Cottage Cafe — Restaurant in Delaware

Came for an early dinner for my first time ever at this sodel concepts. Location the Wednesday before Labor Day weekend 2024. A friend who drove down from his place in downtown Rehoboth, picked me up & drove to cottage Cafe. We did not have to wait more than a minute to be seated. With a degree in hotel, restaurant MGMT myself, & over 30 yrs in the business, I'm always aware of how important it is, whether front of the house or back of the house, when it comes to the importance of first & last impressions. My normal very calm friend concerned me when after 10 minutes of us seated, me w/ my gluten-free menu, him w/ his regular menu, began to show a little bit of impatience on his face. An urgent look that I knew I needed to take action upon. B/c after more than 10 mins, we had yet to even be greeted by a single server or employee saying or acknowledging our presence, or anything like "we'll be with you shortly." Worse, 2 other tables in that far back room each were attended to w/ servers, 1 in what appeared to have a sort of server in training scenario. (In this time, they had not only given their drink orders but received their drinks & were now giving the servers their food orders.) I got up, rushed as quickly as I could to the front door where I found 3 employees, 2 young girls and one older, possibly sat us originally - not sure- but who immediately after listening to me, asked me to take her to our table, where she immediately did everything correctly to diffuse the situation & made everything worthwhile for the rest of our stay at that establishment. It's my thought that this woman more likely than not was the mgr on duty that night. I could be incorrect but I believe her to have either a reddish or Auburn style color hair.(Not blonde, not dark). Very excellent demeanor. Not defensive whatsoever. Completely wonderfully attentive & apologetic. Was able to take our drink orders and our somewhat complex food order with no issues whatsoever of forgetting a thing .

When our server who was assigned to us did come to greet us: she did apologize very genuinely. And to let me know the french fries, although listed on my Gluten-Free menu, that it's in fact a menu error/ cross-contamination issue. Was very happy with the side choice that I went with- Your coleslaw. Which was/is just slightly better than the batch I tried when I had food delivered the night before from Northeast seafood and kitchen.

I was really wanting to have salmon. But unfortunately that was not on the gluten-free menu. Your kitchen went above & beyond, Pan searing the jerk salmon entree to perfection except without the jerk seasoning per my request. My friend absolutely raved about his scallops entree- also raving about the seasonal vegetables, & happy that he could take home a little bit of each as he was unable to finish his entire entree! Always enjoy your homemade sodas- root beer is excellent! Wished that they were still available by the bottle but that's being nitpicky. It was a little disappointing, however that both at Blue Coast and at cottage Cafe stock was down significantly on the four options that were normally available. You were completely out of at least two of the options at both places. I guess I would have thought that the Wednesday leading up to a Labor Day weekend you would have had a full stock of all of the sodas. Looking forward to a time when I can try the...it was either black cherry vanilla or cherry...

Three of us ordered dinner, which I picked up. Though we were all disappointed by the food, I'll limit my comments to what I ordered. First, the menu here is not huge. It's not like a diner where they try to make everything from a burger to beef stroganoff, with varying levels of success. So when I order one of the maybe a dozen entrees, I expect a certain level of competence; "Why would you order that at a place like that?" should not be relevant when the menu is this small. The chicken Parmigiana was trouble from the get go. As I opened the container, the smell was, to be kind, worrisome. The sauce was dark orange, closer to brown, which suggested it was old. But at any age, the likelihood of it being bad was high. Because ROSEMARY HAS NO PLACE IN PASTA SAUCE. Period. The astringent smell of the food was the first hint. Finding large pieces of it in the sauce was the proof. Inexcusable. Bad. Wrong. That it had been around a while just made a bad thing worse. So the pasta was immediately tossed in the trash and I scraped all the sauce I could from the overcooked, black in places, fried cutlet. The sauce was not a liquid at this point but the consistency of tomato paste, so it was fairly easy to scrape. You would think that there would be someone in that kitchen who would have looked at this $20 entree and said, "This should not be allowed out the door. " If the look of it, burned and sad, wasn't enough, surely the smell of it should have raised an eyebrow, or nostril in this case. If the Cottage Cafe is all about crab cakes and meat loaf, I suggest they pare their menu down further and stick to what they do best because what cost the 3 of us $70 wound up for the most part in the garbage. I've dined there before and as I said before we ordered that night, the place is at its best okay. This was not even close to okay. And if they'd like a quick lesson in how to make tomato sauce that's easy and so much better, I'll be happy to stop by and show them. It's a popular, beloved place it seems. It would be great if they appreciated their loyal customers--and everyone else who chooses to dine there--enough to serve them something better than what the worst high school...

My Father and I went for my birthday. I have to say I was disappointed. Many ppl really like this place but it's only fair. Our starters were good, coconut shrimp and some cheese melted on French fries. I had the fried oysters with Cole slaw and fries. The oysters were lightly floured and fried, they were pretty good. I didn't like the slaw and the fries were good, how can you mess that up. Dad asked for "Blackened Flounder", salad and Cole slaw. He ate his slaw...he likes all cole slaw. He was only able to eat the top side of his flounder. It seemed as if it was steamed with a smear of cajun seasoning on it. It was too soggy for him to eat and that says alot....the man will eat most anything. It goes on...I took his salad home for later only to open it up and have a Roman lettuce core in it. How hard it it to chop the core from the head and dispose of it? We did say something to the server, as she did ask us how things were. Then a woman came over to our table, I dont know who she was as she didnt tell us, and we reiterated what we told the server. By the way, The servers name is Julia, she was very good. She agreed, after looking at the wasted flounder, that it didnt look good and was definatly soggy. I suppose she is one of the managers because she did give us 1/2 off the wasted fish. That was nice but it doesnt take away the fact that it was a complete disappointment. I had higher Hope's for our meal. I had never been there and alot of ppl rave about it. They either dont know what good food tastes like or there is a chef change this year. At the end of the day all I can say is....Even though I have a gift card, I wont go back. You try it....YOU...