Fries Dam Steakhouse — Local services in Fries

Don’t waste your time or money! Worst restaurant I’ve ever been to. For starters, we had called in reservations prior to us coming to the restaurant. We were told we would have a table at that particular time, didn’t happen. When we arrived it took us 30 minutes to speak to a host about being seated. She informed me that someone must have not written our names in. Then told we would have to wait an additional 15-20 minutes. When we are being sat at our table we were told that it would be a while to order but they could seat us. We decided that was fine since there is no where to wait up front. Upon being sat it took 10 minutes to order drinks. I’m going to skip ahead a little because everything was underwhelming. I ordered shrimp and grits (which sounded good) while my wife ordered the pinwheel steaks. Then, 5 minutes later our server came back to inform me they were out of shrimp, so I ordered a burger. When our food comes, my wife cuts into the pinwheel steak only to see the meat inside was still BLUE (not red, not pink). This grossed my wife out and she lost her desire to eat any steak from this point. We asked if we could get some chicken tenders instead since it’s not beef! 10 minutes later our serve brings us our chicken tenders and to quote the waitress “I’m embarrassed to bring this to the table but, this is what the chef gave me”. We were given 2 tiny chicken tenders to replace the steak. 2…… just 2!!!!!!!! Unbelievable to say the least. We asked for a manager to find out how this was to replace a meal. When she came to the table it got worse. For starters we were told her name was “Tiva”?but she never introduced herself, she was rude when she got to the table. She tried to explain to me how to cook a steak and that at times they are still “pink” on the inside no matter how long you cook it. Then I questioned about the 2 pieces chicken once again and she asked if we sent the steak back to be reheated….. and told that it would make it warmer, again explaining how to reheat a steak. When I explained it was BLUE and my wife no longer was Interested in steak due to the undercooked one prior. She said she cannot discount a steak more than 20% even if we didn’t eat it. Then said I could talk to the chef so he could explain once again HOW TO REHEAT A STEAK! I said I was done talking and just to give me the bill so we could leave. When getting my bill I paid $17.99 for something that we didn’t touch outside of cutting it open. At this point I was done, I gave her the money to pay our bill and she took it. My change should have been $10.38. She walked up to the table (without saying a word) DROPPED a $10 bill on the table and walked off. My wife went to ask why we didn’t recieve all of our change and once again was very rude. I have never been treated this way in any restaurant I’ve been to (which is Internationally as I’m a veteran). This place I still feel as though they owe me $17.99 plus tax for something that was inedible and an apology by the way the “Manager” conducted themselves, and I use that term loosely! This place is a joke and I won’t step foot back in there except to recieve the money that I feel was...

Had reservations for 5 at 5:30 on a Saturday night. While waiting for our table to be prepared the host/food runner highly recommended we try the crab soup. We were seated upstairs but our “view” was of a door that lead to what appeared to be an outdoor fire escape. I gather that because we had a fifth person it would have been too much to accommodate us with a view of the river. It would have been possible because it was not crowded. We ordered drinks and were asked if we wanted to have appetizers, 3 of the 5 said they wanted to try the crab soup. We were told they were out of crab soup???, why were we told 5 minutes before to try it? We also wanted to sample a crab cake and ended up having to purchase an entire crab cake entree, $34 to try 2 crab cakes. Two in our party had the rib eye steak, which was the thinnest, most grisly steak they had ever had and a dollop of mashed potatoes and a few sautéed vegetables. A salad was $4.50 extra. Most went home for the dog. Two others had the shrimp and grits, which were good, the grits cake was a bit different, but good and a nice salad was included. The last person in our party had the trout. Again very little in the way of vegetables, tasteless rice pilaf, and 2 hard overcooked and over breaded fillets. Once the breading was removed the fillet alone were fair. They do not have a liquor license and their wine selection is very limited without any description of the wines. So you have no idea if the wine is a Cabernet, Zinfandel, Malbec etc. I gather that our waitress, who was nice, but not very knowledgeable about the food she was serving, felt uncomfortable opening a bottle of wine at the table because she showed it to us, then walked away and came back in a bit with it opened. I gather the beer selection is better, but the one person in our party who drinks beer prefers a simpler beer and ordered a Michelob. We had driven over an hour to check out this restaurant, that calls itself a Steakhouse which is definitely a misnomer. Doubt we will be back. We certainly do not mind paying high prices like Fries Dam Steakhouse charges, if the food is good and the service is excellent. Neither was true of this establishment. We discussed the positives and negatives the whole way home and came up with an average score of 1.6 (0-4 scale) or a D+ from our experience. If you don’t mind spending $125 - $150 per couple, to check out this restaurant, by all means do. But unfortunately I think that a large majority of people will find that they are very disappointed, like we were and as were many other people who left reviews, that most likely you also will continue your search for a quality restaurant in southwest VA. We are heading the opposite direction to check out Pickle and Ash in Stuart, VA next. Hopefully I will be able to leave a more positive review there. On a side note The Inn at Foster Falls in Max Meadows is excellent and you don’t have to be staying there to dine...

Tonight we ate at Fries Dam Steakhouse. Don't be fooled by the false reviews on Facebook - they are manipulated by the owner because my negative review was removed from their Facebook page. This is my review from tonight's visit: "The specials were never mentioned to us by our server. Our server did mention the specials to the table next to us but we were already finished with our meal by the time we learned of them. By the way, the spinach artichoke dip was 4 ounces of cold sour cream with about a tablespoon of raw spinach mixed in and served with deep fried battered artichoke petals that had been warmed up (not very appetizing and we had to have someone explainto us what they were). There was no bread. There was only one type of steak sauce available. The mashed potatoes were not homemade. The mixed vegetables had been frozen and were mushy. The atmosphere was utilitarian and there were no festive decorations hanging up for the holiday season. We were rushed through our meal - our appetizer came. Then our salad arrived before we had even had time to eat our appetizer. Then our dinner arrived before we had hardly eaten our salad - which wasn't really a true Cesar salad, but did have nice slices of parm on it. We were asked midway through our meal if we wanted dessert; when we declined, we were then presented with the check. Usually the check is presented after we finish eating. We guessed that the toothpick was holding some kind of butter on our steak, but no one ever explained it to us. I have cataracts so it is difficult to see in your dimly lIt restaurant. We didn't complain at the time because we felt like we were being rushed out the door for the larger parties with reservations that were on their way. The meal was also expensive considering that the salad was not included and there was no bread or free wifi and considering that the Cesar salad did not have all Romain lettuce, the mashed potatoes tasted like they were from a box and the vegetables tasted like they had been previously frozen and then stir fried. I expected better for $100 + 15% given to the server who didn't mention the specials before we ordered and couldn't wait to get us out the door." The restaurant has only been open since November 18th and it was busy. Unfortunately, the overpriced food was just OK and combined with the poor service, I doubt we will drive back to Fries again for ...