The Restaurant at Friday Harbor House — Restaurant in Friday Harbor

1 point for the food, 1 point for our server and negative 3 points for the shift supervisor's behavior and the company's lack of response to our email. I gave them 6 days to respond to what happened and they never did. Here is the email I sent, and what transpired one evening we had dinner at The Friday Harbor House...

"We visited your restaurant on the evening of 8/19/22. The food and service were great and we were truly enjoying our time, until the heater that was between our table and another one went out.

We asked if we could have someone check it, we later found out we had asked Stephanie (a supervisor) for help.

No one ever came to help but we noticed she sent someone to assist another table with their heater. That group was sitting by the long fire pit wall, which was on.

So we had to ask another person to help and she did come over very quickly to assist.

Then a few minutes later Stephanie told one of the staff to take our heater (the only one by our table and another group’s table) and bring it over to the same group that already had the fire pit and a lit heater.

The group next to us looked over, seemed puzzled like us and asked us what just happened and why did we all just lose our only source of heat. We all laughed because we were pretty shocked that they just gave the heater to another table without saying anything.

I called the staff member over who was moving the heater and asked him what was happening. He apologized and said Stephanie told him to take our heater because the other group wanted ours, apparently they were not happy with their heater and ours was glowing a brighter orange.

We told him we would like to have heat, he apologized again and then brought us the one the other group had asked to replace.

The entire situation was very odd, and we watched as Stephanie proceeded to chat with the other group for about 15min and didn’t even acknowledge what had happened.

At that point when we were asked if we wanted dessert we declined, and asked for the check - because that had just killed the mood.

When the check came, I expressed my displeasure with what had happened.

A few minutes later Stephanie came over with another heater, but she knew we were leaving and commented “so apparently I took your heater, I wasn’t aware it was ‘your’ heater” - our group was taken aback by her tone. When we tried to explain it was an odd experience she just replied with “well it’s only august” like we shouldn’t be chilly.

Then she was just trying to accommodate a customer and made some other comments that I just tuned out. It was clear the other group were friends of hers, or people clearly more important than our table or the one next to us.

At that point I was pretty annoyed, I signed the check, gave more than 20% tip because our server was great and so were the other staff members. We spent about $300, it would have been more because we did plan to stay for dessert and drinks, but not after that experience.

It was our first time at your restaurant and we are considering buying property on the islands. Sadly I don’t think we will be back after this...

2-star food, 5-star location. Beautiful view from the deck. We thought we’d try again with the change in chef.

The scallops were very tender, but the sauce was tasteless. The waitress recommended that we get the bread to use with the scallops sauce. It didn’t seem to add anything to the bland bread. The seasoned butter that came with the bread was similarly bland.

The Brussel sprout appetizer was savory and there was a good amount.

My wife had a Hearth Chicken. The chicken and the onion bed the chicken was on didn’t have much taste. The chicken itself was moist and tender. She had Grilled Carrots with pistachios, but some were thicker than my thumb and hard as an uncooked carrot.

I had a prawn dish with a raspberry sauce. I couldn’t taste much raspberry over the ?chili powder on the tiny prawns.

The virgin pina coladas were great!

We went for our 45th anniversary, hoping for an improvement over our last anniversary meal there a few years ago.

I doubt we’ll be back. $164 is a lot for a disappointing meal. Couldn’t beat the view though.

Update:

Well, after two years, we tried again

Rib appetizer was very tough and bland. We might have been able to cut with a steak knife, but our butter knife wouldn’t tear the meat and there was little flavor.

The king salmon was excellent but the pasta underlying it was tasteless. The halibut was excellent also, but the risotto was bland.

Yet again we were disappointed. We keep trying as chefs come and go.

Beautiful view of the harbor and service...

In 50 years, this is the first time I immediately went to a grocery store & found something decent to eat right after dropping $120 on dinner. After a 40 minute wait, our $22 Crab dip arrived. Less than 5 teaspoons of dip. Cast iron square container had a scant 1/4" deep schmear of dip. We each had 2 bites. Several other tables around us received the same. We all were looking at each other. There was total chaos in the dining room with only one server as the other server abandoned us to go work the bar. Another 35 minutes passed (no refills of water or tea...) & I'm still waiting on my salad. Tables are getting portions of their orders here and there. Here come our entrees. Apparently no salad is coming. Halibut ($38 x2) with bitter, bitter radicchio, scant vinegrette, 2 half king mushrooms, a couple sliced cucumbers sans rice vinegar. The halibut is cooked to perfection and dies on that plate in want of sides, acid and flavor to accompany it. I flag down someone to please bring me some lemon wedges. After 20 minutes they arrive. I annoit my now cold halibut with lemon juice which helps. No one checks on us (or any other table). We are there 2 hours and 10 minutes. No tables are turned in that time. We finally paid and left. Hands down one of the worst...