Bill's PRIME Seafood & Steaks — Restaurant in Chincoteague

This review is a combination of 2 visits within a 7 day period - July 2024. 1st visit everything was as close to perfect as you could get, except for the management's inexcusable failure to pay attention to the ridiculously cold temperature in the dining room.

The filet mignon on 1st visit was very likely the best steak I have ever had in my life. I asked for it with a dark crust on the outside, and medium rare, and despite how hard it seems for most restaurants, even good ones, to get this right, on the night of July 20th, they NAILED it. The quality of the beef was NY/Vegas prime, as good as you could ask for at any leading steakhouse in the world.

Overall the entire meal was excellent, but it was very very cold in the restaurant. I typically like a comfortable temperate slightly cooler than warm, especially for dining, but it really should be so neutral you don't notice it being hot OR cold- but this was COLD.

I mentioned it to our server and one of the neighboring tables heard us and they also had kids who were very hard to keep quiet because they were so uncomfortable. They asked the server to pack up their food to take back to their hotel & left with meals hardly eaten.

We returned the following weekend on Friday July 26. Again the food was very good but this time, the temperature in the restaurant was just unacceptably COLD. There are air vents spaced perhaps every 4 feet or so around the roof and the air blows right down on everyone in the relatively small dining room.

I get it- if it was a typical July night coming off a 99 degree day, maybe it would be fine, but it was a fairly cool day maybe just hitting the mid 80's and it was like 77 or so when we went in for dinner at 8.15.

My wife asked for a cup of decaf coffee while we were waiting for our steamed clams. The server forgot the and so we asked again. almost 10 minutes later, still no coffee and I had to ask a 3rd time which is real not cool at all. I'm an easy guest having grown up in restaurants and worked in the most of my life, doing everything from bussing tables, to serving, and bartending and managing a $3mm / year restaurant. But having to ask for coffee 3 times in a fine dining restaurant isn't cool.

We also asked her is there was anything they could do to make it slightly less freezing since it was a very comfortable night, and she said she would ask but it never got better.

Food: APPS: Steamed Clams, and Oysters on half shell w/ caviar & horseradish cream. Both were good.

MAINS: The steak was overall about the same quality but I noticed a bit of muscle strip in the steak that wasn't there the previous week. And this time, even though I explained exactly how I wanted the steak and how they had cooked it the previous week, which was DARK CRUST outside, crusty, pittsburgh style, medium rare, unfortunately came to me less than rare. Really inedible it was so rare.

The steak had no crust and was cooked barely rare, and unevenly- one side was cooked more than the other but still the entire steak was extremely raw inside with only a bare warming sear on the outside, no caramelization or browning at all.

My wife got the broiled scallops and they were very very good. We asked twice if there was anything they could do with the temperature and server said she would 'check with manager'.

I asked about the steak not being cooked the same way as the previous week and the server said 'Mr. Potts went home early tonight so someone else cooked it.'

And the room temperature was just unbearably cold. So much so that despite paying around $75/pp for our meal we decided to pack up our food and leave because we just could not sit there and enjoy anything with it being so freezing cold. When we asked out server for to go boxes and told her it was too cool.

I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND they have to start cool and control the room but by 8.30 when the evening is already unseasonable cool, and the dining room has emptied to less than half full...

I ate it this establishment my first night in town. The wait staff was amazing and I adored our waitress. I am older and the darker the room the harder it is to focus on a menu or even the food on the table so it was lovely inside, but it was just very dark and right after we sat down they put down the blinds on the windows. It was still a wonderful atmosphere though. As we were perusing the menu a small baguette came out with dipping oil . It was nice and warm and crispy on the outside while being soft on the inside and the dipping oil was also pleasing though it was bit salty. They also bring you regular butter to go with the bread if you are not a fan of the oil. I had been wanting a good cream of crab or crab bisque for a while so that was the first thing I ordered, after I mentioned I was allergic to bell peppers. The waitress felt so bad that she didn't think of the soup having bell peppers in it, but that was okay I had just gotten the tip of the spoon into the soup and tasted the peppers, which overpowered what would have been a wonderful soup. I have never seen a traditional crab soup have bell peppers in it before and their soup would be one of the top contenders for the best if they removed them. Given that I couldn't eat the crab soup I got their clam chowder and it was amazing! I decided to get the broiled seafood platter and it ended up being a bit too much food for me, but all tasted wonderful except for the crab imperial which was excessively mayonnaise and mustardy so I could not eat that. The broiled fish was flaky and buttery and tasted exceptional! Since I not a fan of broiled clam they brought me fried clams and they were no different than ones that I would buy from the grocery store and bacon my oven. Their lightly breaded and fried oysters had the perfect natural sweetness, and with them being fresh and local made them amazing! You only get two with the platter so that made me a bit sad, but they were succulent! The shrimp we're good but they were a bit overcooked so a touch on the rubbery side, but still edible. I got sweet tea that was some of the best that I've had in a long time. Wonderful tea and just the right amount of sweetness that it wasn't too little or too much. My traveling companion got the pomegranate martini and since I was putting the bill I was a bit shocked that they were $15 each but after smelling her martini and taking a sip I can say if you order it you definitely get your money's worth of alcohol. For me it was a bit too much alcohol and not enough pomegranate, but I know others would greatly appreciate that so for you you will love their bartender. I can say that I will be coming back to visit Chincoteague again and Bills will definitely be one of the places that I go to eat again. There was so many other things on the menu that I wanted to try that I have to go back to visit to be able to taste them right? Again, the staff there provided Top Notch service, knowledge, and politeness and that is a...

First of all, our waitress was awesome and the rest of the staff we interracted with were extremely friendly. I called for a reservation and they were able to get us in that night 1 hour before closing time, which was nice. We arrived 5 minutes before our reservation and were asked to wait outside until our table was ready. I understand that timing isn't always perfect, but when it's 90+ degrees outside, 20 minutes feels like an eternity, but we took it in stride, even when an obviously overserved customer decided to make awkward unwanted conversation with my family on his way out of the restaurant.

Once seated, we noticed how crampsed the dining area is. It's like a school cafeteria, only jammed way tighter. I would hate to see people trying to evacuate for any reason because it would be a mess. In addition, our table we'd waited in the humid heat for wasn't actually clean and there were food crumbs on the table and floor near the wall. Again, took it in stride and used a napkin to tidy up.

The real issue here is the food. If you're going to charge $50+ for a filet, you certainly don't "butterfly" it to cook it medium quicker, and if you do, at least do it correctly. Instead, my wife and one of my daughters received a pitiful slab of shoe leather on their plates. They were sent back and again, the new cuts were butterflied with the same result.

Why would you give someone a reservation near the end of the night, only to rush their overpriced food and ruin it? It would have been more humane to either just refuse the reservation or tell us that some items were no longer available.

I got the fried seafood platter and it was defent. The scallops seemed a bit off and judging from my experiences later that day, they were. Otherwise, I'd recommend it.

The bill was over $200 for 4 disappointing meals in a restaurant that just seems to think it's fancier than it actually is. Again, nice staff, terrible food and awful prices. Hopefully they learn and grow for the sake of other diners, but we won't be returning,...