Mountain Room Lounge

Very disappointed after the last visit. The staff was very unaccommodating and just annoyed, when we requested to watch a different basketball game on one of the four tv’s. With three of the four tv’s playing the same basketball game. If your looking for a place to grab a drink and watch the game, this is not the PLACE. The staff will not do what’s right or what’s fare to the customer. I have never been to a bar the wouldn’t spit broadcasting equally between the tv’s. Considering it was the NBA Playoffs, makes it even more ridiculous, that both NBA games wouldn’t be on.

I was bummed. We were looking for a place to get some eats and drinks and their menu wasn’t too sophisticated. It’s an OK place to go in the valley.

I’ve been here 3 times over past 2 – 3 years, both before and after the new Yosemite concessionaire took over operations in the park.
I wouldn’t consider going here for anything but a drink or to make smores around their fireplace with pre-​purchased kit (that’s allowed).
One quick look around their un-​bussed tables, numerous weary-​looking customers awaiting menus/​drinks/​food, servers with terrible attitudes and you know there’s a problem.
I suspect the problem is systemic and nobody in management has the chops to get things done. An Aramark employee not at the Lounge speculated that union employees were the reason for the problem (unconfirmed).
Huge drink menu, tiny food menu. You’ll see the reason at the back left of the Lounge. The kitchen is tiny, basically a nook of a prep-​kitchen, which is why the food menu is so inadequate, which would be fine if were half way ok. It’s not. If it ever gets to you. Or if your server even ever brings you menus or takes your orders.
Unfortunately, after 8pm, this is the only place open for food in Yosemite Valley. Hopefully more restaurants or even grocery stores will be open after 8pm during busier months as was the case with the prior Yosemite concessionaire. Otherwise… good luck.

After a long day of hiking or exploring the valley, the Mountain Room Lounge is a nice place to unwind and warm back up. It does tend to get crowded as the night goes on, though, so come early or be prepared to hunt for a table!
THE OVERVIEW.
+ Seat yourself (no reservations taken that I know of)
+ Pretty decent beer and cocktail selection (not sure how I feel about their food menu)
~ Service can be hit or miss; our own server somehow ‘didn’t see us’ for the 10 minutes we were seated, so we flagged down a very nice guy who helped us out (wish we could’ve somehow tipped him instead)
~ A little pricey for what you get, but so is everything in the Valley, it’s not exactly a breeze to get things there in bulk
Good enough spot for a cool beer (and maybe a s’mores or two).

Best option for the valley area. Good for catching a game and beer, very limited food menu. Great fire pit if you can grab a table next to it.

Rocking place to be for celebrating New Year’s Eve
My wife and I are both 60 and thoroughly enjoyed the NYE dinner and partying at the Yosemite Lodge. The Mountain Restaurant puts on an exquisite 5-​course dinner. Make your dinner reservation when you book the Lodge and NYE package! We didn’t know so had to eat dinner at 5pm when the restaurant opened. This was OK as we prefer to eat dinner anyway. At 10pm, the Mountain Lounge starts rocking with a DJ that attracts a mostly 20 – 30 something crowd but the energy is wonderful and the rock-​disco-​hip hop selections were great! We met other people afterwards so be aware that is you want an «old folks» kind of dinner and dancing then sign up for The Ahwahnee (black tie) or Wawona Inn events. We really enjoyed the YL festivities and crowd! Because the Lodge caters to families, they also put on a special event for them. For other meals, the food court is family-​style cafeteria with good selections and Peet’s Coffee station so met our needs for breakfast. We were hiking and snowshoeing so ate lunch elsewhere in the Valley. Enjoy! Yosemite Lodge is a great moderate price destination with great Valley location. Leave your car and use the Park Shuttles.

Came here for a drink after dinner at the Mountain Room. The drinks are pricey and not the best alcohol but you can’t expect too much when you’re in a national park. But it’s a nice place to relax by a fireplace with a beverage after a long hike.

Might be my new favorite place to eat in Yosemite valley. They don’t have a lot of options but I tried the chili one night and the veggie wrap another and both were fresh and delicious. Comparably priced to the cafeteria… Service was great at the Lounge. Give them a try! Or maybe don’t — then it will get crowded! Ha! JK — totally recommend

I don’t really drink, but I got drunk here. I was heady with the beauty of this amazing place, I had been gifted a 2 night stay here including the über spendy Bracebridge dinner, I was hanging out with great friends who enjoy cocktails and I had just gotten my end of year bonus. Check in for the hotel room wasn’t until 5 pm, so there was no better way to kill a relaxing hour than sitting in front of the amazing fireplace here and ordering round after round of drinks. Since I don’t normally drink, I can tell you that I had a bit of sticker shock — each round for 3 people averaged close to $ 45-​$ 50. GULP. Oh, what the hell, make me a margarita. Oh, and a hot chocolate with Kahlua please. Everything was tasty, we met some really friendly other travelers and LIFE IS GOOD.

