RAES COASTAL CAFE — Restaurant in Augusta

Over the past 15 years, I’ve dined at Raes Coastal Café 40+ times, and, though I could put it more eloquently, I have this to say:

It doesn’t suck, Mon!

The attentive service, drool-worthy apps and entrees and the good company of the gracious, gregarious owner Walter Clay…

This is my restaurant of choice for business, for buddies, for after-workout-grab-it-to-go delectable fare.

Certain characteristics distinguish a good restaurant from an average one, but there’s one characteristic that makes a good restaurant great, and that’s consistency.

It’s easy to get it right one time, but to get it right time and time again? That takes good management, a passion for pleasing patrons and a little bit of magic.

And there’s magic at Raes.

You leave some restaurants having enjoyed the meal and service but questioning the value: Does a great dining experience have to cost that much? And you leave other restaurants thrilled by the whole event only to return a week or two later, and, well, it sucks.

Raes Coastal Café doesn’t suck.

Try the black bean dip and nacho chips, shrimp pate with a tease of mango chutney or the perfectly spiced jerk chicken wings for an appetizer. (The wings, along with the house salad and its homemade dressing, are one of my favorite to-go combos. I make two meals out of one serving.)

For lunch, try the grilled salmon marinated in an orange rum sauce, mahi mahi topped with Raes mango chutney or the moist Jamaican jerk pork. And if the crab cake is one of the daily specials, you have got to order it: the patty is generously packed with sweet, fresh crab. (I don’t think there’s a crumb of filler in those babies.)

Try anything jerked with the triple hot dipping sauce made from Scotch bonnet peppers that’s prepared daily.

This is a review, not an invitation. I hope that you, like others, will have trouble finding this place, because it’s hard enough to find a seat at the bar. (Reservations are not accepted, so...

We haven't been to Rae's in several years. Well, we had our Christmas get together there this year. We were quite disappointed. The hostess could use a lesson on listening and paying attention to the guest's explanation on which party we were meeting. She insisted our party wasn't there and the only large party was the one behind me. She finally found the name of the party on her second page. I understand they do not take "reservations" but they were informed a week in advance, that our large group would like to have a particular time slot. We waited at least an hour and fifteen minutes past the requested time. We were finally seated, at different tables but in the same area. One of the specials were the scallops in a champagne sauce reduction? Oops, mistake on my part, should have inquired which scallop. It had six tiny bay scallops, a little over cooked. Not worth the $26.99. I know these are suppose to be sweeter, but really? Sea scallops would have been a better option. Yes, bay scallops may have been a better food cost item, I understand, but really. Rice and black beans I would have considered to be lower food cost items and plates fillers, were a joke maybe had 1/3 of a cup of rice with 1/4 cup of black beans on it. I do have to say, the Key Lime martini was awesome. I do not think the place has been updated since we were there the last time. That may have been about 13 or so years ago. Parking could use some help too. Many in our party were there for the first time. Sad to say, they commented that they would not return. I am giving three stars because the young man managing that night tried very hard to make it right by helping to serve and make sure we were taken care of by giving an appetizer while we waited and then cheesecake for our...

I want to like this place, but we have been twice now and I think that we won't be returning again. I tried to make a reservation before our first visit in February, but when I called the number a fax line picked up. We arrived on a Saturday evening and were told there would be an extended wait to be seated and that it would have been best to make an advance reservation. When I explained what happened when I tried, the host brushed it off as an intermittent problem with their phone lines. The food was good that evening, and it was relatively quiet and uncrowded. We made reservations (successfully this time) for my birthday dinner this evening. When we arrived on time, we still had about a five minute wait to be seated. The restaurant was packed and very noisy. The area we were seated in was filled with families with small, screaming children (not the restaurant's fault, I realize), and the waiter commented on the noisy situation. We decided to leave shortly after he took our drink order when the woman seated immediately behind me elbowed my back without acknowledgement while attending to her screaming child. I stopped by the host stand on our way out to say that we were leaving, and neither person at the stand said anything to me in response. I want to believe the hype about this place, but it seems to be just another "good old boys' club" in Augusta where you have to be known already to receive the kind of service and experience this place is said to...