Seaside Shanty Restaurant — Restaurant in Chester Basin

I don’t normally write reviews but after the experience we had yesterday I had to. The service was extremely slow and the food was mediocre. To start we had the calamari. It was completely inedible - the portion was small and it was extremely rubbery. I should mention it also arrived cold. We didn’t finish it. Our waitress ignored us the whole time; never checked in on us and didn’t care to ask us if there was an issue with the calamari . When we tried to speak up about it she interrupted us and walked away. It took an hour for us to get the app and about another hour for our mains. There was no apology for the long wait and our mains, burger and chicken sandwich, arrived lukewarm. They were bland and had no flavour. The only saving grace were the French fries. The first server left for the night and didn’t bother to tell us that she’d be leaving. (Other places I have been let us know when they’re leaving for the day). We had a lovely man in the end who actually had the decency to ask how things were. At first we weren’t going to say anything but he encouraged us to speak up and after explaining our experience with the calimari he took it off our bill without us even asking.

I’m sorry but we won’t be back which is unfortunate because the view from the restaurant is beautiful.

** Upon reading the most recent review before mine I would like to add we also felt we weren’t treated the same as other guests. Kind of felt like an outsider; made us ...

We used to LOVE the Shanty, but something is wrong this year. Short summary: over 1hr 15min to get our meal and others waited longer. Seafood pasta was the size of an app. Service was horrible.

Long version: We had difficulty getting a hold of them to make a reservation, despite trying every avenue (socials, phone, email) so we just walked in and luckily they had a spot for us on the patio, which is very nice!

The service is unfortunately horrible. The servers don’t communicate with each other so we ended up seeing several people throughout with them asking things like “has anyone taken your order yet” and exasperation with our answer “no”. They don’t apologize for the wait or ask how you are doing. We had to flag them down 45min in to get a glass of water.

Us and everyone else on the patio eventually got their drinks (about 15-30min to get a beverage) and promptly got drunk because food took over an hour, (one table was more than 2hours so they gave them a round of drinks on the house, but gosh no food!). It became comical because there was live music and people started to sing along and bang on tables.

For the food, they were sold out of many things which was disappointing. The food was good, but the seafood pasta was so tiny it could have passed for an appetizer.

The patio was full but only one table of 6 inside so I’m surprised they were struggling so much.

Such a lovely spot and in past years, exceptional. I couldn’t recommend it this...

My wife and I are big fish and chip fans. We often drove by the Seaside Shanty on our way to somewhere else and wanted to try it. After all, a restaurant that has Sea in its name and is on the waterfront must have good fish or so we thought. We both ordered fish and chips. The good news is that the fries were plentiful and well-cooked and presented. The service was pleasant and reasonably efficient, and the restaurant was clean albeit basic and spartan. The order contained one piece of fish that was mostly soggy batter. The fish was frozen, not fresh, and resembled the texture and flavour of frozen fish sticks. All I could taste was flour and oil. Frozen fish can be acceptable if it is a quality product. This was not. I consumed my dinner because I was very hungry. My wife could not finish hers and left hungry. Sadly, on the basis of this visit I have to give the Seaside Shanty a very big pass. It was my wife's birthday and we left very (with emphasis) disappointed. If you are looking for a quality fish and chip experience, try the Fish Shack...