Buoy Beer Co. Taproom — Restaurant in Astoria

Wife and I stopped in here on our anniversary on our way out of town, and were not super impressed. We came in here because we were told on the trolley that they had an acrylic floor to see the water under the building, so we thought that was awesome. No one mentioned that it's a small 4x4 square, not most of the floor like we thought. No big deal though, just a little disappointed.

The girl at the hostess station seemed like she'd rather be elsewhere, preferably somewhere without people. Then we found a spot at the bar and were given a menu, but the bartender didn't want to take our order. My wife stepped away to use the bathroom, and even after returning and deciding what we wanted, the bartender just avoided us. Instead she took care of the guy next to us that was only having wine, because apparently he's a regular. We finally ordered drinks, but she seemed put out that my wife, who was going to be driving, decided to just have Dr. Pepper (which was flat, but since the bartender didn't seem happy to be dealing with us, my wife didn't feel comfortable saying anything) while I had a beer.

After getting our drinks she went back to avoiding us. We knew what we wanted for food when we ordered our drinks, but she insisted she had to give us time to decide, even though we already had. When we finally got a chance to order our food, she snatched our menus away and disappeared again. One of the bus-girls was more friendly and talkative than she was.

The food took forever to arrive. I know they were busy, but I at least expect the common courtesy of telling me, "hey, the kitchen is backed up right now, it'll be a little longer on your food". If it takes a long time for some basic food to arrive, maybe offer your customer a small discount or something, don't just ignore them.

Final thing was that when we finished our food, and were ready for our bill, the bartender was still avoiding us. She literally picked up my wife's empty plate, and mine, and walked away. She didn't ask if we wanted our bill, or anything else. We had to wait until she could fit us into her busy social time to ask for our bill so we could pay.

Food was really good though. I'll give it that. The view from the bar was amazing. We really wanted to like the place, and if the service had been better,...

I'm wondering if we didn't catch them on a bad chef day. There is no way what we experienced yesterday could be considered a 2.5 out of 5 and there is no way I would ever consider another visit nor would I ever send anyone their way. I'm originally from Astoria and would really love to see this being a great place but the only thing visit worthy is the really cool interior and the beautiful view. That's spot on, so they have a great basis to work from. Let me be more specific, we were 4 people and ordered fish and chips, a burger, a salmon steak, clam chowder and a salad.

Almost hard to believe but absolutely nothing was edible. My medium rare burger was over well done, the meat was dry and crunchy. The salmon steak was way over cooked and salty. The sweat potato fries were not edible due to too much salt and the fish and chips, which are usually a safe bet even when you travel to England where they often can't get anything right, we didn't finish. The tarter sauce they clearly made themselves but tasted like pure garlic. I mean seriously? Who puts garlic that much garlic in tarter sauce, sure it's our opinion but that was just plain gross.

Add to that the wheat based beer I ordered had a very bitter after taste, fine I won't complain about that because that's highly subjective and I understand there are people that love bitter bear, it's just wheat based beers usually don't taste like that.

We got the bill quickly and headed on down the road. I can't imagine this place being around for very long. It's such a shame as it really is...

Disappointing. We walked in and were ignored by over a half dozen employees before I finally found someone to ask how we get seated. Then stood at the bar to order a beer while waiting for our table, another 3 employees behind the bar failed to acknowledge me. They were chatting with each other and hanging out. I finally asked for a taster and he handed it to me then walked back to where one of the other girls was loading glasses into a dishwasher rack and continued chatting and drinking his personal drink that he had sitting under the counter. I stood there for 3 or 4 minutes waiting to order a beer and no one made eye contact or even looked my way (including the guy who knew I was there because he had just handed me a taster and then walked off!) FINALLY got a beer and a table.

Food was meh. Pan fried oysters were good but I had to ask for tartar sauce and the cocktail sauce was some of the worst I have ever had. My husband ordered clam chowder, which was disappointing, and a salad, which came with a huge pile of shrimp on it. He doesn't like shrimp and was bummed because he just wanted a decent sized salad and a bowl of chowder. I ate the shrimp because I love them, but he wished the menu had said it was a salad with shrimp, because he wouldn't have ordered it. By the time he picked off the shrimp he was left with a very small salad.

Nice view of the water from our table and food came quickly, it just wasn't that good and the service was terrible. We will not...