Freda's Seafood Grille — Restaurant in Austin

I've been here so many times for brunch that I'd recommended my sister celebrate her birthday party here. Well...she loved the place so much the 1st time that she decided to come back and celebrate her birthday the following year again. This time the experience was different. We had a party of 15-16. Well...some of us were seated while late attendees strolled in a few minutes later. They gave us complimentary cornbread which was delicious. It's served in small cast iron skillet that's the size of a cookie or tea cake. The waiter and waitress serving our table were ok. When we asked for more cornbread for the people who arrived later, we were told that they could only bring out 3 per table. I had to point out to the waiter that we had 5 tables pushed together and I counted everyone for him. He brought out 2 more cornbread skillets that was each person had 1/4 of it which was the size of a macaroon. You could eat it in one bite. I felt at that moment the complimentary cornbread skillets were rationed out for our large party. This is where it gets interesting. Emily our red head waitress took our order but started with my adoptive daughter (white) first. Keep in mind, she arrived late with my biological daughter (black). I didn't think anything of it at first. No big deal. I let her do her job by taking the orders. I realized she was struggling to understand their order, therefore, I intervened. Since we had lunch earlier and really wasn't hungry, we ordered 1 soup for $7, 2 Cesar salads for $7 each, 1 wedge salad for $8, and 1 crab fried rice for $16. 2 of my daughters ordered cranberry juice for $4 each. My bill should have been $52 plus gratuity.....$11 for a grand total of $63. Cool. Well...my bill was $102 to be exact. Shame on Emily!She over charged me big time! Do the math!Overcharged $49 and then lied about the reason I was charged a higher price was because I didn't get an entree which made my side salads $14 for each cesar salad and $16 for my wedge salad. She even charged me for an extra juice that I didn't get. She removed 1 juice off my bill. I payed $97 and some change. I left and was advised to go back to speak with the manager. I spoke with a guy dressed as the chef and he said he was the manager. I showed him my bill and he agreed that I should've paid the prices shown on the menu $7 and $8. He removed $20 off my bill which wasn't the true amount that needed to be deducted. Emily's tip remained the same. Emily over heard my conversation and yelled at me that I didn't have to be so rude! I wasn't rude at all and the manager looked at Emily in shock and told her to be quiet. I told him that my daughters were waitressing a few years ago and that I respect them b/c it's hard work. The manager explained that Emily was having a bad day. I was like how because it was empty in here and what does that have to do with her overcharging. I just wanted to pay for exactly what I ordered. Overall...EMILY knew what she was doing. She lashed out at me because i exposed her bs. Higher priced items mean bigger gratuity. She was condescending while taking our order too. I'm sure that if I go back there today, she will still be at work. She should've been fired on the spot. The food was decent but the service was absolutely horrible. Pay attention to your bill! Side salads are $7-$8 dollars. It's more if you add a protein to it. Stay Woke friends! Make sure red head Emily isn't your waitress! FYI… pics can be...

Completely disorganized service, despite the amazing food.

We went with family for my sister's birthday for a reservation at 6:30pm. When we were about 5 minutes away, my mother was texted that the table we reserved was ready. However, once we got to the hosts desk she couldn't find our reservation on her monitor, despite my mother showing the reservation email and her being able to confirm it. We were sat down immediately anyway after an apology for the mixup since the restaurant was less than half full.

The first server came up as we sat down and was very professional as he explained the store's history and got us drinks and some cornbread, which was delicious. He came back a couple of minutes later and took our orders. Unfortunately, that was the last we saw of the first server. The host comes by to ask my mom for the name on the reservation to make sure she marked it off correctly to fix the queue, no biggie.

We talked among ourselves for about 30 minutes, with almost all of our drinks empty and no one checking on the table. A different server came by, asked us what we were drinking, and then refilled our drinks for us.

About 20 minutes later, another person came by and introduced themselves as the head of the front of house, and explained to us that our orders were delayed because they had to get the head chef from next door to finish up our orders. He thanked us for waiting for so long and mentioned that he added two free desserts for us on top of the birthday dessert for my sister.

15 minutes later, 4 of our 5 orders come out, with my dad's order missing, so he went out for a cigarette, only for another table to get bussed and his order to come out about 5 minutes later. We finally all had our food just over an hour of discussion in. While eating, we see the "head of the front of house" grab his coat and leave.

We finish our food and my dad hands my mom the card to pay while he goes for another cigarette. Our plates are picked up quickly after he stands up, but no one comes by to ask us if we are ready for the check. We continue to talk for another 15 minutes until my dad comes back and asks if they brought back the check yet.

We flag down another server and ask for the bill, who gets it fairly quickly. I asked about the dessert for my sister, who said she was full, which my dad frustratedly then asked if anyone else wanted the desserts (we were all full and said no), and we got up and left.

Tl:dr; they lost our reservation, our servers kept disappearing and it took over an hour to get our food with next to no service, and it was even difficult to pay our bill because our table was effectively ignored in a mostly empty restaurant.

Update: Thank you very much Lee for your update and for reaching out to my Mom, who was very happy to hear from you! I am sorry to hear that there were emergencies, and understand entirely the frustration in a kitchen when things go wrong, and hope everything is well. Thank you for the detailed explanation, and I hope to return! Again, the food...

I got the paella and it was good, however the prices did not match up. You definitely spend more than what you should there. Two people from our party got two different steaks and mentioned how it was very under-seasoned. However our waiter was nice and made sure our drinks were always filled. He even custom made an order for one of us since the person eating only liked one type of fish.

Because this is a family owned business I feel the need to include this in the review but wanted to put it towards the end so it doesn’t become the main focal point. I would like to hope the owners can learn from this experience and use it to improve their customer service so others can have a better experience. I only left stars based on my experience AFTER the hostess.

My very first perception of the restaurant was dampened due to two very rude hostesses especially the old Asian lady. It took about 20 minutes to get seated even though we had reservations. We had asked for updates “twice” after seeing multiple parties come in and get seated before us. On the second time my mom went up to TRY and ask, however she couldn’t even get a single word out before the younger Asian girl quickly snapped saying, “we’re seating you right now,” not even making eye contact. The older Asian lady didn’t even give us a chance to stand up and instead bolted towards our table. They sat us in a booth meant for four people even though we had 5. Instead of making a fuss we got an extra chair that was literally two feet from our table to try and make room. This whole time I can see the same host that sat us staring at us the entire time. Then, next thing I know I see her direct a man to our table asking us to remove the chair. He first mentioned his role in the restaurant and even apologized for how long we had to wait even though this was the first time we had even seen him. Then he explained how having the extra chair there posed as a fire hazard. This was fine except for the fact that once the group next to us left they moved a whole table next to us which crowded the area they claimed to be a “hazard”. Not to mention she kept an eye on us the entire time the man had directed us to remove the extra chair. I felt really bad seeing that this dinner was meant to be a nice outing for my father, but turned sour...