Near a roaring fire on a cold December evening, this is one of the best places to hang out in Yosemite valley. The drinks are good and they have a limited food menu. The bartenders are good. We really enjoyed Jo. This is a good place to wait for your table at the Mountain Room. And you can take your drinks with you when your table is ready.

Labor Day weekend. It’s getting a little crowded but not as bad as I thought it would be.
We were seated relatively quickly. Server came out fast with the menus and came back before we had a chance to review the menu. She came back with out water and bread quick but didn’t show again for a long while to take our order and which point we gave her our appetizer, entrée and drink orders.
Wine came out fast. An excellent cuvée a super generous pour.
Dinner was ok. I had the onion soup and lamb chops with a mushroom rice. Our appetizer plates were still at the table when the entrées came out so it was a little crowded. In any case, the soup was very good. I recommend it even though it was a tab bit overpriced.
The lamb chops were pretty good but the rice and asparagus left so much to be desired. The rice was like slop and the asparagus was limp and over cooked.
My date had the rib-​eye with a mushroom sauce and asparagus and baked potato. The presentation wasn’t fancy but the steak was cooked properly and tasted fine.
Dessert was the raspberry cobbler. The biscuit had a few burnt sections but tasted ok. I recommend skipping the dessert. Anyway, go and have fun just don’t expect to be blown away unless you order the cuvée, so good, the entrees are decent, just skip the sides.

Great staff. Perfectly prepared cocktails. Fun atmosphere. I just wish they opened earlier.

Located behind Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, this restaurant offers a nice place for a quick bite. My family and I had just finished the Valley Floor Tour and were starving. We packed a few items for lunch but wanted more food so we went here to order a few more items and they seemed cool to allow us to eat our outside food, too.
There were a few TVs around the room but it was just airing sports channel.
This place is so close to nature that a squirrel actually was running around the place while we were eating. Eventually, a staff member chased the squirrel out, but it’s not everyday that you can say that you dined with a squirrel.
For a salad, a bowl of chili, and a glass of apple juice, the total came to about $ 21. Super friendly staff and not that crowded.

A nice place to sit and have a few drinks with friends. It isn’t very large, so it does become crowded during peak hours. The service is friendly and attentive though, which is a plus!

It was quite crowded the night we went there this trip, but the service didn’t suffer a bit, so I’m adding a star for that.
Again, the place is primarily a bar/​lounge with a very limited selection of food. If you are staying at the Yosemite Lodge, this is a good place to a drink or two if you are so inclined. It’s a little overpriced but not bad considering the location.

This place gets 2 stars rather than 1 because they actually had college football showing on their TVs on a Saturday afternoon. Other than that, this place is awful!
These were the rudest servers/​bartenders I have ever encountered. When my husband and I arrived at about 12:30pm last Saturday, our server came over to take our orders and we asked if he could change the channel of the TV to ABC so we could watch our game (two TVs were playing the same game so we were not asking to take away anyone else’s game). He said he was too busy right now and would do it later. So we didn’t order anything since we didn’t want to get hooked into staying somewhere where they wouldn’t show the game. But since my husband and I didn’t want to drive the hour into Oakhurst, we needed to stay. About 15 minutes go by and nothing has happened so I go up the bar and ask the bartender if she could please change the channel for us (since you know, maybe the server was too busy, someone else could help us out). She gave a similar response saying that they were really busy and that their primary responsibility is to customers who ordered things. I was so shocked by this second round of rudeness I could barely get my words out to answer her that my husband and I fully intended to order things. She hurriedly rushed away and I returned to my table dumbfounded Now, mind you, the lounge wasn’t even full. There were plenty of open tables and seats at the bar. Nothing a normal Saturday service wouldn’t entail. Did the staff look busy? Yes but not to the point where they were so overburdened with work that they couldn’t function.
After the interaction with the bartender, the channel was changed a few minutes later and my husband and I did spend over $ 60 there. But it’s the lack of customer service that I am so appalled by. Anytime my husband and I go to watch a game in LA, the servers and bartenders are very happy to change the channel or say they will get the guy with the remote. The average time it takes a bar in LA to change the channel versus what happened here in Yosemite is about the same so nothing out of the ordinary occurred except rudeness. Shouldn’t the staff just have said, «yes, we’re happy to change it» and then did it in the same amount of time in which it actually happened? Same result but happier customers. Obviously I’m still a little miffed about the whole experience. Oh, and the food was terrible, canned salsa for chips and salsa and fairly blah chili which was all severely overpriced but that was expected since you’re in Yosmeite park.
So luckily, this place is the only place (that I could find) in the whole Yosemite Valley that has TVs and the channels for major games on weekends and it has that going for it but other than that, skip.

