Coastal Star Brewing Company — Restaurant in Galveston

PART 2 of 2. See my husbands review for context and the first part of this HORROR story! It's LONG....

A minute or so passed as I stood there patiently waiting. I craned my head to look into the kitchen window and literally saw him EATING in the kitchen! He saw me and put his food down and came out. His demeanor was getting ickier and cockier.

They did end up bringing me a mayonnaise and bleu cheese and explained to me that they no longer give you sauces with the cheese curds as they are 99 cents extra. Fine. I get it. It took maybe 3 minutes to bring the sauces back out from the kitchen and, due to the demeanor of the man on the register, I was concerned that they may be doing something unsavory to them because of my complaint and my lack of tipping at walk-up windows. We aren’t to the horror story yet. If it had ended here I wouldn’t be bothering to write a review.

The bartender aggressively sauntered over to the table with a cocky and condescending look on his face. Now this guy is fairly large, heavy set, red-faced, and sweaty. His posture is aggressive and he comes into the personal space at our table inches away from my wife and leans his torso in over our table like something you would see an aggressive animal do on The Discovery Channel when they want to intimidate a rival. My wife is immediately uncomfortable and tries to lean away from him as he is almost touching her and breathing heavy over our table with a smart aleck look on his face. He parades the cook out and blames everything on the cook who profusely apologizes. I told the cook it was no problem and that this was a simple mistake and not a big deal. The problem was with the behavior of the bartender/register attendant.

I’ve had at this point and now I am no longer attempting to be friendly with this man. I complain about all of the above points in a straight forward, and now angry, tone. He smiles and in an insincere tone asks how he can make it right. I told him this was an awful experience and I wanted my entire meal comped. He laughs in my face. Yes, LAUGHS IN MY FACE. I am now absolutely angry. In a loud voice I call him out for laughing at me and I tell him that I have never had a bartender or any service staff act like this toward me in my entire life. He continues to laugh at me and repeats over and over, and I paraphrase, “What can I do to make you happy and make this right.” I said “I just told you over and over that I wanted my entire meal comped.” So he is now asking how he can make this right over and over to be a jerk because I’ve already clearly told him what we would like done. He then says “What part of your meal would you like taken off?” Now after this altercation he repeatedly pushes me to take food that they remake. He pushes and pushes to have me let them make me more food instead of just simply comping my tab. Yeah, right! Are you kidding me?! He said “You’ve already started eating I can’t refund your money.” I angrily repled “I just told you I wanted the entire meal comped this was a horrifying experience.” He then replied “You are lucky I’m here and not the owner. You know what? No. I’m not refunding any of your meal.” I then said loudly “I cannot believe what I have experienced here today! I cannot remember the last time someone has talked to me in this manner! I’m lucky you are here and not the owner?! Are you kidding me!? This man is the worst bartender I have ever seen in my life and, to put it mildly, his personality is not cut out for a customer service position. What a joke.” My wife was absolutely rattled by this man and wanted to leave immediately. His behavior made me think he may have been having a few beers. I have spent a lot of time in bars and that’s the vibe I was getting. We wolfed down part of our food, crammed the rest in a to-go box, and walked out the door. I held the door open for my wife as I looked back it this man in disgust and shook my head. To say we will never walk through the door of this restaurant again is the biggest understatement...

I'm leaving half of the review and my wife is leaving the otherhalf. It's LONG. This was, without question, the most horrifying customer service experience of my life. Where to begin? First, I am not a tourist. I am a long-time Galveston resident and a multi-location business owner with retail stores in Galveston, Brazoria, and Harris Counties. As a fellow business owner,I am reluctant to post negative reviews for other businesses. In this case I will make an exception. At approximately 1:30 PM on Friday June 26th I arrived at Hubcap Grill on the Strand with my wife. This was our second time dining here as we loved the food and were pleasantly surprised by the reasonable prices, because this is the Strand District. We ordered the mushroom Swiss chicken sandwich and fries, the double Hubcap burger with added bacon, grilled onions, and sauteed mushrooms, and an order of cheese curds.

I walked up to the counter to place my order. The bar tender running the register was a tall, heavy-set man. It was a weird vibe from the start. He finished taking the customer’s order ahead of me, saw me waiting directly behind him, and instead of waiting on me said “Just a second” and darted back into the kitchen. No big deal, but he was gone for a long time. When he emerged he walked right past me to the far side of the bar and waited on someone there. He returned to the register after quite a while longer, we are talking like maybe 4 minutes total time, and, with an oddly cocky and abrasive manner, started to take my order. I paid with my business card and he asked me about my businesses. We talked about where they were located and what we did, and I was jovial and told him to come out and check us out.

