Olde Castle Seafood Bar — Restaurant in County Donegal

To say we were absolutely humiliated by the staff there is an understatement. We arrived at ~ 7:15pm in hopes of getting a meal after a very long day.

We saw the outside of the building and expected a nice, friendly & laidback environment. We walked in the door and saw the option for “bar” or “restaurant” side; knowing we weren’t appropriately dressed for fine dining, we went to the bar side. A younger girl approached us and lead us to our table that was described as a “louder” area.

After our waters & menus arrived the same girl who had sat us at our table, came and placed the chalk board with the daily specials on it, she said “here are the daily specials” and walked away.

We realized that our table was directly in front of the servers station, which we figured was why it was described as the “louder” section. But, we were intrigued to see all the food the restaurant had to offer.

After our order was placed, we began noticing very odd stares from the staff. We didn’t think much of it and continued having a good time.

Once our food arrived we immediately dived in! My friend had ordered the seafood pasta and myself, the seafood platter. I found it odd that after my platter was placed in front of me, nothing was described to me. The menu read that it had a variety of local seafood, so I was quite disappointed that none of the items were explained or pointed out. The plate was simply placed in front of me and the server walked away.

Shortly after, our server (who appeared as the front end manager), was standing a steps away from our table (while preparing other customers plates) asked how everything was tasting. My friend said “oh everything is delicious!”

A short period later, our water jug emptied but no one ever offered to refill it. However, we did notice how amazing their service was for other customers. The moment our table neighbour’s beers/plates emptied, the younger buser girls were very quick to bring them more drinks and grab the unnecessary plates from their table. Which very quickly followed with the delivery of a dessert menu.

We finished our meals and decided that we wanted some dessert as all of the different options we saw while sitting at our table were so intriguing!

We tidied up our table as best as possible and eagerly sat waiting for the offer of the dessert menu.

However, the offer never came. As our conversation started to die down, we noticed that roughly 10-13min had gone by and not one of our dirty plates had been removed from our table. I than went to take a drink of water but realized my glass was still empty, as well as our water jug. We than took a step back and watched the staff to see what on earth was going on, as they were extremely attentive to absolutely every other customer.

Now it was very clear that we were being blatantly ignored and figured we would time how long it took for our plates to be cleared. On 4 separate occasions I made direct eye contact with 3 of the busers; I saw them look directly at our plates and walk the other way. One girl at one point even appeared to take a step back to grab our plates, but quickly decided against it. The server even walked up into the server station, made eye contact with my friend and continued to check her phone directly in front of us.

After 10-13 of untimed waiting and roughly 10min of timed waiting we honestly considered just leaving. But quickly agreed that wasn’t appropriate. My friend was almost in tears, feeling so ashamed we had even entered the building.

We considered even going to the bar to ask the bartender for the bill but didn’t know if we would be treated any better.

After physically getting up from our talk to personally speak to staff about getting our bill was it brought to us. After 3mins timing waiting, we asked the same person who brought us our bill if we were to pay up front as we had seen her completely avoiding us. She rudely said she’d get the machine & rolled her eyes.

We can’t help but wonder why..because we’re Canadian (?!); very disappointing end to our otherwise AMAZING day in...

From the moment we walked in this place appeared to be in utter chaos. No-one acknowledge we were standing there. It was semi busy when we walked in, which was about 1700. We were shown to a nice quiet booth. But after that, things went down hill. There were no oysters, no muscles. There really should be a sign posted. Hubby wanted oysters and were told they were "cleaned out" last night. He ordered the seafood linguine, which was underwhelming. There were small prawns and the muscles that were in there were so tiny you had to really put your glasses on to see them. I ordered goat cheese salad. Not exciting, but editable. Also ordered an order of garlic toast. Which was OK. Now for the final straw. The wait staff doesn't take the money. But we didn't know that. After asking for our check feom someone that took our plates away, we continued to wait. Now you would think the waitress would have told us that you need to go to the bar to pay, but she finally came up minutes later and said you go to the bar. So off we went. We get to the bar and one side was so crowded I couldn't even see the bartender. Then I happened to glance on the other side and saw someone that I could maybe get my attention. We get there and at that point the same waitress comes up and says table 12. Never told us what table we were on. So he preceded to give us what he thought was table 12 and it wasn't our check. I always look at the check, so I wouldn't have given the money for the wrong check. He gives me the right one and we finally get out of there. This is supposed to be the best place to eat in town. Let alone it cost us €30 to take a taxi to and fro there. What a huge...

Went here as it was our first time in donegal town. Place looks good from the outside and was filled with people sitting outside in the sun. Walked in to be stared at by the bartender and shouted over to us that they are no longer serving food. We said that’s okay maybe we can just grab a drink at the bar as the atmosphere was nice. He didn’t say anything to us so we sat at the bar. The bartender then ignored us until eventually asked what did we want, really rude. We ordered a drink and then not even 10 minutes later he suddenly said oh actually you can get food and eat it at the bar? At this point we just wanted to leave as the vibes were off. We said no thanks and wanted to finish our drinks. Not even 5 minutes later a waitress came over really pushy saying oh we actually have a table now for you so follow me. Confused as we didn’t ask for a table I said no but maybe could we look at a menu? To this she literally changed her whole demeanor towards us and rolled her eyes as she had to go get a menu. I was honestly shocked at how rude she was so I already had made my mind up that we needed to get out of here. When she came back with menus she didn’t even look at me just handed it to me. I immediately put the menus down and started to feel uncomfortable at this point as we both wanted to leave. She came back over again and basically said do you want the table or not. Such a horrible attitude no way to speak to people, bad day or not, you expect people to dine at your restaurant and spend their money to be treated like an inconvenience. Such a let down as the place was nice but...