Oyster Farm Seafood Eatery — Restaurant in Cape Charles

Let's start with the good stuff that matters most: the food was outstanding. Took the family here for a special birthday event for my daughter and the kitchen was excellent.

Now we move on to the reason I felt the need to write a review: the service was insultingly negligent. Tricia did almost nothing for our table. We waited 10 minutes before she came to take our drink order. Nothing from the bar, just a sweet tea and some sodas. Our 6 drinks were delivered across 4 different visits to our table, with multiple minutes in between each trip. I had to approach a hostess and ask for help because our server put in so little effort that she didn't even realize that we were missed 1/3 of our beverages.

Tricia did not pay any attention to us. Plates of shrimp exoskeletons from our appetizers remained next to our empty glasses without her noticing. If she was busy with other tables, that would have been one thing. However, from where we were seated, we could see her section. Her tables had mostly all left, and she was standing behind the bar, not helping customers for the majority of the meal. It was also a slower part of the evening, and the dinner rush had mostly died down by the time we were seated.

Our food was delivered by someone other than Tricia, and without addressing us at all, she interrupted the gentleman giving us our plates to ask him about different customers, despite standing at her own table.

Tricia did not come back to check on us to make sure that everything was OK until after I had already finished my entire meal, and after I had to approach the hostess again to get tartar sauce for my wife's meal. By the time she came over, we were clearly ready for boxes, which she didn't even notice or ask if we needed. I had to approach the hostess area to get boxes and request our check. I told the staff that our waitress was neglecting us, someone talked to her about it, but rather than fix her performance, she stood behind the bar pointing at us while aggressively talking to a coworker. We were making eye contact, and yet she still didn't come over to do her job.

The true kicker for me was what I believe was the reason for her negligence: the mandatory 20% gratuity that she knew she could add to our check because we had 6 people.

Now let me be very clear: I always tip. And I generally tip bigger than 20%. And in this case, 20% was not a negligent amount. Our meal before tax and tip was $255. That means that we were charged an extra $51 that went to a server who put in almost zero effort at any point.

To Oyster Farm, you put a wonderful product on the plate. Your decor is beautiful. However, a high-end seafood establishment should have better service than an Applebees. Thanks for a delicious meal and thank you to the staff members who had to do Tricia's job for her. Zero thanks to...

I want the owner of this restaurant, who’s name is Bob I think, to really take a look at and soak in what the public is saying about this place now. Something has changed, and that is management, which trickles down to who your new manager is hiring and how things are being handled overall. Your reviews are going downhill in direct correlation with the subpar and actually pretty offensive service. Will not return, along with my entire family, none of us will ever return or recommend this place. If anyone asks us about this place we will be sure to inform them that it is not worthy of a visit.

The hostess from Saturday evening needs a lesson in customer service and greeting people properly, maybe she would be better suited to work at a fast food drive thru window, because that’s the rude attitude she was giving. She appeared angry at us for just walking in the door for our reservation…. Not sure what her problem was exactly but that is not someone you want to be customer facing AT ALL. We complained to the manager who only seemed to back her up and pull her aside for a moment probably to make it appear like he cared but he really didn’t seem to give a crap. She stared at our table angrily for most of the night after that. Every time we looked that way she was staring holes through our heads.

Bob: please do us all a favor and fix this. We used to love this restaurant, the views are spectacular and the building is lovely. Now it feels like it’s something with so much potential that has been thrown down the garbage shoot. It’s like a McDonalds by the water, where you can’t even get a straw or utensils for some reason but at least there’s a view, right?! Please please look into some of the newer staff. One guy working there was walking around with AirPods in, which we realized after he ignored us when we asked him for help getting some utensils. You are going to lose so much money in the long run if your place becomes known as the one with terrible service, and completely overpriced for the low quality food being served.

I think most people would sacrifice the great views and go somewhere else where the service and food are great. The great views are not enough to help this place with how bad the experience was. The seafood used to be soo good here so what the heck happened?! It was sooo dry and bland tasting I was shocked at the drastic drop in food quality here. The food your staff is serving is not worthy of the $40 + price tag per plate that we paid.

So many things went wrong. DO something about it! Responding to reviews that you’re sorry about the experience and that you’ll address it with your team is not enough because obviously nothing has changed even after a couple weeks of 1...

I've been going to The Oyster Farm (Aqua) periodically since 2011 and I've always had a great experience. But on the evening of the 3rd of July 2024 that all changed. My son and his family (2 kids), me and my son's in-laws had a 6:15 pm reservation. We started by ordering drinks and 3 dozen oysters -- it took almost 20 minutes to get the drinks which were followed by the oysters. We finished the oysters and our drinks over a half hour period, and looked for our waitress to order more drinks and place our dinner order -- she was MIA. We finally saw her, caught her eye ,and placed our order. It was now 7:20 pm. At 7:50 pm the first of our order arrived -- the kids burger, mother in-law's seared tuna and two orders of the evening special - tournedos of beef on mash with asparagus for my son's father in-law and me. But that is not what we got -- we received cold mashed potatoes and beef with some sickly looking green been that looked as if they had been cooked the previous day. When we brought this to our MIA waitress's attention, she apologized took our plates, saying that we would receive a fresh dish. As we waited, the kitchen sent out two small plates of needle thin asparagus ( I counted 6 pieces). Our dinners finally arrived ( after the rest of our family had finished their meals) 30 minutes later -- and to our delight and surprise they were hot -- but they were the same meals we had sent back -- just microwaved. We refused to eat them and called for the manager. I'm no Gordon Ramsey, but I know bad service and bad meals when I see them. The manager made some feeble excuse and did remove the meals from our bill, but my son's father in-law and I went without dinner that night, and ,The Oyster Farm Eatery will go without my business in the future. I would have given a 1 star rating, but the memories of the good times and meals I had there in the past prevented me from doing so. Avoid this place until they get their...