Red Lobster — Restaurant in Delaware

It's Red Lobster, I don't expect much, but this was the worst service I have ever witnessed...and I'm comparing it to Denny's and Ponderosa.

We asked to be seated at a booth in the bar and for them to switch one of two TVs to the Flyers game as we were seated. We waited 15 minutes before the bartender came over and said the table was assigned to someone else, but he'd get our drink order, then he offered to substitute a Sutterhome, but then delivered a bottle of Proverb Chardonnay, the house wine, and left it there with dripping wet glasses fresh out of the dishwasher. I picked up the bottle as he was walking away, then he came back and offered to twist the cap off, he did, but clearly was not acquainted with formal bottle service, of pouring a taste, then pouring a glass, or even using dryed and polishing glasses...he explained they just came out of the dishwasher....and they were still warm....yes, he was the bar tender...and didn't seem to know how to dry or polish glassare. He then took our order. I asked about the Flyers game, after 5 minutes of fiddling, he couldn't get it, it was blacked out on their sports channel, no big deal. Then the food runner delivers the food hot from the kitchen, the food looked good, but we didn't have any silverware, and my kid had not got her glass of water yet....mind you, this is a solid 45 minutes after sitting down. The actual waitress shows up for the first time, explains her section is in a different part of the house and didn't know she had our bar booth assigned to her. She went to get silverware, the bar tender came back with packs of disposable plasticware, she returned to say they are out of silverware, the reason is obvious as just about every table in the house is either occupied or left dirty, mostly left dirty.

The crab legs and Lobster tail were hot and delicious, we got crab crackers about 5 minutes after the food was served. The waitress returned several times now to ask if everything was okay, but by this point, we just wanted to be left alone....I didn't feel like asking for the broccoli I didn't get and my wife forgot that she didn't get the side of Brussel sprouts she ordered....an hour and a half into this we were exhausted and hungry, trying to be polite and understanding, but this was the worst table service experience ever.

I don't have high expectations for Red Lobster, but an apparent lack of training and organization in the front of the house made this an almost unbearable experience....at least the food was good....what we got. We weren't charged for the Brussel sprouts and we still tipped 20%....but get your act together in the front of the house...

This place is horrible! Very disappointed with the service! My husband and I went here and they had the 4 course feast in the menu and it said it was available before 6pm when we went to order it they told us it was no longer in the menu and that they just hadn’t had a chance to remove it. So we ordered the mussels for an appetizer the waitress heard us because she made a remark on how that was her favorite. We never received the mussels! Very aggravating. We figured we would give them another try and came with our in-laws today. My mother in law asked to sit at a booth and it seemed as if the waitress had an issue with that. It took them 40 minutes just to ask us what we wanted to drink. We ordered our food and appetizers along with our drinks. Our soup came out long before our drinks did (we didn’t get our drinks till after the dinner came out and the waitress made sure she didn’t come around us the whole time so we weren’t able to find out why we weren’t receiving our drinks) When we received our appetizer they brought our meal at the same time which made it so inconvenient because there was barely any room on the table for the appetizers they had just brought out. The waitress never came back around to check on us and to see if we needed refills on our drinks. The silverware we had was dirty. We asked to do a split check and they had put it all together. The dessert was just thrown in with the to go boxes with nothing said to us that they were in there. And they messed up on a couple of our meals. It was a total disaster. We will never be returning to this red lobster ever again! The portions were very small for the amount we paid. It doesn’t even deserve 1 star. All this happened I believe because my mother in law asked to sit in a booth instead of a table. It was very disturbing tonight...the worst experience ever!...

Food and service was just ok.

8/18/21 update: I'd like to thank the management at Red Lobster (Talleyville) for listening and responding to my issues.

So I'm doing an update on my most recent visit and I have given it 4 stars up from 1. As for the food, I understand that everything is going up in price but if you're going to charge the amount that is being charged (and nothing on that menu is really reasonable in comparison to portion size anyway) then you definitely need to make the portions match way better. My plate came out and my daughter said that looks like a kids meal. Lasted in my stomach that way too (I had to eat again and we ate after 7pm). Anyway, the food was again just ok (except the broccoli and of course the biscuits as always they were delicious!). The real reason for the stars given was most definitely our waitress/server, Serene (hopefully I spelled that right). OMG she was so AWESOME! I would have thought she owned the restaurant. Her customer service and care made it feel like she was glad to be there (not saying that she didn't but this is a very fickle, trying and tiring industry) and wanted it to be a perfect experience. Serene treated all of her customers so good just her interactions , her honesty and wanting everyone to feel special and she succeeded. Serene needs praise and a raise. If I ever go back (and I'm on the fence due to the price to portion ratio) I'm surely gonna see if Serene is available and ask to be seated in her section. Thank you Serene!

One other thing that was a little disappointing was the fact that I went on the waiting list got a text went in and still waited like 20 mins for a seat which I was sort of told our table was given up in a matter of mins to a large walk in party. It worked out though because we got Serene and...