Bonefish Grill — Restaurant in Charlotte

This used to be my mom's and I favorite restaurant. Last visit was pretty bad. Simply put: poor service (even on a slow night), LONG wait for drinks and food, undercooked food and disgusting dusty decor. The only reason for 2 stars is because this restaurant USED to be phenomenal.

Quick note: I've written 64 Google Reviews and 3 of them are negative (Bonefish being one). The other 61 reviews are 5 STAR positive reviews. I generally do not like leaving negative reviews but people (management and potential guests of Bonefish) need to know what is going on at this Pineville-Matthews/ Carmel Road location in Charlotte NC.

Took at least 5 minutes for someone to greet us at our table once we sat down. I've worked in several restaurants for years- most go with a 30 second greet time once the guests sit down. We were not even acknowledged for several minutes and they were NOT busy.

Once we placed drink orders- it took a good 10 minutes to get our drinks and the restaurant was NOT busy. We saw our waitress (whom was training a new server that night) talking with her new trainee over in the corner for several minutes. Granted, I give the benefit of the doubt & assume they were discussing training/ work; however, our drinks were just sitting up on the bar. When they walked by I finally asked, "can you please check on our drinks?" She said “yes, they just came up.” No they didn’t - they had been there for quite some time. Ridiculous.

Food took just shy of 1 hour! Almost an hour from the time we ordered and again... they were SLOW. It was NOT a busy night.

My mom's and her sister's fish (Salmon) came out way undercooked. We know Salmon can and should be served with some slight pink in the center but this was way undercooked- chewy and basically rare in the center. We never send food back but we had to or someone might have gotten sick. First time I haven’t ordered fish at Bonefish. I ordered the filet. It was no better than what I can cook at home & I’m a terrible cook. Lesson learned: don’t order steak at a seafood place.

Not clean: We sat in a booth. We had to move because the seats were so sticky and disgusting. We moved to another table and the table was sticky- we needed them to wipe it down again. I know- we sound "like that annoying guest" but yes, we do expect a restaurant to be fairly clean when we sit down.. not spotless but generally clean and inviting. The wall side of the booth (with lights, etc- you can look through and see the bar area)- covered in dust- everything. We took a finger and swiped it - disgusting. It wasn't enough dust just from missing one dusting. It was like they hadn't dusted in a month.

I worked in restaurants for several years in my twenties. No way would any of this been acceptable, yet alone something to be proud of. Terrible experience. Just no pride in their work/service/experience...

So disappointed in how my lunch ended. I ordered the Imperial Cod lunch special. The bartender, Alisa, was attentive overall and everything came out with no issues. The food was excellent! My problem was the cost when I received my check and the way Andrew, the managing partner, handled my concern. My meal came with two sides, I requested Roasted Potatoes and Brussel Sprouts. Alisa notified me that those were premium sides and there would be an up-charge. I told her that was okay… now usually when I eat out, an up-charge is the difference between the cost of a regular side and the premium side.. usually a few cents or a dollar or $2 more AT MOST. However, Bone Fish Premium side upgrade is an additional $3.90 PER SIDE so $7.80 additional on top of the cost of the entree. Now, I take responsibility because I didn’t ask how much the up-charge was, nor did Alisa provide that information, but I was completely caught off-guard when I seen an additional $7.80 on my check. Keep in mind, regular sides are like mashed potatoes, broccoli, etc.. and I upgraded to roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts.. nothing fancy! I politely asked Alisa about the charge and she stated that’s how their system works but offered to have the manager come over. When Andrew came over, I acknowledged that Alisa notified me of the up-charge, but not the price and I took accountability that I did not ask either. However, Andrew used this situation as a “teaching” moment and a time to be-little me rather than find a resolution. After going back and forth in discussion while in front of other dining guest for almost 10 minutes, I couldn’t believe that as the guest, I had to tell Andrew that I was no longer going to continue the conversation over something so simple and requested to check out, and pay the up-charges, so I can go. He then says, “well I was going to take care of one of the $3.90 charges for you”… I guess it was more important for Andrew to assert his power and privilege in this situation rather than resolve the problem immediately. And despite being offended by Andrew’s nice-nasty comments and him constantly over-talking me, I remained as professional as possible. I gave 2 stars because of the food.. otherwise, I won’t be returning to...

First time eating here. We were a group of six and had heard great things about it.

The staff and waitress are very polite and although there was a delay in getting our drinks and food to us, that's just a new reality because everyone is so short staffed.

They brought out some bread with olive oil and pesto that was very good and the gentleman running it was very kind and brought us a bunch of extra. That might have been the highlight of the bill for my parents, because they couldn't get enough of it.

When are meals came out I thought for over $20/plate the presentation would have been much better, but it looked as if only cook the seafood dish at home and quickly threw it onto the plate.

We have a variety of dishes between us all. I had the spicy tuna bowl and although this is a dish that you can often share that is not the case here. It is very small and honestly every dish other than the pasta is somewhere between a kid's portion and adult portion. If they would put just a little bit more on the plate you would be satisfied. It's seriously to the point that their plates look huge because their portions are so small.

Also many of my guests ordered the seasonal vegetables because they didn't want steamed broccoli, but when their plate came they quickly realized that the seasonal vegetables that day were only steamed broccoli. That was a bit of a let down. One of us ordered the steamed spinach, but received the steamed broccoli initially on their plate so we mentioned the mistake and at the end of our meal, once we were all done, the steam broccoli came out. It was poor timing, but delicious.

Nothing really stood out to make me or any of the others come back. I believe that if you're going to charge as much as the top restaurants you definitely need to give people a reason to come back. For what we received today I think it would be fair to charge $10 less per dish, but the restaurant was pretty full so there are a lot of people out there that think otherwise.

It could have just been that the spicy tunable was the wrong dish to order at this restaurant, because it tasted like something from a poké place that would cost...