The Firehouse Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Florence

Reviews were misleading for us, so I’m leaving one that I wish I would have seen before going. First, the food was decent. My daughter had the kids menu Mac and cheese which was delicious. Honestly the best out of any of the meals we ordered tonight. I had the clam chowder which was good. We also had average fish n chips and hamburgers. The kids menu chicken nuggets were incredibly bland, like coated with plain breadcrumbs without any salt or seasoning at all.

UNPROFESSIONAL—We were not greeted when we arrived for a long time. There was a sign that said “please wait to be seated” but no one came, and there were two parties ahead of us with nowhere to stand while waiting. When a waitress finally came, there was confusion between employees about which table each party should go to. Every employee seemed annoyed, flustered or indifferent. WAIT TIMES — Initial wait time should have clued us in. They gave us no indication about wait time to be seated, or wait time on food. After being seated it was a long time before coming to take our order. And after ordering it was another 50+ minutes before receiving our order. No checking in from the waitress, or updates on time. After finishing our meal, we asked for the check and had to wait another 10 minutes just sitting there waiting to pay.

NO BATHROOM—we overheard a waitress rudely tell an older woman with a walker who came in that the bathroom was out of order. It seemed as though the waitress was tired of explaining it to people, but this was the first time the guest (or any of us) had heard of it.

We had a party of 6, including 4 kids who needed to use the restroom after a long day at the beach before our drive to our hotel. Having an extremely long wait for average food, without being able to use a bathroom was very disappointing. Had we known about the wait time, and the bathroom situation upfront, we could have changed our plans or at least altered our...

Sat down outside and waited a long time til a waiter gave me a menu, then asked if I could get a cobb salad without bacon. Nope, they couldn't handle that special request, which I was amused by but no biggie. So I ordered Cesar salad and ice tea. Waiter brings ice tea but doesn't bother to bring spoon or sugar so I have to flag him down and ask for sugar. He finally brings a container with a few kinds of artificial sweetener and disappears to wherever it is he hides for an eternity. I poke around in the container and note that it does not contain sugar, so spend a while trying to flag him down again to ask again for sugar. This takes a long time and I have to vigorously flap my arms to get his attention so I can ask again for sugar, at which point he decides to argue with me and point out that he brought sweetener. No I tell him I want sugar. He insists he already brought it and I'm forced to explain to him that he did not bring what I asked for. Then he claims not to know what sugar is. I am forced to define sugar to a restaurant waiter, i.e., sugar is a naturally sweet crystalized food item restaurants typically stock. He decides to dig his heels in and argues "most people mean sweetener when they say sugar" and I say " not me I want sugar" and he glares at me and refuses to budge. I finally tell him I'm unwilling to eat there and leave. Just surreal that a waiter is both that incompetent and that belligerent. I went next door and got a great meal complete with ice tea and genuine controversy free sugar and will never go back to The Firehouse where crazy psycho waiter guy lurks just itching to jerk people around...

This place was saved from a one-star review by the stellar sweet potato fries. (watch out for that salty ranch though.)

Where do I even begin. To start, the clam chowder was thick and floury And may have been spotted on an episode of "everybody's so creative."

If you like a flour-based clam chowder or you're from Ohio - then this will be your jam. But if you prefer an actual creamy clam chowder, go somewhere else. This was more like a clam-flavored biscuits and gravy without the biscuits.

And the coleslaw. Oh, the coleslaw. If I wanted bagged shredded cabbage mixed with Litehouse processed coleslaw dressing from the grocery store then I would have gotten myself that. Slimy is never a word that I thought I would use to describe coleslaw. But here we are.

The Mr's burger was straight from the Costco bulk pack, it had reasonable flavor but it was tucked between a dry bun and loaded with an ungodly amount of Vlassic pickle slices.

When the waitress stopped by she asked about our food I told her about the clam chowder situation. Phew! She seemed to take it very personally and loudly said that I was the first person ever in the whole entire world to not like their chowder and that people come from other states to taste the best chowder they have ever had. So if you like to be shouted at, this is definitely your place.

Listen, I'm tired today, I just wanted to enjoy decent food and instead I got chowder-shamed and the joy of nibbling on some grocery store cafeteria coleslaw.

Thank the universe for some sweet potato fries or I would be writing this with a very...