Clark's Oyster Bar - Austin — Restaurant in Austin

For what supposed to be "fine dining", Clark's menu/food may be fine, but sadly Clark's dining service and experience is not. Clark's service lacks fundamental tact in hospitality, which is unexpected since they are in McGuire Moorman Hospitality.

I have visited almost all of McGuire Moorman Hospitality restaurants in Austin, which includes but not limited to Jeffrey's, Josephine House, Elizabeth St Cafe, Perla's, Lambert's to even the more laid back ones, like Swedish Hill, Pool Burger, Lou's...comparing to them all, Clark's service is regarded the lowest to them all or just in general in the restaurant industry in Austin. Of course, restaurant may have hard days...but to be considered a decent fine dining level restaurant, their hard days should not fully translate to guests' bad days.

My husband and I went to Clark's to celebrate our wedding anniversary last month. The weather has been cold so my husband call days in advance to confirm with them that we will be seated outside near a heater (we do not dine indoors due to COVID) and also inform them of our special occasion and then he called again one day prior to confirm reservation details again. We arrived at Clark's and seated by a heater, however, the heater is out of order...we informed a staff with our concerns, clearly saw the staff discussed our concerns with a manager, but no response for a while...raised our concerns with our waitress again, she said she will turn the heater on; still nothing happened/nor any response for 30 minutes. Finally, my husband saw the manager, directly asked about it...manager informed us it was out of order and finally apologized for not being able to deliver what was confirmed 2 times in the reservation. The disappointing part of this experience is not because the heater did not work, but how extremely poorly this was handled...a guest should not need to ask for something multiple times with zero response and finally get one when it is directly comforted with the manager. Quite openly, the responsibility fully falls on the manager in charge that evening since he was clearly informed but did nothing until directly asked.

If you think this was the only disappointing part of the dining experience...sadly there is more. The waitress that was serving us was fine and energetic at first but then she got overwhelmed/busy the second half and suddenly had an attitude change and went from Clark's waitress to a Wendy's fast food server...and had a poor, unhelpful attitude the rest of our time there.

All in all, the dining experience was so unpleasant that even with the food being nice...it simply cannot compensate the poor service. And quite candidly, there is no desire to describe the food when there is such a bad experience.

We went to Lambert's the next few days and it was a night and day difference...

It is unclear what happened with Clark's that evening, but hopefully Clark's recognize their lack of service and aim for improving...it is a nice restaurant at a thriving, quaint neighborhood close to downtown Austin...so much to offer but cannot deliver the...

Pretty disappointed based on the hype. I booked a Wednesday 5:15pm dinner reservation about a month in advance to celebrate my birthday. When you book your reservation you are notified that your reservation has an allotted time, 1hr 30mins for 2 people. On the day of our reservation we arrived and luckily we got a spot in their very small parking lot (6 spots). Entering the restaurant it’s very small and very loud. We got sat at a small two top table between two four tops. The server didn’t introduce herself probably because it is so loud. We wanted oysters obviously but since it was so loud our server didn’t get to talk about tasting profiles for the oysters. There were not tasting notes on the menu either. So we blindly ordered about 16 oysters, 4 different varieties. Some were good and some that tasted kind of fishy and had a weird texture that I haven’t had before eating oysters. My partner got the lobster roll and wasn’t impressed. It lacked seasoning and acid. I ordered the mussels and clams. The clams were pretty good but the mussels just tasted like something dirty and stinky. During our dinner The table to the right of us were clearly getting intoxicated. I counted about 4 martinis per person over an hour. They were talking about dead bodies, infidelity, etc.. and you are seated so close you have no choice but listen to others conversations. Especially drunk conversations. Went to use the restroom which is placed in a narrow hallway type area that’s also the server station. You see all the females purses and personal items which I thought was odd. And the hallway is so narrow that if you were a bigger person you would be pretty uncomfortable trying to squeeze between the servers to get to the bathroom. Dessert we got the chocolate mousse and the basque cake. They were both mediocre and had waaay too many nuts. Overall I spent $230 and left pretty disappointed. Would...

Went to Clark’s Oyster Bar for lunch and had a wonderful anniversary celebration. The service was really attentive and friendly, with little details like a happy anniversary postcard on the table when we arrived. Sat outside, set back from the road, under a tree and their lovely yellow awnings, it was great to be outside. Cocktails were beautifully crafted, with strong flavours and a good amount of alcohol, and food arrived timely to the table. We had Oysters to start, which looked beautifully presented on a large metal dish of crushed ice with shaved horseradish and condiments, as well as the most delicious starter in their Tuna Carpaccio. This is an amazingly crafted dish, how they get their tuna to such a thin yet beautifully firm and flavoursome presentation shows real craft, complimented by all the olives, capers & sunflower sprouts, it’s a star dish. We had the lobster roll, a staple dish which could easily be shortcut, but every detail has gone in to elevate this dish too. The brioche roll was caramelised perfectly, huge perfect lettuce leaves cradled a very generous amount of delicate lobster, and a huge bowl of rosemary shoestring fries and a fresh ‘slaw to side, it just looked amazing and tasted so too. Finished off with a delicious key lime pie, and a torched Swiss meringue on the side, this was one of the best of many meals we had on our holiday to the USA. Highly recommend and would certainly go back if we visit Austin again and try their evening sitting, which I imagine with the fairy lights in the tree’s, would be just as...