If you are looking for something to do in Bakersfield my top recommendation is to drive somewhere else.
Bakersfield is a city of 350,000 people in the San Joaquin Valley, right in the middle of California. Two hours from LA, three from San Francisco and 4 from Las Vegas and with none of the benefits of any of these places this really is a place in the middle of nowhere.
One of the biggest problems in Bakersfield is finding somewhere to eat that does not make you ill or will give you decent service. In fact in Bakersfield it is not uncommon to find somewhere that will make you ill whilst giving you bad service.
Obviously you can ask the locals where they recommend. Top recommendations have included BJs (a basic chain restaurant), Olive Garden (the recommender thinks this may be a national chain but wasn’t sure!) and some pretty shoddy examples of Mexican and Italian restaurants.
One other option is to look at your airline’s recommendations (United print theirs on your ticket). Here’s the current examples and some highlights of their online reviews:
- Don Perico - “My wife’s order came out with raw meat and the food also smelt really bad. The staff didn't even care. I had to complain to the manager myself. There drinks are just horrible.”
- John’s Incredible Pizza Co - “The food was awful. The pizzas were undercooked and the flavourings dull and tasteless. The peanut pizza in particular was very peculiar. The bread sticks bins were mostly empty.”
El Adobe - “No Bueno!”
The only place on this small list worth a mention is Wool Growers. This is one of a number of Basque restaurants in Bakersfield. In fact Bakersfield has the biggest collection of Basque restaurants in the USA. Thank heavens for the Basque people, as this does give a viable eating option for those doomed to be in Bakersfield.
A traditional Basque meal involves many courses served family style so one option is to go Basque on a Monday and try and last the rest of the week on that one meal.
Another possible venue is the McKittrick Hotel, not because the food or service is good (but it doesn’t make you ill, so that’s one up on most places in Bakersfield), but so you can see the Penny Bar.
McKittrick is a town of 115 (yes, 115!) outside of Bakersfield. If Bakersfield is in the middle of nowhere then it’s hard to describe where McKittrick fits. Here’s the hotel:
And just behind that you can see the Convenience Store. Over the road there’s another building and as far as I can tell that’s it for Main Street McKittrick.
Anyway, although the outside of the McKittrick Hotel looks like something off a slasher movie, the inside is worth seeing. Over one million pennies are glued to everything -- the floor, the walls, the pool table, the TV:
I hear that Rib-eye Thursday is worth trying. Given the quality of the food in Bakersfield I think I’ll give it a go.