Rey's Restaurant — Restaurant in Cary

I booked reservations for Valentine’s Day quite a few months in advance as I’ve heard great things. This is what makes my experience even more disappointing. I’m not sure if it was because it was Valentine’s Day that decreased the quality of the food as it seemed like the restaurant’s main focus was to get people in and out quickly. I would like to preface that the staff was impeccable, so my review is no reflection of any sort of bad service as I had no complaints in that area. They had a special menu for Valentine’s Day which was completely fine. My husband ordered the filet while I ordered the NY Strip. We also ordered a side of lobster mac and cheese as well as grilled asparagus. When the Mac and cheese arrived, it was honestly the worst Mac and cheese I had ever seen. It was literally a few noodles in a lake of butter with half melted cheese on top along with a few pieces of lobster meat. It might sound like an exaggeration and I wish it was so, but there was literally at least 1 cup of just melted butter just laying in the bowl even after putting the mac and cheese on our individual plates. This may be common practice for Rey’s, but I’ve also never been to a restaurant where the tips of the asparagus were not cut as it’s usually not an enjoyable part to eat. With that said, I was a bit shocked to see that here. Unfortunately, when I got my NY Strip it was extremely dry and I had to send it back as I couldn’t fathom paying over $50 for such a dry and unseasoned piece of steak. I know a NY strip is a very different type of cut than the filet, but I’ve had plenty of juicy and tender strips from other restaurants. I would like to make it known that when I asked for the filet instead, I received it almost instantly and it was much better! Again…the service and staff were great. It was the food that was low quality. The food quality was so poor that I decided to not order dessert despite me initially being very interested in the crème brulee. Being that none of the other food was good despite the high price tag, I didn’t feel comfortable spending even more money and not being able to be sure it would be any different than the other food already tasted. Aside from the food, my reservation was at 6 and we were done with everything by 6:30ish. This was a similar experience for other people that I saw as it was very “in and out” type of service. The waitress did mention that they expected about 500 people that day, so I completely understand trying to keep up and manage this type of volume the best way you can but not at the expense of quality. Again, I’m not sure if I would have had a different experience if I had gone on a different day than Valentine’s Day, but I don’t feel like the food’s quality should be that poor because of a holiday. I probably won’t return, but hopefully this helps management know what they can possibly improve for future holidays and high...

My husband and I dined here for the first time to celebrate our 12th anniversary. I don’t usually leave reviews, but for spending over several hundred dollars on two people (with only one cocktail) I think we ought to voice our honest review of your establishment. We were disappointed and had an unpleasant experience with front of house service. We ended up skipping on dessert, which was half the reason why I picked this place for the flambé table-side service. Our server brought out the wrong appetizer and side dish, though we did not bring this to their attention because we were happy to try the food. The appetizers we ordered were the scallops and crabmeat cocktail, we got the crab cakes instead which were shaped like meatballs and were not as tasty as the scallops. The shrimp bisque was good. We ordered the watermelon fruit salad, bone-in ribeye, and surf and turf specials that our server had mentioned. Before our entrees my husband and I tell our server we will be stepping away from our table to go to the bathroom and outside for a smoke. The server said of course go ahead that wouldn’t be a problem, we don’t look like dine and dashers, after all. (rude) When I returned to our table first, there were a couple of managers with their backs to me who appeared frazzled wondering about our whereabouts, and all I heard our server say was “she’s right behind you.” I explained the strange interaction to my husband when he returned and we both decided we will leave after our entrees to relieve our babysitter. We ordered garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus as side items, got mushrooms and asparagus instead though our server quickly remedied this minor issue with a hot plate of mashed potatoes in less than a minute. My fruit salad sadly did not have any watermelon as described and came with cantaloupe in its place. I was a little disappointed our server did not check if the temperature on our steaks were accurate because mine was very rare. I order and cook bone-in steaks quite often and I know it can be a challenge to nail the right temperature every time. Thankfully my steak came back medium rare. It had a nice char and the meat was rather tough although the steak knives were as dull as a butter knife. For the price and experience, I would have rather gone to Angus Barn, Ruth’s Chris, Flemings, or Second Empire, but we wanted to try someplace new. We appreciate the effort, but unfortunately we left with much...

We came into the Rey's restaurant yesterday at 7:30pm for my 13 year old birthday celebration. The reservation process was easy and prompt. When we got there, we were seated quickly where we requested. We were a party of 11. The service started well. Our waiter Jared was great. Very nice . He seemed to Very busy. Rey came to the table in the beginning and asked if everything was good. We told him yes. When the main course came, everything was good (accept for that lobster mac n cheese which was VERY dry and tasteless). Rey came to our table and loudly started asking my husband if he liked his lamb chops (which he did), and if he had tried the sauce. My husband said no, he didn't have sauce. Rey loudly called the waiters to bring the sauce for the lamb. Telling them to hurry up (I guess he felt they were moving slowly). When they brought the sauce, he proceeded to loudly tell my husband HOW to eat the lamb with the sauce. He almost grabbed one of my husband's lamb chops. My husband grabbed it before he could. When my husband didn't get enough sauce on his meet he loudly complained that was not how it was done and put his hand over my husband's hand and forced his hand in the sauce! My husband took all this good naturely. Rey wasn't done. He moved around the table to my 13 year old daughter. He proceeded to berate her way of eating her steak. He proceeded to forcefully take her fork and knife and reach over her and cut her steak into PIECES for her. She never asked him to do that! By this time we all at the table is in shock with the rudeness. He calls my 14 year old nasty because she laughed nervously when he told my 13 year old she had blow on her steak. At this point, the whole table was silent. He moved on back to my husband and started again with the lamb sauce. After that he left. The waiter Adrian (love him), immediately came over and started profusely apologizing. Jared came over and profusely apologized. REY came back to the table and started to come at the our friend's 13 year old boy. I finally had had too much to be silent, and told him I was uncomfortable and he needed to stop. He apologized, but the damage had been done. They gave us dessert on the house though. Really, the entire dinner from the entrée should have been on the house! We all lost our appetite after that mess. I can't recommend this restaurant after this very uncomfortable situation. The front and the waiters were so...