Dulany's Grille and Pub — Restaurant in Concord

We have lived in South County for 7 years and first experience at Dulany's. Our waitress was very good, but the service is scored low because of the Manager. The food was not great. My wife ordered a burger medium well. The burger came out cut in half and was Medium Rare. We asked for it be cooked to Medium Well as ordered and in less than 1 minute it came back. When served the second time, the burger which was cut in half was fine on the outside, but was still Medium Rare in the inside. The burger went back a 3rd time and the Manager served it to us and asked for my wife to cut into it to make sure it was cook to Medium Well. And again, it was not cooked Medium Well and she took it back. On the 4th attempt it came back Medium Well, but was all crumbled to the point which the bread couldn't hold the burger together. We asked for a box to take it home to cook it and the check. The Manager only credited us 50%. When I let her know that we should not be paying for the burger especially since it took 4 attempts to cook it properly, she said she was taking the burger back and would remove the burger. She was refusing to let us take the burger and admitted they would just throw it away. I can honestly say after spending 20 years in the hospitality industry, I have never seen or heard of any restaurant taking food away from a customer and punishing them for requesting the charge to be removed completely when they cannot cook a burger to the customer's requested temperature. I say punished because this lack of customer service made us feel like we were wrong for ordering a burger Medium Well and for expecting the burger to be fully comped. Any restaurant experience is 50% Service/50% Food. If one fails, a restaurant should attempt to overcompensate for the lack of the other. This was a failure on the food and the service by the Manager.

The Manager shared it was a tough night and it was only 7:15pm. After more discussion and debate, the Manager gave us the burger and took the full price of the burger off of our bill. The Manager tried to say this was not normal because as you can see how busy it was. The amount of people in a restaurant does not give any restaurant instant credibility....in my opinion, the restaurant service has to continually earn it.

I ordered the chicken spiedini which came with a salad and vegetable. I asked for no onion on the salad and it came with onion. The spiedini did not have any of the lemon oil olive as advertised and was burnt on the ends. And my broccoli was cold.

Very disappointed. Sorry, we wanted to like it especially since there are not a lot of non-chain options in the South...

I've had my final meal at Dulaney's. Lunch there was some of the worst meals I've experienced anywhere. Encouraged by my dining mates to try one of the drummies appetizers they had ordered, those were overcooked, dried out tough chicken pieces that would have been better as weaponized projectiles.

I ordered something "new" on the appetizer menu . . . stuffed portobello mushrooms . . . first, there was nothing stuffed about them . . . the scant portion of cheese just was plopped on top of a very tasteless, tough mushroom drowning on a soggy bed of greens drowning in a heavy balsamic vinegar dressing.

I usually can tough it through a bad appetizer, but this was impossible . . . after only three tiny bites, I pushed the plate aside and tried to drown the taste with my iced tea . . . not a great idea since the tea tasted as though it was at least three or four days old .. . certainly nowhere near fresh.

The only bright spots were the people with whom I was dining . . . and our truly delightful, kind, and attentive server, Aleesha. She was all that and more from the time we sat down until we left. At the conclusion of our meal, she asked if she could box up my appetizer and I told her "no" since it was really bad and not worth eating the first time around . . . she did not seem too surprised since probably others must have complained about this same appetizer.

She took the mushroom mess back to the kitchen and returned letting me know it's $9.99 cost would be taken from my bill. While that was not my intention, it at least showed a level of concern for the palates and stomachs of Dulaney's patrons, if not in the actual cooking and serving of good food, at least in not making diners pay for something truly inedible. I did factor in the cost of the deleted appetizer when leaving a generous tip for our server. Again, Aleesha gets a gold . . . make that platinum . . . star. Dulaney's gets a big, black eye and one less patron . . . vowing never to return . . . I've been lucky to have one good meal experience there out of about six in the last several months.

BAD! BAD!...

The place we wanted to order from was closed on Tuesdays, so we scrambled to find a spot, and settled on Dulany's Grille and Pub. Called in for 2 orders of hot wings, said they'd be ready in 15-20. I arrived about 15 minutes later, and they were done as promised. When the hostess handed me the bag with the two orders of wings, the bag was extremely light. I could tell there were two to-go containers, but still looked at the receipt, and it was for two orders. Paid in cash and headed home.

Upon opening the containers, we were met with a pretty sad sight... 10 of the saddest, tiniest wings I've ever seen. I saw a different review expressing similar sentiments about the wings, and the owner replied the wings are jumbo. If these are jumbo, I'd hate to get an order with regular wings... it'd be nothing but bone and gristle. I assumed the "1LB" referenced on the menu was pre-cooked weight, which was all fine and good, but felt the "1LB" claim was dubious.

Not being one to complain without some empirical evidence, I set out to obtain some data. Prior to taking a single bite, I placed the takeout carton on a scale, which came out to 10oz. I then discarded the bones and weighed the carton empty, coming in at 1.3oz. This put me at barely over 1/2lb of wings, but I still didn't know about weight loss due to cooking. A quick Google search revealed wings should lose about 25% of their weight when cooked. I'm no math major, but that should put me at about 12oz of wings cooked when it's claimed 1LB is being served, leaving me shorted to the tune of 27.5%.

The positive: staff was friendly during our brief interaction, and the wing sauce was good.

CHICKEN WINGS (1LB)$13.49 The best in town! One pound of chicken wings tossed in your choice of our traditional famous buffalo sauce, Dulany's BBQ sauce, or housemade garlic...