Now here is where I believe it really went down hill. I am a major foodie and I eat out all the time. I am a generous tipper and I automatically tip the same percentage every time, even for so-so and sometimes poor service. But I DO NOT tip at a walk-up windows. I do not tip at McDonald’s and I do not tip at anywhere else that I have to walk up to a counter and/or fill my own water. Tipping is, and has always been, for service. So, naturally, I did not tip. I’m pretty sure this was the catalyst for the absolutely insane treatment that was to follow.

When my food came out there were no sauteed onions, mushrooms, or bacon on my burger. My burger was thrown together in a haphazard manner. I asked the person who brought the food out if I could please have a sauce for my cheese curds. The vibe I was getting was not a good one at all at this point but I was still smiling and trying to be polite. The person told me “we don’t have any sauces”. Now, I was just here a couple of days ago and I know that they give you a little cup of sauce with your cheese curds if you ask. I walked up to the counter, now beginning to become a bit irritated, and complained that my food was missing 3 of the toppings (an extra $4.50) I had ordered, plus it was made in a unconcerned, haphazard manner. The second burger patty was hanging 3/4 of the way out of one side of the bun and the middle toast was hanging 3 quarters out of the other side of the bun. The rest of the toppings were just piled up in clumps as if the person making it just did not care whatsoever. I went up to the counter to complain to the man on the register and he noticed me approaching and quickly ducked back into the kitchen. A minute or so passed as I stood there patiently waiting. I craned my head to look into the kitchen window and literally saw him EATING in the kitchen! He saw me and put his food down and came out. His demeanor was getting ickier and cockier. See part 2 in my wife's review for the absolute HORROR...

So ....me and my guy decided on the hubcap grill after a long day at the beach. Wanted to try a really good burger and my guy had tried a different location and said it was really good. First impression: we walk in and only 2 tables are occupied on a Friday night and we're not sure how to proceed. Bartender sees us after a minute or so and explains that we take a menu, find a seat and come to the bar when we know what we want. Kind of reminds me of how you now go to Walmart, shop and then bag all your groceries. But I was like hey. This is their system. So I go to the bar and order as only two people who have been at the beach all day can order. Wanted to try a bit of everything. My dude ordered brisket nachos and I got the tamale burger plus we got a side of onion rings and a side of chili cheese fries. After I order the bartender tells me to put menus back where I got them. Ok boss you got it. Kind of sucked paying beforehand because I'm a generous tipper and my meal was 47$ so I tipped 8 thinking we would be waited on. I got a coke, my date got a sweet tea. Was handed a bottle of coke and was pointed to the general direction of where the tea is kept with a bucket of ice and mini mason jars for the tra. Point in their favor the sweet tea was very good and I had no complaint about my bottle of coke. Moving on to the food. The onion rings were just that. Onion rings. Zero complaints, they were pre battered and fried so it's kinda hard to mess that up, the chili cheese fries tho. Allow me to paint a word picture. Have you ever had chilli that someone has left on a warmer all day and the top just keeps reforming a skin? Now imagine someone continually folding in that thick dried chilli skin back into the pot. I'd have been ok with wolf brand chilli. This was sub par chilli with no flavor and suspicious chunks. Is it meat or dried chilli skin? Oh! It also was put on top of French fries that were almost black. Literally had to find a palate cleanser afterwards to get the burnt taste out of our mouths. The brisket nachos had no brisket. It honestly looked like a plate of nachos from a fair to me. No love, minimal ingredients and a side of guacamole that had not an ounce of taste. How does one mess up guacamole? And my tamale burger on paper sounded amazing. Patty with Sriracha and delicious locally made tamales on top. Sounds like a party in your mouth right? Wrong. I got a bland patty with some white cheese chunks and 2 bites of a tamale on a bun. More bread than fixins. We literally ate until we weren't hungry and left the majority of the food. We didn't even complain or ask for our money back. The food was so thunderously bad we couldn't help but laugh and vow to never go back. The menu is beautifully laid out. It's just not accurate. Place has potential but they clearly have cooks that don't like their jobs or are angry at life. You could taste their unhappiness in the food. And I don't really know who I tipped, no one came to check on us. Dropped the food off and we never saw them again. Really glad we had such a good day at the beach. If our day has sucked this restaurant would have been icing on a burned cake. Really. Instead it was a $55 life lesson on grace and keeping a sense of humor. Hubcap Grill... Do better.or not. Really I'm...