River Rock Lounge

I want to love this place so bad... the location is beautiful...the atmosphere... the decor ..the food has been hit or miss ....really depends on what you order... I think if you know what to order and get the right things it is good.They recently added a mushroom appetizer .. Do not order it.. this is actually hilarious.. it is literally a bowl of chopped mushrooms in like watery "wine" sauce (tastes like bland rawish mushrooms in a bowl of water) and it's an app and on happy hour menu... who wants to eat that, not to mention happy hour items are usually finger food... you and a friend can split a bowl of bland mushrooms in a bowl with two forks? I ordered it in good faith that it would be fancy, cool and delicious like the other happy hour items, but this was a huge fail. The service is hit or miss... I have had good service there and not so good service...the waitress was not attentive and they were dead.. HM.   BTW ..I thought the happy hour drinks were $5 and we were charged $7.

The service is here great.  No joke, everyone (and I mean everyone) is so nice and friendly.  We were here for dinner fairly early, but as we were leaving the place was filling up with a good crowd...will be back for sure.  The short ribs were great, the wings were really good too...

We considered having a big reception here, the space is terrific and feels much more like a lodge in Iowa than something in the middle of the Valley.  But our experience with the food was just ok -- it's an LA-ish menu with nice-sounding stuff, but it didn't quite have the tastes nailed like you'd hope.  Very pleasant service.

I'll go back but I'm afraid we have to take our party somewhere else.

BTW, Reno 911 fans may recognize the Caribou Room as the setting for a few episodes (notably the all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant).  That's reason enough to go!