McCormick & Schmick's Seafood & Steaks — Restaurant in Cincinnati

TL;DR Run away as fast as you can and don’t look back.

If I could rate lower than a 1, I would. This is hands down the WORST dining experience we have ever had. I planned our family Christmas dinner for a party of thirteen. We have dinner every year and pick a restaurant in the Cincinnati area, with some family members driving two hours. Our reservation was for 6:30p. We were seated immediately and they were not busy, with many tables open. We ordered drinks which were brought out pretty quick and we ordered several appetizers. Several drinks were wrong, including a drink that was ordered with no alcohol but came out with rum. By around 7:00p, our appetizers arrived and they took our orders for soups and salads. The whole time, we each still have a very large menu sitting in front of us. Around 30 minutes later, soups and salads were brought out. Still no entree orders taken. We eat and we are sitting with dirty plates and menus, all still on the table. Finally, I get up and another family member and we are bussing our own table. Moving plates, bowls, silverware and taking them to a serving tray that is near our area. Another member of our group finally goes up to speak to the hostess. Explains that we have already been here over an hour, we are bussing our own table and not getting service. She apologizes and assures us someone will be over. They are, we get water and they take the couple of dishes still left. Finally, our entree orders are taken. At this point, we are still calm, still willing to wait on dinner and trying to make the best out of not a great situation. Our entrees are finally being brought out, after 8:00p. We have been here over an hour and half. Out of 13 meals, less than half were edible. The two salmon dishes were sent back, with both people stating they were mushy and sour tasting, as in gone bad! Four steaks were overcooked, the two ribeyes ordered were cooked incorrectly and so fatty they weren’t worth eating, three steaks were wildly undercooked with two coming out still purple and cool to the touch! Only TWO of the meals out of 13 were edible. The Swordfish Casino and the fried cod. Two of the steaks were sent back in attempt to cook a little more. The first was brought back barely cooked and without the lobster mashed potatoes. Another steak was cooked incorrectly three times and they kept bringing it out! When food started getting laid down, I immediately went to grab someone. The “chefs” that came out acted like they couldn’t be bothered and you could see they were irritated. The hostess who smelled like she had just smoked half a pack of cigarettes before breathing it in our faces acted bored and tired of us when we were doing our best to not absolutely lose it at this point. Finally, after we are all resigned to just get the heck out of there, we are brought over the checks with an offer for free dessert…absolutely not. They ultimately ended up taking off all the entrees. Our drinks, appetizers and soups/salads were not an issue, but the steak and seafood entrees were appalling. One of our waitresses was new and she was very sweet and apologetic, I did not get her name but honestly, she was the best part of the evening and tried her best to make things better. Our other waitress Deasia, was less hospitable but again, the servers did not cook the food and both of our waitresses were taken care of with cash tips. This was just an incredibly disappointing experience. I have never in my entire life said something rude to a waitstaff or complained, ever. I’m usually the type to not even say if something is wrong and never send anything back. This was honestly such a shocking and disappointing experience, I would not want anyone else to ever go through it. To the newer waitress we had, please go somewhere else. You’re way too sweet and kind to have to work for an incompetent kitchen that is going to make your job harder!! Stay away from this place, it may have been good at some point but those days...