Went in with our kids to roast marshmallows and have a drink. (They sell the smore kits next door) Asked them if they were going to light the fire, as it wasn’t lit yet. Server acted totally put out by us, and basically said maybe, but since they were busy he couldn’t guarantee they’d get to it. We walked out.

The menu must have changed since some of the Unilocalers took pictures.
This is the only competently-​run part the Lodge at Yosemite falls.
The chili is fine: 13.95 is steep but they gouge you at the Lodge. And at least the servers here aren’t rude idiots as at the Food Court.
This is really the only option for food except frozen entrees you nuke in what surely is a microwave brimming with bacteria like most communal ovens which never get cleaned.
I liked the turkey with gouda on wheat the best. It comes with veggie sticks and a tomato hummus and fresh lettuce and tomato. Clearly this is different lettuce from the Chef’s salad you get for 10 at the Food Court.
13.95 is ridiculous for that sandwich but at least it was good and the cranberry relish delicate and nice.
Simi Sauvignon for 9/​glass is reasonable.
This is certainly not great and the brie plate comes on a terrible bagel (brie on a bagel?!) with some fruit, which is just weird. But at least the food is edible here and the server I had (whose last day it was) a nice, good guy.

Sunday at 7pm on a June evening, we had dinner at the Mountain Room Lounge, after finding mobs of people overwhelming the Food Court, and a long wait for a table at the Mountain Room Restaurant.
In retrospect we could have finished dinners at either of the other two restaurants far ahead of the time it took us to finish at he Lounge.
Do not mix up the Mountain Room Restaurant with the Mountain Room Lounge. The Lounge is a sports lounge, where you can eat lunch or dinner on weekends, or dinner on weekdays in front of TVs showing ESPN.
Note that the cable selection for the Lodge room TVs do not include ESPN — don’t think it is a coincidence. Obviously they specifically excluded ESPN on the Lodge room TVs to force their sports loving guests to come here.
The lounge has glass walls on three of four sides, and is across the patio from the Mountain Room Restaurant. It’s basicly a drinking place with a full bar of $ 8 beers and wines, and light food fare: chips, salsa, sandwiches, and drinks.
There is no view of the falls from the inside, as the roof overhang blocks your vision of the falls. There is a fireplace, but it was 95 degrees that day, so we didn’t need it., and you can eat out on the patio, with a possible view of the falls. .
The service was bad. 10 minutes to receive the menu, 10 minutes to have our order taken, 20 minutes to have our food served, and 10 minutes time to pick up the bill. And the place was half empty –as no local sports teams were playing on TV that night.
The food was overpriced. sodas $ 3, chips/​salsa $ 4, bowl of chili with cornbread $ 16, smoked salmon on bread $ 17, and the portions small.
My chili was OK and had lots of chunks of beef, but was otherwise relatively bland –no onions. the few hot green chilis did not do the trick.
The smoked salmon on bread consisted of about half a dozen inch lengths of salmon fillet on toasted chunks of bread, with a spread. I was still hungry after the bowl of chili, but we didn’t want to wait around anymore.
We got out of there for about $ 45, and then went to the Food Court to pickup a packaged salad to bring back to the Lodge room.
Delaware North Corporation has a monopoly here, and know they have a captive audience, and price their food accordingly. Almost all their restaurant clients here are Lodge guests.
Outsiders will find parking next to impossible on summer weekends, due to the crush of visitors to the Falls nearby. Other places to eat include Degnan’s in Yosemite Village, and the Yosemite Village Cafeteria during the summer. Also the pizza at Curry Village is supposed to be pretty good.

Of the very few actual indoor dining rooms to eat at in Yosemite, this is probably the best. Though it is certainly not great. It is really set up more as a bar than a restaurant.
In terms of atmosphere, there is a fire pit near the center, a bar along one side, and tables throughout.
This place can get pretty crowded in the evening, at which point the service can become pretty-​shotty. In fact, one time after receiving no service for over thirty minutes, I just walked out. But, in the off-​season the staff is generally nice and responsive.
This is a good (and I guess I should say only) place to pop into in the evening for a drink and/​or snack.
Overall, though the food offered here is limited, it is pretty good and very reasonably priced.