Elaine's Cape May — Restaurant in Cape May

My wife and I decided to go to Elaine’s for our anniversary dinner. We had a gift certificate that we had won at a beef and beer a few years back.

When we entered, the hostess told us that because the gift certificate was donated, it would have expired after a year. She said she would still let us use it, so we were told to wait in the bar for our server to seat us. We waited in the bar for a few minutes, and were seated by someone other than our server, who was running late.

We were placed at a small 2 person table, directly adjacent to a table of 3. The seating was very cramped, and tables were close together. There were a great number of people packed into the room, which seemed more like a cafeteria than a restaurant. It was difficult to hear what my wife was saying even though she sat right across from me, due to the large number of people and lunch-hall style seating.

Our waiter approached us after a short while and took our drink orders and brought us salad and bread. The salads were tiny, and each of our salads had one grape tomato, cut in half. The dressing was good, and other than that the salad was unremarkable. The bread was OK.

We had a choice of a few entrees for dinner. I decided on the duck, and my wife had the tuna. Both meals were luke-warm. The duck was overly salted and somewhat chewy. My wife’s tuna was overcooked (no sear, just gray, relatively flavorless tuna throughout) and was also chewy. My vegetables were unremarkable and potato gratin was OK. Her vegetables seemed like they had been heated too long, as the broccoli florets were tiny, dark and dry. Her mashed potatoes were served as a large ice-cream scoop style portion, and were rather flavorless (she was able to lift the entire scoop of mashed potatoes with her fork and twirl it around in the air). For dessert I had the cheesecake (which was good, but probably not made there) and my wife had carrot cake muffins (grainy, too much icing). We left before the performance began, as the claustrophobic atmosphere wasn’t really conducive to enjoyment.

To summarize: The food was luke-warm and poorly cooked, and tasted as if it had come from a buffet cart. It seemed mass produced and then warmed later, which could very well be the case with the number of people they packed into that cramped room for dinner. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world you could eat, but if we did not have the gift certificate I would have surely felt cheated of a fine dining experience. One can get a much, much better meal for the same price or less in many of the establishments around town. It was as if they tried to fit as many people in the room as possible, serve them food in the most cost-efficient manner possible, and then run away with their $50 per person charge. We’ve been here before and the food was better and the package included more. I would not return to...

I never like to leave reviews because sometimes a business has a bad day and they deserve the benefit of the doubt. However, this is not our first experience like this with Elaine's over the course of the last year. We have stayed before, and it was not the best experience, but my husband had bought that trip for us along with making a Christmas reservation for us for this year (a whole year later) as you truly can't beat Christmas in Cape May.

Unbeknownst to us a year ago, I am now pregnant and not able to go. My husband has tried calling multiple times to cancel with further notice but nobody answered the phone or called us back (he left voicemails). When he finally reached someone, she told him (the owner, I assume) she couldn't believe he would even think he could get his money back on a reservation from over a year ago. She told him she did not know the policy, but he can check the internet.. it is not on the internet. After being hung up on, he called back a second time and she was so rude, leaving him with no answers or solutions, speaking over him, repeated how ridiculous his request was, and ultimately hung up on him again.

When we stayed at Elaine's over the summer, we had the same interaction and were spoken to very rudely. I don't understand how the owner of a hotel can be so in the dark about policies and lack the answers to so many aspects of her own business.

I had to go through the process of starting the order of booking another room to get to the terms and conditions page to find the policy myself, which does state that you can cancel up to three days prior to arrival date and she is refusing to adhere to her own policy that she doesn't know in the first place.

And so, the attitude and ethics of the owner of Elaine's will bring upon her business whatever it may. If we have to just eat the cost of the room for the night, we will. I would rather do that than provide Elaine's with more of our business by staying and ordering food.

We do love Cape May, and stay multiple times a year. We have family that lives in Wildwood and we frequent the town year-round. Some places to stay that offer excellent service and atmosphere all around are Angel of the Sea, Icona, The Southern Mansion, and The Queen Victoria.

Staying at Elaine's could 100% taint your opinion on Cape May, so choose wisely because the town itself has so...

Long post alert:

Thomas and I wanted to try something that wasn't in our normal rotation, so we decided after perusing the menu to give this a try. After 28 years we finally decided to have dinner at this restaurant . Let me begin by saying I went in "hopeful" that it would be good based on its longevity and obvious inviting and alluring ambience

It WASN'T!

Seat yourself at a high end restaurant is a definite NO. There is absolutely no reason this should be a thing at this particular restaurant.

HIGHLY OVERPRICED !!! I ordered a $55 steak that was over cooked and taste average at best. Cold carrots and McDonald's like French fries and I asked for sautéed onions and got $12 plate of "onion petals:.....I know. Thomas had a $33 bowl of spaghetti and meatballs which was the size of a bowl of soup. Now don't get me wrong we are very much aware of the pricing along the shore resorts, the problem is the quality doesn't add up to the price.

3 Now THE REAL PROBLEM, THE ONE THAT PROMPTED ME TO POST THIS.

We witnessed what we perceived to be an obvious blatant act of racism. YES RACISM!.

After we chose our table and waited far too long to be acknowledged ( 5 minutes is all I give servers to acknowledge my presence before leaving) we watched 3 parties of 2 seat thereselves at tables that were meant for 6. Two couples were white and the third couple was black. A server ( who wasn't the server of any of the tables) came over and only asked the black couple to move. She stated the table was for 6. Now the couple understood what she said and got up and began to look for somewhere else to sit. But she DIDN'T say it to the other 2 white couples. So as the black couple passed me I inquired about what I witnessed fully ready to leave in support of the black couple. The woman and I were on the same vibe so she asked to speak to the manager. The manager came out and tried to defuse the situation by offering the couple a free meal without hearing the couple out or rectifying the problem. By now I'm livid!!!

Now as I want to get up and leave the meal comes and I already have a bar tab. So I reluctantly have to finish this bad overpriced meal. Needless to say ELAINES OF CAPE MAY WILL NEVER GET $1 from The Ciprianos again, and I urge my fb friends and family to not patronize this restaurant if you're ever...