McSeagull’s Restaurant — Restaurant in Boothbay Harbor

The food was typical Maine tourist trap dining. Overpriced prefab frozen cuisine circled around local seafood. Salads were drenched in dressing to the point they were soggy and the content was unrecognizable. Ask for dressing on the side. The cheese on my hamburger was moldy. I didn’t see it, but the taste had gone through the entire slice. You know, when to molds on one corner, but sours the whole block. Thank goodness I like blue cheese. The service was insulting at best. I was curtly asked where I was from after I asked about the clams. Where I’m from should have zero influence on a clam description. Then I asked if the fries were frozen or fresh cut. I was met with, “No, they are frozen. “ Then the next comment was “ If I didn’t tell you that, you’d never know the difference.” The hell I wouldn’t, I have taste buds.

Her behavior was appalling. If her day was so horrible, she should have been able to go home instead of inflecting her attitude on customers.

I was with a group of coworkers and our client, so I was trapped. Had I been alone I would have left at that moment. And certainly sent back my hamburger and left at that point, if I had even gotten far enough to order. I also would have spoken with the manager. I was so embarrassed to take our client there. Btw, you could tell the difference in the fries, a small child can. They were the prefab mush, coated fries that they quite literally have to put a coating on to make them palatable and stay together. My parents had a restaurant in a tourist trap town for 20 years. They made pies from scratch, sauces, soups, bread, you name it…they used local meats and the potatoes they would bring in themselves from Idaho, the neighboring state, and their fries were fresh cut, skins on as were the hash browns. There were some people who would return to their restaurant daily their entire visit, for breakfast, lunch, dinner and/or dessert because they enjoyed their previous meal so much. They provided excellent food and service in spite of the location and the ease they could have had by cutting corners and providing subpar food and service. Therefore, I know first hand that things can be done differently than they are at McSeagull’s, the choice is theirs. The tourist trap stereotype is alive and well at this restaurant. Feed them cheap, treat them like cattle, overcharge them and shove them out the door. We are in town every month. We had a $200 bill for 4 people. We won’t be back. $200 x 12 = $2400 we will take to...

Went to Boothbay Harbor to grab a bite on our drive from Portland to Bar Harbor. On a recommendation from a friend who had recently been there, we decided to try McSeagulls. It was 1:15pm (I know this because I paid for parking) And we were seated rather quickly. Our server came to us, got our drink order and our food order… Pretty simple, the fish nugget appetizers, Side order of coleslaw and the Smashburger. I noticed there were lots of larger parties and thought hopefully two people eating an appetizer and a cheeseburger would be simple. I was so wrong. After 45 minutes, Which is much longer than I would’ve normally waited, We still only had a cup of water and a diet drink. Our server never came back to see us. We watched numerous groups of people come in 2-4 at a time. We even watched a couple come in be seated get their food and leave before a different server noticed we were still waiting. The second server finally said something to our original server who said she was going to go to the kitchen to check. Well, she was gone a really long time and my husband, and I realized that meant that our order had been lost. The explanation was there were really large parties in front of us and if we wanted to wait, it would take 15 to 20 minutes to get our food. We had already waited 45 minutes at this point it was getting close to an hour. I paid five dollars for my drink since no one would tell me how much my diet drink cost and we left. Before I left, I spoke to Michael, who was the manager on duty and he only said well. We have large parties in front of you and it’ll take 15 minutes to have your food. He then bragged that they have a 25 minute ticket and I said well it’s been over 45 minutes and we are leaving. I told him I paid for my drink and I’m done. He asked me if I wanted some chowder to go and I asked him how I’m supposed to eat that in a car. So I would like to tell you how Delicious the food was and how wonderful the service was, but I can’t. I’m still really irritated because we feel like the staff really did not care. By the way, When we got to our car, our one hour parking had expired and thank goodness we hadn’t...

To preface, we went in around 6:30pm on a Friday night in the summer, so it was crowded. That being said, the service at McSeagulls was lacking.

When we first sat down, we were told our server would be with us shortly. It took a bit for us to be able to put our order in, but they were very busy. About an hour and 10 minutes later, we got our food. We sat there and watched as multiple parties who came in after us got their food, ate, and paid all while we still hadn’t gotten ours. This lead us to believe our server forgot to put in our order. She also only came over once toward the end of that 70 minutes to say she just sent someone up to check on it because it was taking too long. It was just two sandwich entrees.

It’s also worth noting that when we ordered, we were asked if we wanted regular fries, Parmesan truffle fries, or onion rings, which lead us to believe those were our options that came with our meals. We were surprised to see an additional charge of $5 for the Parmesan truffle and $2.50 for onion rings. It would have been nice to have been told that when we were offered those as our choice of sides.

Everyone is capable of having a bad day, and maybe she was just feeling off, but this is a vacation town this time of year. People are coming out to enjoy life and have a great time. Please try to consider that in the experience you provide people with. The food is outstanding and the ambience is great. This should be an easy five star review. If it really was the kitchen staff and not the server’s fault, that’s also understandable, but check in with the table and apologize along the way instead of when you’re dropping the check so you can try to salvage getting a tip. We had a three and a half hour drive home and plans to do more in town that got derailed because after 90 minutes of sitting in a restaurant waiting, we needed to get on the road right away.

We likely would not come back, which is unfortunate because there is a lot of good things...