Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurant — Restaurant in Annapolis

Review of Cooper’s Hawk Winery 7/29/2023

Please read… This experience left a lot to be desired

So, on a whim, we decided to try Cooper’s Hawk winery on Saturday, July 29th. We easily secured a 7:45 pm reservation and arrived in the lobby at our assigned time. As with any restaurant on a Saturday, they were running a little behind and we were seated right around 8 pm. As we were escorted to our table, my wife noticed that the table was dirty and asked the host if he could get someone to clean it before we were seated. He happily obliged, and handed her the set ups (salt, pepper and candle) from the table to hold as he proceeded to clean the table (please see attached picture). As we sat down, we noticed that the aroma of the restaurant resembled a blend of the waterlogged passenger terminal at Miami International Airpot and a Chuck E Cheese ball pit. The restaurant was quite noisy and reminded me of an active casino floor with a hot craps table. Knowing this was going to be an interesting evening, I set the timer on my watch. Seven minutes later our server greeted us. We ordered two samples to make a decision on the wine pairing. Our server returned 14 minutes later and asked if we wanted to place an order. At this point, we still didn’t have bread , water, nor had our samples arrived. I made an executive decision and ordered a bottle of red Zinfandel. When our wine arrived, the decanter/aerator still had about 1/2 inch of water in the barrel. I pointed out to our server and she promptly swapped it out. She drew us a glass of wine and walked away. As I took my first sip, I noticed something crunchy on my lips and realized that the glass was very dirty. We flagged down a nearby server and asked for a clean glass. She said that she would have a manager bring a fresh glass of wine to the table. About five minutes later, the manager appeared and dropped a glass of wine on the table, he politely announced what it was, but offered no apologies. Our appetizers appeared shortly thereafter. My wedge salad first and my wife’s pork belly about eight minutes later. Honestly, they were both delicious, but should have been dropped at the same time. Our entrees did come out at the same time, but I had to ask the food runner for new utensils and a steak knife since mine were cleared with the first course and never replaced. The meals were cooked to order, but the overall experience left a lot to be desired with a $40 per entree price point. As we were finishing our meals, the neighboring table stopped us and asked if my wife was going to “collect her tip” for holding the set ups, when we were first seated. We all laughed at the situation. Here were a few observations from around the restaurant as we were finishing our meal. A table behind us had a server bring another plate to the table and scrape a portion off of the diner’s plate at the table as apparently she wasn’t happy with something on her plate. A table behind us had one diners meal dropped and was then informed that the server forgot to submit the other order. Those diners waited at least twenty minutes for the second meal to come out. When they asked for a manager, a very inexperienced manager came out to address the situation and was then asked to get the General Manager. A second “manager” came to the table and attempted to address the situation. When asked by the diners where the GM was, they were told that he left an hour ago. At this point, we had had enough, paid our check and left. I understand that this may seem a little nit picky as Cooper’s Hawk is nowhere near Michelin Star quality. However, I was not expecting service that would be surpassed by any Popeye’s in the county. From what we saw there weren’t just issues with us, I saw the manager having to speak and apologize to several tables...

• UPDATE- Spoke to the GM ,Al and advised of all the issues below. He apologized and really took the time to listen to my concerns. He mailed me several complimentary dinner, with a glass of wine card(s). Some of my previous party returned tonight and our server Mercy definitely made up for the poor customer service on Father's Day. Mercy was pleasant, helpful and very personable. When we asked about a wine we saw someone else drinking, she identified the wine and asked if we wanted to taste it. She also made great suggestions for dinner. Everything was yummy including our chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert. Mercy and this evenings food turned the negative experience noted below into a positive one. We will share with the remainder of our previous parry that did not come tonight and maybe they will join us the next time. Thank you Al. I will be calling you to advise of my updated review in case you miss this😁

