Food wonderful, wait excruciating
Looking for a restaurant to break up the long drive from June Lake to LA, we decided to check out the Still Life Cafe. Quaint on the outside, quite comfortable inside. Two tables were seated with patrons. Our party of three was seated immediately but had to wait 20 minutes for our order to be taken (2 salads and a steak dinner).
Finally, 48 minutes after ordering, our dinner arrived.
As annoyed as I was, I have to say that the meal was quite exceptional. Everything was perfect food wise.
If I was staying the night in Independence or didn't mind having my 5 hour drive become over 7, I would go back again. The chef knows how to prepare a great tasting meal. I am not expecting "fast" food, but how long does it take to prepare a steak and some small potatoes? How long would it take with more patrons?    [31 Dec 2004 16:18:28]

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Recommended Dishes: Ribeye Steak, Nicoise Salad

     ­Robert Renson   

Overpriced, overcooked and timed out
We had the "privilege" of eating dinner at the Sill Life Cafe in Indenpendence, CA on Saturday, March 12. The menu looked interesting (French led the day), and warned of a "30 to 50 minute wait for food cooked in the chef's own inimitable style".

Well, after 2 and 1/2 hours, we still hadn't seen our entree. We would have left after an hour or so but it's the only real restaurant in town and we were tired from a long trip so didn't want to drive the 15 miles to Lone Pine. BIG MISTAKE!! When the food finally arrived, my salmon filet was overcooked and dry, something the delicious sauce failed to correct for. My brother's "Fruit de Mare" promising scallops and shrimp, had one scallop and only a few shrimp in a bed of mediocure pasta. For $25 a meal, one expects quality and service, especially from such a restaurant with pretentions of being "oh so French and oh so gourmet." NOT!!! Oh, and to comment furthur, the tables were stacked on top of each other in rows along the sides of the building. No privacy in conversations and you ended up almost rubbing elbows with adjacent dinners. Very strange, and totally unnecessary since the tables could have been positioned with style across the adequate floor space.    [13 Mar 2005 22:34:10]

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Recommended Dishes: Water

     ­Curt   hohoscaler1 at aol dot com

A diamond in the desert.
Not only a place where the food is good but a place to relax and enjoy the fine wine and good hostitality.    [15 Apr 2004 07:53:30]

Food:    Service:    Ambiance:    Overall: 
Recommended Dishes: wine with dinner

     ­mel   mholt24 at hotmail dot com

Call ahead- then Relax !
This fine French isn't the kind of place you want to just drop in on- sure you'll be fed, but reservations are recommended. Ask for the specials, and if you're in a hurry, go for the onion soup and Nicoise salad. Magnificent. The wait is part of the experience- take it easy. Service is slow because it is all made to order. Relax with a bottle of French wine, listen to the music and munch on the bread.    [09 May 2006 21:38:35]

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Recommended Dishes: Cheese Burger, Escargot, ribeye steak and fruit de mer over pasta.

     ­name withheld at reviewer's request   

Location, location, location
You don't compare the Still Life Cafe with a French bistro in downtown San Francisco or New York. You compare it with the backpackers' pizza joints in in Big Pine, Lone Pine, or the other one-horse towns that lie along Highway 395 in California's Owens Valley, a region in the rain shadow of the Sierra Mountains that Mary Austin memorably dubbed "The Land of Little Rain" in her book of the same title.

The delightful thing about the Still Life is that it's a classic French bistro in the Wild West desert--not that it's on the level of SF's Masa's, or Boston's Maison Robert. Edith Piaf will be playing, the decor will feature old posters advertising Cointreau and Chartreuse, and your job is to enjoy the sheer incongruity of this tiny oasis of Frenchness in the parched, depopulated grandeur of the Owens Valley.

Hence a few caveats that may help you enjoy the restaurant more by knowing what to expect:

1. Expect to wait. A long time. Get a table before you're hungry, and don't be afraid to ask for more bread to tide you over.

2. Don't order seafood. With all due respect to the previous angry reviewer, one can guess that salmon and "fruits de mer" won't be the house specialties in a landlocked desert hundreds of miles from the coast.    [25 Aug 2006 14:52:01]

Food:    Service:    Ambiance:    Overall: 
Recommended Dishes: Steak, burgers, onion soup

     ­   

Driven past it a hundred times, and it's been closed every time. Heard thirdhand reports that it's really good, but I'll never know. I planned my recent anniversary trip specifically around their hours and location, but they still managed to deny me: I heard they closed and moved to Bishop, so I looked on the web, got their number, and gave them a call. The woman who answered told me they were closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, wouldn't take a reservation, but that I could definitely eat there on a Monday night. I juggled my hotel reservations, but when I arrived in Bishop, locals told me they were still in Independence. So I called again, and a man told me, "Oh, yeah, we decided not to move to Bishop." And informed me that they were closed Monday and Tuesday, not Tuesday and Wednesday. So, the stupid Stillborn Cafe managed to screw me yet again. Drove past their new/old location on the way home, and as usual, the sign said "Closed. Hours: ______ to ______, ______ to ________." They might make great food, but they sure run a lousy business.    [01 Sep 2006 12:57:10]

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     ­name withheld at reviewer's request   

Don't expect the norm..
The Still Life Cafe offers some wonderful dishes and ambiance. Even if it was located in a more populated area, it would stand out as a diamond in the rough. Yes, the wait can be long for both your order to be taken and food to be served, but really, if you're in that much of a hurry, you shouldn't be stopping anyway. Forget your preconceived notions of how restaurants should be run and try to enjoy being in a little slice of France in the Owens Valley.

