NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Great Wolf Lodge’s Manteca resort has a 95,000-square-foot indoor waterpark kept at 84 degrees year-round. There are slides, a wave pool, a lazy river, and plenty of ways for kids to expend enormous amounts of energy.
It’s loud and chaotic, and very fun for them. For the adults accompanying them, though, there are also plenty of reasons to want a breather.
Most of the food at Great Wolf Lodge Manteca is understandably aimed at kids–think chicken nuggets, burgers, and pizza.
But amidst all this kid-oriented chaos, there’s one sit-down restaurant at the Lodge that’s surprisingly good, and not just for a place that happens to be ringed by waterparks and Build a Bear Workshops.
I’d compare its American food and overall approach to a place like Lazy Dog in the Bay Area. The restaurant is Barnwood, and I recently tried it on a visit to Great Wolf Lodge Manteca with my wife and our three kids.
Post-Slide Food
We sat down to a dinner after I had spent about four hours taking our nine-year-old down essentially every slide at Great Wolf Lodge.
Granted, after that much activity, most anything would taste pretty good! But Barnwood was a nice respite, as I’d eaten nothing else in the day except a yogurt and a (literal) bucket of soft pretzels.
Barnwood has the feel of a farm-to-table spot, with an open kitchen, lots of wine barrel staves, and a modern farmhouse aesthetic that fits the name.
We tried multiple things on the menu (Great Wolf Lodge hosted our visit to the waterpark, but Bay Area Telegraph paid for our Barnwood meal out of our own pocket.)
The ribs were very good, and the burger was good, too.
The chicken tenders were okay, though they weren’t my favorite part of the meal.
There are also more substantial options. We happened to visit on Prime Rib Night, which features giant slabs of meat. Naturally, my six-year-old ordered a plate-sized hunk of steak just for himself.
There are also things like braised short rib bolognese, honey bourbon salmon, steak frites, and a New York strip.
And there’s something else adults will appreciate after a long day of arcades and bowling–cocktails, beers, and a decent selection of Napa wines. You’ll see familiar Bay Area bottles like Cakebread Chardonnay and several Frog’s Leap bottles.
Kids still have plenty to enjoy. A Firefly drink served in a themed, light-up cup keeps a little of the resort’s playful spirit at the dinner table.
Especially since our kids span the range from five to nine–and so their waterpark preferences are quite different–eating at Barnwood felt like a nice way to bring everyone together at the end of the day, and enjoy a meal rather than just fueling up.
Going to Great Wolf Lodge feels like entering a pleasant sort of bubble–everything is in one building and it’s all oriented towards being with family, so you don’t feel compelled to be on your phone all the time or checking into work.
It’s nice to have a chance to enjoy a sit-down meal without needing to drive offsite and burst that bubble.
Budget for It
One caveat: this isn’t an inexpensive dinner.
Our meal for five, including drinks and tip, came to more than $150. That’s what you might expect to spend on resort food, and certainly less than many sit-down meals at Disneyland.
Still, there’s a premium for the convenience. There was no need to load everyone into the car or turn dinner into another excursion. We could simply spend some time sharing food as a family and then walk back to the room, or a game of Magiquest to burn off that steak.
Worth planning into your visit
Barnwood is inside Great Wolf Lodge at 2500 Daniels Street in Manteca. The resort lists it as a dinner restaurant and provides a reservation link through Opentable. Check current menus and special-night availability before visiting.
For our family, it was a welcome part of the trip.