*Previous review My father-in-law has always spoken highly of Cooper's Hawk and this is where he wanted to go for Father's Day. This was the first time visiting for myself, husband and son. Though I enjoyed the napa chicken, it was very good, with ALL of the other issues, I would not return or recommend to others. We eat out quite a bit and I review where we eat, good or bad. ISSUES:The server was flippant, surly and condescending. She spoke to my 80 yr old father-in-law like he was a child( he is of sound mind and body,) it was rude. My sister in-law, tried to save a mixed alcoholic beverage that WE DID NOT ORDER, from being wasted but she wanted to know what was in it, the server replied dryly, 'Alcohol'. Ummm duh, we knew that, so needless to say that drink wasn't saved It took forever to get our food. Soup for my 10 yr old niece was the last to come out while everyone else was already eating.Why would soup take so long? By the time it came she had filled up on the table bread. My father in-laws food was burnt, it was offered to have it made new or to order something else. My father in-law declined, as it took so long to get the food, by the time it would come out, we would all be done eating. Food came out in all different timeframes for our party of 9. So for a Father's Day celebration, he didn't even get to eat??!!! There were other issues but this review has already gotten really long. So my family and I didn't want to make a big deal while we were there, so I called to share our experience, as soon as I got home (45 min drive for us) with a manager, the call went to voicemail. After 3 days, with no reply, I called and left another voicemail. After another 2 days, I called the reservation ext. and asked to speak to a manager. I spoke to him he apologized for our experience. I advised this should be shared with the server for learning as she is in the service business. The manager took my information and advised he would send me two complimentary entree with a glass of wine cards. This for a party of 9 , where out of the 9 of us , 5 had issues with the food and/or service.This ruined our Father's Day celebration. Really? Today is July 3 and those cards were never received. There are many other restaurants that are closer to home, where not only is the food good but the service is excellent and the management cares about your experience and comes around to check on all of the diners. There was way too much money spent here for the nonsense of presenting as an upscale establishment. Is it only on certain days??? Thumbs down. **My husband ordered the salted caramel creme brulee to go, see picture. Not only was the presentation horrible it tasted nothing like creme brulee we've had before, it's a favorite, it ended up in...

This place is definitely in its decline. This used to be my favorite place to go. I became a wine club member on my first visit. I visited on 12/23/2023 for wine tasting and dinner. WINE TASTING: Wine tasting used to be a fun experience now its like just going to a busy college bar. I remember the servers would take the time to tell you the different tastings they had available for the month. They would tell you about the wine you were trying. They would switch glasses when switching from red to white and vice versa or at the very least turn over your glass on a napkin to ensure all the red wine was gone before pouring the white in. NOPE! The servers just throw a tasting menu in front of you and pour the wine. No real experience. Let not forget that they didn't have 1/3 of the wines on the sheet. How do you not have the wines on your tasting menu. YOU'RE A WINERY. ITS YOUR OWN WINE. They didn't even use the aerator for the wine of the month. When I asked about the "Conundrum Aerator" she looked annoyed and responded "Are you really going to make me do that? Also, it broken" (I doubt it. I'm sure she just didn't want to do it) Talk about service. Also light fixtures are missing or broken and the drawers are also broken. You can see staples or nails sticking of the wood. The manager has obviously given up on the place. Lastly, they don't even offer crackers anymore with the wine tasting.

DINNER: First we were seated under what seem to be a spotlight. I assume the light went out and they replaced it with a higher wattage light. The light above the table was so bright it was like I was being interrogated. It was comical. We asked to be move to a table next to us and out of the spotlight. That seem to annoy our server. We get moved and order our appetizers and a bottle of wine for the table. We get our appetizers and they were great. After we finished our apps our server comes to our table to get our dinner items. We give her our order and ask her about our bottle of wine we order over half an hour ago. She looked annoyed and and said "oh yeah..." 10 minutes later she comes back and rushes through opening the wine and pours it without any technique. It was like getting wine at a frat house. She didn't bring us a decanter or a chiller. She just leaves the bottle on the table and walks away. After waiting another half hour our server circles back and says "let me check on what's the hold up with your food." She then comes back with my meal that obviously looks like it has been sitting around and tells my girlfriend her meal was sent to another table and it should be right out. 15 minutes later or server brings out a meal to our table and it's not at all what she ordered. Our server comes over and we tell her it's the wrong meal. She picks up her meal and looks at me and says he's looks irritated. I then say I am because I intended to have dinner with my girlfriend not take turns looking at each other our meals at different times. She grabs my plate and say they'll cook us new meals. Long story short she lied. She brings out my girlfriend's correct meal and my meal that was so obviously microwaved. The juice from my medallions pooled liked soup on the bottom of my plate. It was bad. We didn't finish our meal or wine. We paid and left downstairs to collect our wine order. Wine Collecting: We placed our wine order during our tasting and we got our order good thing I double checked it because we were a wine bottle short.

This place isn't what it was. I got better service at my local Dennys. An Applebee's experience for a Cooper's Hawk price tag. Spend your money and time...