First, I want to say that I have ways wanted to eat at McCormick and Schmick’s, so when my husband surprised me with reservations for our anniversary, I was over the moon. Turns out I was more disappointed than anything. Once seated, I mentioned how excited I was to finally eat here, the waitress said it was great and then asked if we were ready to order. We started with drinks, I asked for a glass of Chandon Rose and my husband ordered the Berry Berry Mojito. It took 16 minutes to receive those drinks in a restaurant with only a handful of tables. The waitress brings it and explains that her other table had lots of requests to put in and that’s why it took so long. I accepted that, being familiar with the service industry. It wasn’t until she left that I realised she brought me the Chandon Brut instead, the little bottle, 187 ml, was left at the table. It did not taste that bad and I did not want to wait for another drink should the waitress ever come back, so I opted to just drink it. Since this was a celebration, we planned to order an appetiser. The bacon-wrapped shrimp was the highlight of the meal and I would order this again if I ever went back. Our waitress was largely absent, but spent time conversing with the men at the table behind us, going so far as to ask how our appetiser was but then immediately turning to speak with that table while my husband answered her question. She respond with an apology and asked him to repeat what he said. Our meal was ordered, swordfish for me and the wagyu sirloin for my husband. His steak was a bit rare for his liking but it had a decent taste and was tender. The mashed potatoes were far too garlicky to be enjoyable. My swordfish was good but otherwise forgettable in terms of flavour. I found it tasted more like his steak and they either shared the same seasoning or were just cooked on the same flat top. He also selected the Hearts of Romaine Caesar salad. The salads came and what he received was in no way a Caesar salad. The salad was a cross between the M&S Wedge and the Chopped Salad, basically a slab of lettuce covered in bleu cheese dressing and bleu cheese crumbles with candied bacon, pickled mustard seeds, and tomatoes. He sent it back but no replacement was offered and we ended up paying for something he did not order and did not eat. Before we had a chance to order dessert, which we had planned to do since, again this was our anniversary dinner, the waitress dropped of the check and left. Upon closer inspection we saw she charged us for a bottle of champagne, $61 to be exact. The menu shows the glass is $16 for 187 ml. Yes it gives the amount of liquid on the menu. Since the bottle was left with me, I confirmed it to be 187 ml. We mentioned this to her and she was so confused, stating “but I brought you a bottle, you see that’s a bottle” and “the bartender told me this was right” followed by “it’s not my fault” which we heard her say to us at least three times during our experience. She had to “track down” a manager to fix this, which she did. We left disappointed and opted to seek out dessert and better experiences at one of the vendors on the square for Blink. I’d say the restaurant was struggling because of Blink and that massive crowd on a Saturday evening at 7 pm, but only five tables were seated, with another two or three coming in around the time we left, at 8:30. I should have read the reviews and not chosen a place simply because I’ve always wanted to try it. I had my heart set on a fine dining experience and what we got was a shade below Olive Garden for quality and zero...

I am writing to inform you of a horrible experience we had at the restaurant on Saturday evening. I did try to email the restaurant but when I called I was given the wrong email address. There is no place on the website that gives any contact information for a general manager so I am forced to leave a public review. Saturday night we had a reservation at 6pm. When this reservation was made, we were told that we had to be there by 6pm or we would be denied seating as we had a large party of 13. We arrived promptly at 5:50. We were sat quickly. Upon seating, our server came and took our drink order. After about 15 minutes, our drinks finally came. Approximately 15 minutes later, our order was taken. About 5 minutes later, our server came to the table and told me the restaurant was out of the chopped salad I had ordered and recommended a different salad which I happily accepted the suggestion. We did not have any additional staff check on us until 8pm. We flagged down our server and he said he would check the status of our order as at this point, we had been there for 2 hours with only 1 glass of wine, no food or follow-up. Meanwhile, we did watch a large party be seated next to us, order and eat and leave in this timeframe. Also, a table behind us of 4, came, ordered, ate and left in this timeframe. No one came to talk with us. We were very patient but of course hungry! A young woman walked by that we thought may be a manager and my husband asked her to check on our order or possibly getting bread and additional drinks and she turned and said, “you need to expect a delay as our kitchen is backed up,” before my husband could respond she was gone. Now with that in mind, I understand staffing shortages and so forth but we ordered soup and salad. We did not order appetizers or anything extravagant that would take 2 hours to make.

This is unacceptable. No manager came to our table to apologize or to offer any type of assistance. We flagged down a gentleman at this point and told him we were leaving. He did not offer to comp any of the beverages or check on the order. No apologies were ever given nor any solutions.

This is a one time a year event that we do with our neighborhood. We chose your restaurant for this event. We paid $30 to valet, $30 dollars we put on the table for 2 drinks and left at 8:15pm without any dinner and no where to go at that late time. We went home and ordered pizza on this special event evening.

I have never been so disappointed in a restaurant and appalled at the way it was handled by the staff on site. I will say our server was nice, but just didn’t follow up. I do feel that a good business is measured by how they handle mistakes and adversity and this restaurant failed miserably.

I hope this doesn’t fall on deaf ears and that in the future the staff is better equipped to handle these mishaps. We would have stayed and waited had anyone shown any signs of caring about the inconvenience. I feel bad that our waiter missed out on a good tips and basically lost a big party and income potential for 2 hours. This truly is the worst experience I've ever had at...