The interior is cozy and warm, just like a French cafe, and just like a French cafe, the staff won't rush you out of there after your meal (which is something one rarely experiences in any standard American restaurant). I started with the goat cheese salad and then had the Merguez (lamb sausages-the special of the day). Both were delicious. The salad was lightly tossed with a vinaigrette that brought out more flavor and crispness in fresh greens and the softness and coolness of the goat cheese served on top of the crostinis accented the rest of the salad perfectly. The only complaint I have about the meal is with the pommes frites. I would have liked them to be cut from fresh potatoes, but the lamb and salad with the dish were so good and so wonderfully matched with the house Cabernet that I could overlook it. Overall, a wonderful little restaurant. Although one gets the feeling that they don't want people to know it.    [06 Sep 2006 02:11:03]

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     ­Garrett, Sacramento   

Good or Bad?? It depends on your outlook
After reading a few more reviews since I posted mine, I've come to the conclusion that the Still Life is (in Bill Clinton's words) "what it is". One might also say "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

For those of you willing to wait over 2 hours and ready to take your chances on a meal which may be either overcooked to match the surrounding desert or properly prepared, in what admittedly is a rare venue for "those parts" in the Owen's Valley, by all means take a book and enjoy the wait and "ambience." Think of it as a library that serves food which on the average is average and you won't be disappointed. I hesitate to use the ratings below because my opinion is only that: my opinion. ButI had to give it something in order to get this registered.    [07 Apr 2007 11:39:15]

Food: -   Service: -   Ambiance: -   Overall: -
Recommended Dishes: Ask diners on their way out what was good

     ­Curt   hohoscaler1 at aol dot com

Go to the Subway across the street
We arrived at the Still Life at exactly 7:30 PM. There were 3 other tables with guests. It's a cute place, nice decor, cozy, but the niceties stop there.

The waiter told us to read the specials board before we sat down, so we did. Twenty minutes later he asked if we wanted anything to drink, we each ordered a glass of the house red, my guess is that it was Two Buck Chuck. At 30 minutes he asked what we wanted, pretty much in that tone.
We both ordered from the board, my friend ordered the lamb and I the steak.

At fourty minutes a basket of cold bread with even colder butter arrived. He plopped it on the table and was about to run away when my friend asked for another glass of the swill, I asked for water. That took ten minutes to come.
At one hour he comes over and asks how I want me steak done, at this point I'm starving and I'm thinking tartare would be ok. At least I figure it's on the grill sizzling away, WRONG. At 70 minutes now we try to ask him how much longer should we expect and he just walked away without saying a word.
At this point is when we really started to get annoyed.

Then I noticed him at one of the other tables squatting down and speaking to the woman, I think she had a small kid with her. I listened in and he was telling her that their order should be out momentarily.

At an hour and a half we'd had it. He wouldn't come anywhere near our table; he stayed in the kitchen the entire time.

We counted out 15 bucks for the wine and walked out.
We walked across the street to the Subway sandwich place and walked in right at closing. They greeted us with a smile and got to work making us a sandwich. Meanwhile they locked the door because they had just closed.

Our "server" at Subway was pleasant, the sandwhich was delicious and they didn't try to rush us out the door. We were back on the road in 15 minutes.

I've been to restaurants in Paris. The waiters are professional, attentive, and helpful with French translations of items.

We were not in a rush that night. We had planned the evening to include a nice dinner break on the drive to Mammoth. But, an hour and a half with rude and non-existent service and crappy wine was more than we could take.    [12 Apr 2007 06:35:17]

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     ­Anonymous   

Being French Is No Excuse
My girlfriend had provided a good review based on a prior trip to the area. We planned our return around the restaurant and got there at lunch time. At least according to their sign in the window. When the palae remained closed for 15 minutes after their stated opening time, my girlfriend knocked on the clear front window to get the attention of the man inside who was working setting up tables and moving around in the kitchen. He totally ignored her after turning to see her at the door. After a couple more minutes of this rudeness, we left. No food is that good. My girlfriend recognized the man as the owner's husband. Maybe Still Rude Cafe.    [24 Jul 2007 12:39:18]

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     ­M.J. Wittenberg