. The waitress was nice. Our food took a while but we knew it would because it was busy. Our food arrived and already from the looks of it I was let down. But husbands corn beef hash looked like a child's portion. But we began to eat. My country friend steak was hard to cut and chew, the gravy was flavorless. Both of our potatoes weren't fully cooked and some was burnt. I ate my toast, my husband ate his pancakes, it took a really long time before our waitress ever came back to check in us by the time she did we needed to leave. I let her know the problem she was defensive and said nobody else complained today.. Guess we were just lucky? So we still ended up paying for the food we couldn't eat. Needless to say we won't be returning to Embers. read more

The atmosphere here at The Embers leaves much to be desired... This place doesn't feel like it belongs in the Bay Area, actually. It feels like a coffeeshop or a truck stop along I-5 or some other interstate highway. But for what it lacks for ambiance, the food definitely makes up for it. During the entire time we were in the car to Pinole, my lunch crew hyped up this place about their spare ribs and how good it was. I had really high expectations. I mean really, is it really worth a trip to Pinole for ribs?? I was expecting a BBQ joint but turns out it's just a good old fashioned coffeehouse that serves fantastic ribs. We shared the double order or ribs and BBQ chicken. Whoa, they were so good! And, their Chef's Salad is GINORMOUS. No one told me it fed 4 people! Well, for $10, I didn't expect it to be so big. We coudln't finish our food and by the end of our meal there were 3 to-go boxes. I can't wait to dig into the leftovers. Btw, the wait staff is very attentive and the waitress called me "baby" and "babe" the whole time. It felt so politically incorrect but I kinda liked the personalized attention. Ok, so yeah, it was definitely worth the drive to Pinole to eat Ember's ribs! read more

Well. What can I say? So disappointed in this place. It's been there for years. I went there to get two orders of spaghetti to go. I simply asked that the meatballs be in a separate container from the spaghetti noodles. This small request really angered the cook. He slammed the containers on the counter as he completed them. I paid, took my food and left. I had no intention of eating the food after I saw the cook use his bare hands putting my spaghetti in the containers after he was opening cabinets and fooling around in back. When I got home I opened the containers and the spaghetti noodles were part spaghetti and part linguini noodles and they smelled terrible. Normally I would never even have taken the order after what I saw but at that point I just wanted out of the whole weird situation. I called there and told the order taker what happened. I let her know that I did NOT want my money back. I would simply never return. read more

I'm going to make this simple. I joined yelp simply to write up a review of how horrible this place is. 1st and most importantly, they claim to have the best BBQ everything... and their BBQ sauce is the worst thing they have their. It taste exactly like tomato soup and tobasco sauce!?? Yuck! It may be that Im use to real southern cooking but it was disgusting..... and their ribs...HA.. they might as well just call it fat with a side of sauce!.. Pretty much..!! This was definitely the worse food I could recall ever eating! You might as well give your money away.... read more

I've been to this resturaunt many times, and latly it isn't the same. The best server they Had quit, and after having a chat with the simple minded owner the other day I see why she quit. This lady is a downright mess. She made it very uncomfortable for my husband and I because she was rude and frantic. If I were her I would definitly quit my Day job. food is ok. But customer service is terrible. Does anyone know where the server they had there works now? I'm pretty sure her name was debbie???? This place needs to be under new managent. Customers are probably dropping like flies. I wouldn't recommend this resturaunt unless you want to be treated like they are paying you to eat there. The owner should do everyone a favor and open a donut shop. She cannot handle the heat! read more