Clear Sky on Cleveland — Restaurant in Clearwater

Today, my boyfriend and I met up with a friend we hadn’t seen in years and decided to have lunch at Clearsky because we remembered enjoying many meals here in the past. Unfortunately, we had some of the worst service we’ve ever experienced in a restaurant.

From the moment our server approached the table, the tone was unsettling. She didn’t introduce herself or make eye contact. She was incredibly abrasive and rude from the very moment she “greeted” the table. And by “greeted” I mean on the brink of yelling to cut off our very light conversation which we would’ve been happy to pause upon her arrival but never got the chance to as she brazenly cut us off before she was even done walking up to the table. She has long straight dark hair and a slight cross eye (forgive me as we never got her name).

She took our drink orders but failed to bring the coffee we requested, which we had to remind her about. When it came time to order food, she took our friend’s order (a woman), then skipped directly to my boyfriend, bypassing me entirely. While that might seem like a small oversight, as someone with 3.5 years of experience in the service industry—and as a frequent diner—I found the lack of attention to basic etiquette surprising. I’m not one to nitpick but usually the server gives each woman the chance to order and then addresses the men at the table. It would’ve been understandable for a large party but it was a table of 3. My boyfriend intuitively let me order first before giving his own despite being directly asked for his order by the server clearly skipping over me. Small detail but it stood out enough for us to realize it was odd and that we’d never experienced that anywhere else before. And considering how our server was acting from the start, this wasn’t helping her case at all. After receiving our food, I wanted to place another order for my meal but by the time she came back to check on us it was too late and there was no point. To be honest, by this time I wanted to keep our interaction to a minimum as I no longer wanted to feel uncomfortable during what was supposed to be a nice outing with an old friend. She checked on us but once the entire time before we finished up and finally asked for the check.

It’s a shame to come back to a restaurant you used to frequent often just for the experience to be ruined by a careless and rude server. I would consider Clearsky to be a high traffic restaurant since the food is decent and there isn’t much competition around in the area but nonetheless, the support Clearsky gets from the community shouldn’t be taken for granted as one bad experience is all is takes to discourage people from returning. Hiring staff that take pride in their service, care about the reputation of the business and experience of its patrons goes a very long way. I mean, it IS the job. Serving is more than just slapping a plate of food down on a table. Service is the skill set. And vice versa. One bad apple can truly sour the overall regard of a business and lead to its decline.

I understand people go through things in their personal lives and have off days here and there, but when I asked if I was being unreasonable, everyone at the table noticed her behavior and even our friend who comes here more often than we do, mentioned that our server was like this before. TRULY disappointing. Hiring the right staff should not be taken lightly. It can be the downfall of any...

Clear Sky on Cleveland restaurant mostly had good food !. I sat at a table with 4 other family members to enjoy. The only food complaint I have, is about the oysters on the half shell. I ordered 1 dozen oysters, and they arrived looking tasty. Unfortunately, the person who shucked the dozen oysters seemed to ONLY have opened the shell. The oysters were still attached to the shell and I had a tough time preserving the integrity of the oysters as I attempted to detach the oyster from the shell. My dull table knife only served to tear part of the oyster and leave it wasted on the shell after I attempted to eat it. Senseless laziness is the thought that comes to mind. Not to mention wasting part of my money. The rest of our food was very good!. Unfortunately, the POOR service ruined our whole experience. After we sat down and discreetly inspected our eating utensils, we found small dry bits of food still connected to some of the forks. Additionally, one of the appetizer plates still had what appeared to be chocolate on it from someone else’s meal !!!!! . The waitress handed me a stack of appetizer plates and apparently neglected to inspect the silverware OR plates. At first, I could not believe my eyes, so I tried to double check by running my finger through the streaks of chocolate, and yep, it smeared (in hind sight, I don’t know why I did that, gross ! LOL). I guess, I wanted to be sure, because I knew the impact of a negative review on Google Reviews. Ok, so we ordered appetizers and entrees. I paid around $173.00 when all was said and done. After about 10 minutes had passed, another table of all Asian people came in and sat next to our table (8 nice looking folks there to enjoy some delicious food similar to our table.) The problem was, after they ordered, and more time had passed, our waitress came out with co-workers (assisting with meal delivery), and brought all the food to THEIR table. Somehow, it was not important that we too, were hungry and arrived first. The problem was, that we ordered first. So, I overheard the waitress inform the person paying the bill that an automatic 20% gratuity was added to the bill ??. Was this the price for disrespecting her other customers who arrived and ordered first?. I don’t know, but I DO KNOW what my eyes saw, and ears overheard. We all continued to wait as we watched them begin eating. What a foolish risk to take by the waitress. She assumed I was not watching. After my military tour to Afghanistan in defense of American values, I can tell you…reading the room is the first thing I do when seated anywhere in public. Some training never goes away. Being treated like second class citizens (while dining) will NEVER be tolerated and is quite offensive. Too many OTHER Clearwater restaurants to experience without a greedy, unprepared waitress ruining the...

Very busy and very highly rated so I had very high hopes. The server was very friendly and helpful. The food left a lot to be desired. First the good - our pub pretzel was great, and my wife’s lobster Caesar was fine. The bad - we decided to try the conch fritter special. The fritters were gigantic - the outside was almost black while the center was undercooked. My steak came out a very sad grey color. I tried one bite and had to spit it out because it was absolutely gross - had no seasoning and a sour aftertaste that I had to wash down with a lemonade. The lemonade was very good which redeemed it slightly.

The next bit was slightly confusing. The manager came out for a chat. I’m not sure whether or not he tried the steak as the server had already removed it from the table, but he insisted on defending it. I’m not really sure what he was hoping to gain by telling us that “they sold hundreds of steaks and so it couldn’t possibly be sour” but the interaction itself left a sour taste as well. Good food does not need to be defended. It speaks for itself. Perhaps he felt personally offended that I did not like the steak? I’m not sure.

This place came recommended on Reddit, Google, and TripAdvisor so I made a reservation - it was our anniversary dinner. In retrospect the gigantic menu should have tipped me off - there is no way to keep so many different ingredients fresh. Especially telling that the manager felt the need to defend the freshness of ingredients instead of just apologizing and moving on.

In the end my steak was comped and I left the price of it as a tip for the server who was very friendly and in no way responsible for kitchen issues. I felt that it was slightly demeaning for the manager to insinuate that me not liking the steak was somehow my issue. I am not the kind of person who eats most of a meal and then happens to “find a hair” to get it comped. I have worked in food service before so I know it’s a brutal industry and I try not to make their jobs harder than they need to be. That being said, I have never had a grey piece of beef that tasted good. Grey beef is either not fresh, or not cooked correctly, or in the worst case scenario both. The steak was a special which makes me wonder whether it was only a special because it was no longer fresh and management did not want to take the hit of discarding it. Overall I don’t think I would return unless the menu was changed. I could not in good conscience recommend this place...