Shibley's at the Pier — Restaurant in Alton

At the price we paid, with only 2 tables full beside ours, I expect better cooking and better service.

Cons: Apple fritters were over-fried, which is sad because the inside was delicious. Now, it would have been passed off as perhaps a one-off mistake, but the table across from us, with whom we had wonderful conversation, had what appeared to be fried chicken and it was positively burnt, it was so over-fried. And, my tablemate also had the same before I arrived and stated the same after departure. As if someone is not paying attention to the food as it is cooking. There was also too much of something in the sauce, for the fritter, but it was balanced to tolerable with the ice cream.

Seared ahi-tuna had so much pepper it took away from the pleasurable sauce served with the tuna and literally hid the tuna flavor. Now, that's a shame because the sauce was absolute perfection, but one cannot dine on sauce alone.

Service, my cup was consistently empty..for a while... With only 3 tables full and 2 servers, plus hostess (who kept coming to fill water, thank God), there was zero reason for tardy service. I was in the mood for my hot beverage, not water, but had little choice because my tiny cup was always empty. Either get larger cups or do better service. Or, serve with a carafe. Finally, we had to walk up to find where we could pay our bill because they never showed up so we could pay it.

Pros: The coconut shrimp was not only fried properly, it was pure heaven in flavor and taste! Wow! The sauce with it was also perfect. I swear I had 2 different cooks make my food, that was how perfect those shrimp were. I wish the same person prepared my entire meal, if different. ((If not different, what happened???))

The view. A storm was present and, as the restaurant sits literally at waters edge, it was a very passionate storm over the water, showing a plethora of emotion across sky and water, a real delight to watch, especially from the comfort of my chair inside the restaurant. What a pleasure that was!

While the service was slow and forgetful, their attitude was open, friendly and fun. The hostess was a peach of a gal, and you literally feel like she grew up next door as she ambled through her upcoming adventure. The server was sweet and happy to be there...when she was there.

Overall, I may or may not visit again and if I do, I will choose more of the coconut shrimp, which I used to open my experience and test whether I should order more food. Shame the other foods were not as well prepared as this. For 2 people, we spent well over a hundred dining, for our light meals. And, to be clear, other food was ordered, but I literally found them unmentionable as they fade from memory quickly, the flavor deep in blasé mediocrity.

I suggest visiting, for the view, and for the coconut shrimp- sold individually at $2.50 each. That is...

I'd eaten here before and had a good experience, so we booked a table well in advance for this weekend and were excited to come in. We started with cocktails, the calamari, and bacon wrapped scallops. The starters were absolutely fantastic; I've never had a more perfectly seared scallop and the bacon was wonderfully crisp. The calamari was also generously portioned and the tomatoes and cucumber complemented the sweet chili sauce surprisingly well. Martinis were served tableside and were excellent, but the "Sangria" was more of an over-sweetened tiki drink in a hurricane glass rather than the wine-focused drink I'd normally expect.

Things really fell apart when the main course came out. I ordered the seafood risotto, which came out swimming in a pool of a vaguely pink cream sauce which had broken and had globs of oil floating on top. One of the mussels also hadn't opened. Not mentioned on the menu, there was also a large lobster claw included in the dish, which I honestly could have gone without because it was dry and tough. I'm usually uncomfortable sending food back, so I soldiered on even though thinking now, I really should have said something and asked for a steak. The portions were unnecessarily large and with so much of the extremely heavy sauce, I couldn't come close to finishing this dish after digging out the scallops and shrimps, which were the best part of the whole thing.

My companions ordered the stuffed haddock, and reported that while it tasted good, the texture left a lot to be desired. The fish was overcooked and mushy, and the hollandaise sauce had soaked into the breadcrumbs leaving another heavy, saucy mess with no visual appeal or texture.

Service was informative, attentive, and unobtrusive so no missed points there, but despite a public restroom across the street and posted signage indicating that the restrooms were for customers only, the front of house staff utterly failed to stop a steady stream of adults and children strolling through the restaurant (in wet swimsuits!!) to use the facilities and walk right back out.

Alton Bay is not the most convenient location for us on the lake with distance and lack of docking space, but we made the trip down because of how good our last meal here was. I'm not sure if we'll go to that effort again after the lack of quality we experienced along with the notably steep prices and dearth of wine selection. If friends were to insist on going to Shibleys, the safest bets are to avoid the specialty cocktails in favor of more classic drinks and stick with fried...

We've eaten at this restaurant before and it's usually good. Prices are a little high but you're on the water in a resort town, so it's to be expected. We visited last night and finally walked out after waiting for our food for over an hour. We got there about 7:30 and waited a few minutes for a table. Waitress came and took a drink order and then our dinner order. Nothing difficult - chicken marsala and grilled salmon. We waited and waited. Nobody came by. FInally, I got up and asked the woman at the front desk about our dinners, she went to check, came back and said "they're plating your dinners now". So we waited some more. Our waitress came over and took the order for wine with dinner and assured us dinner would be right out. Waited some more. Got so fed up, we asked the server walking by to get our check because we were leaving. It was now over an hour. Our waitress came back and asked us if we wanted to take the food with us since it was ready! If I wanted take out, I would have ordered take out and we were 45 mins from home so dinners would have been lousy by the time we got home. It's too bad that we left $60 worth of food behind. If someone had communicated with us that the kitchen was backed up, we would have ordered an appetizer and a glass of wine. I felt badly for the waitress since she was serving outside (which was full) and inside. I did not see anyone operating as a manager, there may have been. I won't rush back. Can't recall the last time we walked out of a restaurant. I could have gone to the grocery store and bought the chicken and fish and made dinner in less time than we sat there waiting last night. ...