Bonny and Read Seafood — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

This WAS one of my favorite places to dine in downtown Springs, but after this evening, we won’t be coming back. There’s a list of issues that this place needs to address.

My husband ordered the chicken dish, their newest offering. The food took 45 minutes to be served, and when it arrived, it was only warm. The chicken was overcooked and dry, so we sent it back. At no point did the manager on duty come over to acknowledge the issue. In fact, during our entire 90 minute visit, he mostly just stood around, arms crossed, and sometimes went into the kitchen to prep food for running. More to come on management later.

Though we didn’t have a reservation, they were seating walk-ins. We were told our only option was a high-top, which is a small round table, not ideal for ordering full dishes, which we wanted to do. Therefore, we asked if we could wait for a regular table. The hostess quickly said no, and none the 3-5 available tables were offered to us, citing “reservations”. Two of those tables were never sat the entire time we were there. The hostess refused to acknowledge that we could have had one of the tables we requested. The high top we were at was not only small, but unbalanced, which caused my wine glass to constantly be sliding around, nearly off the table.

The bathrooms are not clean, nor stocked with basics, like toilet paper. Of course, when I went to use the bathroom, the woman before me didn’t bother mentioning that there was no TP, so I didn’t discover this until I was already in the stall. Only after one employee heard me complain, did they go in and replace the toilet paper.

Keeping all of this in mind, the manager seemed to treat this evening more as a social event for himself, chatting and gossiping with the servers. NOT leading by example, he failed to notice some very common restaurant practices, leading to a sub-par experience for us. The cherry on top was watching the manager leave as soon as workflow slowed, not bothering to do a final walk through of the restaurant. Hell, he didn’t even bother asking anyone how their meal was!

Our sever Matthew was great, and he was tipped well for his efforts. It’s disappointing to see what was once a great restaurant go downhill with the sign of the times of substandard products...

I’ll start off by saying the food was good! We enjoyed our food. And we won’t be returning.

The main reason is their rule about hour and a half time limits of their tables. I didn’t know this when I made the reservation, since I did it online, but was informed over the phone when I called to say we’d be 5 mins late to our table. It immediately rubbed me the wrong way. We were celebrating our anniversary and wanted to enjoy drinks, appetizers, dessert, the whole deal. We had an evening away from the kids at long last and were ready to enjoy ourselves, not have a timer looming over our heads. Then when we got to the restaurant, there was a sign on the door that someone had printed out confirming the time limit. Come on. That’s not how this should work, people!! Immediate bad taste in our mouths.

With the time limit, you’d expect the service to be very efficient. Nope. It wasn’t terrible. It was fine. But again, our first impression of the restaurant was the time limit sign. So when I’m sitting waiting (and waiting) for some ketchup for my fries, or for the glass of wine I’d ordered 15 mins ago, the whole time I’m thinking about how this is counting against our time. Really took away from the experience.

The food was good. Pricey, but that’s what we had expected going to a steak and seafood place. It was worth the price, except when they charged us extra for an extra piece of bread to go with our crab dip. That was pretty chintzy of them. However, we went to this restaurant because they have steak, seafood , and sushi. What they don’t tell you is that you can only get sushi at the sushi bar. So we’re sitting steps away from where they sell the sushi, but we can’t buy the sushi. That doesn’t make sense to me.

The atmosphere was good. We sat outside because inside smelled super fishy. The wait staff was friendly. Our food was tasty and cooked correctly. We won’t be back, and we won’t recommend the restaurant to our family and friends. I think honestly that we would have had a completely different experience without the obnoxious time...

I took my mom here for Mother's Day and I couldn't have picked a better restaurant. From the moment we walked in the atmosphere was great. The hostess, Ariel, was super nice and friendly and even went the extra mile to accommodate my Mom's seating preference, which demonstrated extremely impressive and outstanding service and care of the customer. But the exceptional service at Bonny and Read didn't stop at the hostess stand. Our server, Mandy, was also incredible. She was personable, knowledgeable, and very helpful. Mandy also went the extra mile to ensure my mom had an excellent Mother's Day. So needless to say, the service here is top notch. I would go back again just for the service if that tells you anything. However, it wasn't just the service that was excellent. No, no, no. The food. My God, man! The food! This was easily the best seafood I have ever had in the springs. I also grew up in Virginia, right next to Maryland and DC, and the food at Bonny and Read rivaled the fresh caught seafood from the east coast. For an app we had the oysters, which were sweet and delicately soft. For dinner I had the Ciopinno. A beautiful, savory dish with a medley of seafood. The tomato broth was so scrumptious I wanted to take a bath in it! And the seafood in the dish was generously portioned and complemented the broth very well. Thank goodness for the bread so I didn't miss out on that extra broth! My mom had the lobster and garlic mashed potatoes, which I had to sneak a bite of. The lobster was sweet and succulent. The mashed potatoes had just the right amount of garlic and butter. Not too much, but enough to know they were there. Perfection! For desert we tried the Key Lime Tart and the Creme Brulee. Both were light and not too sweet which I love. A great end to a great meal! I WILL be returning here soon. No question. From the Host stand to the kitchen, this place is bitchin'. I hereby decree as Lord of all that is Fat, that Bonny and Read is hereby one of the best restaurants...