The Beach House — Restaurant in Bristol

I came into this restaurant about a week and a half ago with my boyfriend. I work in the restaurant industry, and have for many years, so I am very understanding when it comes to any sort of mistake or mishap. What happened to us was too ridiculous for me to even look past. My boyfriend has several food allergies (all nuts, sesame, and soy) so when we go out to eat we are very careful and always ask if he can have something before ordering (we have never had any issues before). We decided to order the octopus appetizer and we asked our server to check if he could have it with all of his allergies. She told us she would check with the kitchen for cross contamination and would let us know. She left to check, and came back and said it was all good. After waiting at least 15 minutes for the appetizer, my boyfriend noticed a sauce under the appetizers description he did not recognize (because i was the one who had ordered it), so we decided to search it up to be safe. To our surprise one of the sauces main ingredients was nuts. I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt in thinking maybe they make it themselves and don’t use nuts, so I decided when the appetizer came we could ask the server to double check with the kitchen on the sauce. My boyfriend got up to go to the bathroom and caught the server on his way and decided to ask about the sauce (at this point it’s been around 20 minutes so it should have been coming out any minute). She went to check with the kitchen and low and behold when she came back she admitted the sauce did have nuts in it and they had to remake the appetizer. When my boyfriend came back and told me this my stomach dropped. If we had not looked up that sauce and double checked with the server, that appetizer would have been served to us and my boyfriend would have been rushed to the hospital and who knows what could have happened to him. The next time I saw the server I told her to just cancel the appetizer because I, nor did my boyfriend, feel comfortable eating it after that. A few minutes later we ordered our entrees, still feeling uneasy and not sure if we could now trust them with his allergies. We got the food and it was nothing special and quite pricey for the quality, but that is not even what this review is about. As we went on with our dinner I felt that the situation was not dealt with at all. We did not get one apology for the almost possible death of my boyfriend, and not one ounce of reassurance that the rest of his food was going to be fine. I would understand if this mistake did not threaten my boyfriends life, but for him it was really life or death. After our meal and everyone just pretending like nothing happened, I decided I wanted to talk to a manager and at least bring the situation to someone’s attention (but it’s my fault for thinking someone would actually care) We asked our server for a manager and reassured her she did nothing wrong. When she came back she said there wasn’t a manager on duty and took my name and phone number and said they would call me. First off there is no possible way a manager or someone in charge was not on. Secondly I left my name and phone number and waited for a call and nothing. I know managers and people working in restaurants have a lot to do so I waited a week and gave them time to call me back and nothing. This just shows not one person in that restaurant cares that they could have killed my boyfriend. We prevented them from a possible lawsuit and A LOT of negative publicity. If they served us that appetizer (like they were going to do) and we ate it (because they told us it was okay) my boyfriend would have gone into anaphylactic shock, I would have had to use his epipen in the middle of the restaurant and call the ambulance and he would have been rushed to the hospital. Anything that would happen after that would be bad news for this restaurant. The least they could have done was apologize or MAYBE care and actually call me back. Any good management and workers would have handled this differently, I know...

I was so excited to dine at this beautiful restaurant on my Mother’s Day, but this restaurant fell short on many levels. Let’s start off with sitting at our table for 25 minutes before a waitstaff came over and asked us if we would like anything to drink. We then ordered apps and drinks and the drinks took another 15 minutes to arrive. We ordered a glass of wine and two sangria's. The glass of wine came and it barely had wine in the glass, I would say it was two mouthfuls at best. The sangria's were very weak and we are not heavy drinkers. Our apps came fairly quickly, but they were just average. We ordered calamari, which was tasty and we also ordered nachos and shrimp cocktail. They were ok, but not amazing! After we finished our apps and our first round of drinks we were never asked if we wanted another drink and our dirty appetizer dishes stayed at our table until our food arrived about 25 minutes later. We had to ask for additional drinks including water, we had to ask for salt, pepper, cheese on the burger and mayo. I even had to ask the food runner if he could take the dirty dishes away so we could enjoy our meal. When all 5 of our meals came they were again just average. We ordered two lobster salad rolls (they were ok, but had a funny tasting mayo), Buffalo tenders (dry with hardly no buffalo sauce) and fries (decent). The gnocchi and steak was tasty, but came out cold and steak was over cooked for a small piece of beef and the surf and turf burger was raw when I asked for the burger to be medium well and it did not have a lobster tail like the menu says, the lobster tail was two bites of lobster at best. We expected the service to be slow due to Mother's Day, but the restaurant was not full to capacity. We ordered oysters, but they were out of oysters at 4:30 pm and my younger son wanted the grilled chicken caesar wrap and the waitress said they could not make that now because that was an item on the lunch menu, not the dinner menu. The waitress never came and asked if our meal was cooked good so another 20-25 minutes went by and my family finished their meals and I had to ask someone to take my burger back and fix it. When they brought my burger back it was well done and all they did was re-cook the original burger that they messed up on. I couldn’t enjoy my meal, my family was done with theirs and I just wanted to leave. We also never had refills on our water, never received bread before dinner. The waitress was kind enough to take the surf and turf burger off our bill, but that was not what we wanted. We wanted a nice meal. We never complain unless something is terribly wrong and this experience was completely wrong. This restaurant has a lot of potential, beautiful spot, decorated tastefully and good food options. The poor service and lack of attention to detail will ruin this place if they do not address these issues. I honestly do not know how some of these reviews give this place 4 & 5 stars. I only gave this place a 1 star because the views and decor are beautiful. I also do not want to hurt this restaurant, I am hoping the owner/management team corrects these issues so that this business thrives and has a successful...

December 2023 - We had good food. I had a special with fettuccine but not served with a spoon for twirling so got sauce on my clothes. Luckily it washed out. My date ordered a Bullet old fashioned and was charged for Blanton's instead of Bullet. Waitress explained that a Blanton's old fashioned was $17 while Bullet was $15. She didn't correct the price! Her attitude was "oh well, you will pay $2 more for something you didn't order." Please hire a real food and beverage manager to run your restaurant correctly! We have given you so many chances and time for improvement. Not sure we'll bother trying you again in 6 months. April 2023 - Taking my review down another notch. We stopped in on one of the 80 degree days. Sat at the bar because the hostess was too busy moving tables around for other parties than seating us. We got tired of waiting on the stairs (awkward and dangerous).The bartender didn't know Whispering Angel was a rose wine and looked at the whiskey selection when I asked for WA. She ran through a list of all the things they didn't have when we ordered - no buns for burgers, no lettuce for salads, etc. because a shipment didn't arrive. I got the halibut special for $32 which was significantly overpriced as it was only accompanied by an overcooked to slightly burnt puck of polenta. One half of the dish was empty and I couldn't recall if there was another side listed on the menu. The space was probably for a side that didn't arrive with the shipment but they charged full price anyway. The decline started with the new manager. He obviously doesn't have the experience to run the place correctly. Too bad. We used to love it here. Dec 2022 Taking my review down a notch. We were there recently. Salmon was overcooked and tasted fishy. I never send anything back but did with this. Told the waitress and was provided another option, but she didn't take the salmon off the bill. Something like that really should be comped, even if you switch to something else. I had a bad stomach for two days after and only had two bites of the fishy salmon. Very unusual experience for a place we've been so happy with in the past. ‐-------- Old review 5 stars Awesome! Great setting to watch the sunset. Food was fabulous! Staff was attentive and friendly. Casual setting....