Grannan's Seafood — Restaurant in Saint John

Let me preface this by saying I haven’t been back to Grannans since this experience. This was around a year ago, I got the “famous” Caesar salad for the table, I ordered lobster rolls and my fiancé ordered clam strips (I believe).

Our server was rude but not the worst, she said she was a manager. She brings out the salad, and due to cultural and religious reasons, I don’t eat pork, my fiancé doesn’t either due to health reasons.

I notice the salad had bacon bits, I double check the menu, no mention of that, I ask the manager if we can get a salad without, she immediately launched into a tirade about how people should list all dietary restrictions before ever ordering, and how bacon always comes on salads. She storms off, then comes back to tell me she’s making the salad in the already contaminated container so she didn’t have to wash another one. I decide to be polite I’ll pick at the salad but not really eat it, because I didn’t feel like the server would accommodate any request after that.

We get the salad and we are cherry picking lettuce and from across the room I notice something moving, I look across and I see a carnival of rats skittering across the tables and floor, unsanitary, but I’ve probably had more unsanitary dining experiences in some of the government dining facilities I’ve visited so whatever.

Food finally comes and we start eating, the lobster rolls were rubbery, and tasted freezer burnt, overall bland and unremarkable. I cannot speak for my fiancés meal as I didn’t try it.

The server comes back over and apologizes at this point as she learned bacon on Caesar salads is a regional thing from other staff at the location. So the staff were talking about my eating habits? Weird but ok.

To cut an otherwise lengthy story short, we got...

Went here as a party of 5 on my birthday. We ordered 3 seafood buckets and 1 seafood chowder. The chowder was delicious, probably the best thing on the table in my opinion.

However, the seafood buckets. Oh boy. The mussels were incredibly sandy, almost as if they weren't cleaned properly, I did not finish mine as 4/5 of the ones I ate had a lot of grit in them. The shrimp and corn were the best parts. Corn was sweet and juicy, shrimp were tender and big. Snow crab was dry and chewy, it did taste sweet though.

The crawfish however. 🤢 I asked for extra crawfish because I was expecting sweet, tender meat. What I got was overcooked, expired tasting crawfish. The last tail I tried to eat almost made me gag, it was incredibly foul.

The potatos were well cooked but for some reason, they were ALSO sandy like the mussels.

The thing that really put the cherry on the cake though, was that the melted "butter" to dip your seafood in was MARGARINE. I expect that when I go to a seafood place and pay $52 plus tax and tip, that the butter IS REAL. It was definitely margarine and ruined the taste of the seafood when dipped in.

2 stars instead of 1 because the seafood chowder was very good and our server was INCREDIBLY NICE!!!!!!!

I've read other reviews about this place supposedly going downhill and, although I have only been there once (and my last), I agree with this statement.

I hope this helps when deciding where to get your seafood...

Reservation made for 7pm, Monday Aug 15th. Arrived a bit early and told immediately after being seated that the kitchen was backed up and we’d be waiting a while for our meals once ordered. We ordered the Striploin (medium rare) and the Lazy Lobster dinners. About an hour later we received our meals. My wife soon reported to the server that her steak was well-done, and I never bothered reporting that I did not receive any of the roasted reds. My side with the lobster was 3 slices of carrot and 3 slices of pepper.

When our bill arrived, the server mentioned that the steak (now $42) had been removed from the bill. And to our astonishment, my very small lobster meal (photo provided) was $110. Not a typo. Our bill for two drinks and the lobster meal was $154. There were no appetizers. If all of the meal was there, and didn’t take an hour, I still wouldn’t pay $110 dollars for a small lobster meal. This place does not have the ambience, service or view right now (waterfront completely under construction). The patio is now pea gravel.

We chose Grannan’s for dinner based on a referral from someone that had gone there a few years ago. After 2wks touring the Maritimes, this was the only meal where I found grossly overcharged, and we ate numerous expensive dinners while visiting. They have several neighbouring establishments and I’d give them some...