Water Street Grille — Restaurant in Gloucester Point

I really wanted to love this place. The area is beautiful and the menu looked great. However our horrible experience started as soon as we walked in the door. When the host called us in to seat us (after waiting 45 minutes, which is understandable), we were all standing there (including two elderly people, one of which is obviously physically handicapped)... She says, "I have to go find silverware, I'll be right back." Ended up being gone for a few minutes, only comes back with one set of silverware, then the phone rings and instead of continuing to seat us, she answered the phone. She ended up standing there on the phone for several minutes. She finally says, "I still have to find some more silverware, so it's going to be a few more minutes." I then had to ask if we could just go ahead and be seated. I was hoping that things would get better from there, but it did not. My wife's wine glass had lipstick on it. One of our drinks was wrong. After we got it straightened out, I ended up having to go inside had to go get a basket of sweeteners myself. The appetizer took a while, and then one of the appetizer plates was dirty. That all being said...we still could've looked past every bit of that. Again, really WANTED to love this place as the view and ambience was great. But when we finally got our food (after a really long time), one of the five meals didn't show up. After 15 minutes of the server not checking on us, I finally grabbed her attention as she was running by to ask what the status on that plate was...and she basically seemed confused, like she didn't realize we were still waiting on it. She left for a few minutes then came back and said that apparently it was dropped when they were bringing it all out, and they're working on making another one. After a few minutes, the manager passed by so I grabbed his attention and asked if he could check on it. The manager never once returned to the table. Not once! He absolutely could have came back and updated us on the status of the plate. And I don't know...maybe apologize? Maybe try to make it right? I mean I told him we had been waiting for it for 15 minutes after all the other food came. Anyway, we finally got it after some of us were already finished eating... lo and behold, the chicken was cold and gross. Literally didn't even eat it. Again, never heard another word from the manager, and the server didn't even ask anything about the fact we didn't eat it. May as well mention that another one of us asked for the Po Boy with sauce on the side, and of course still had the sauce all over it. Unfortunately although we do come to this area often, we will certainly never waste our time or money at this establishment again. I mean perhaps it was just a bad night...but after spending $140 on this experience, I seriously doubt we'll roll...

I have been going to this restaurant once or twice a year for over 10 years. Mind you this is an extremely pricey restaurant, but it is worth money for the delicious indulgence of the food. I am believing that they may have had some management changes goodness knows waitstaff always changes. But for the classiness of this restaurant I think it’s necessary that they reconsider the customer service, the new wait staff, and the new floor manager.

In the past when I have visited if I asked for an additional item to take home, they would always tell me how much it would cost. On this particular day however, I was presented with “NO SOUP FOR YOU!!” by the grumpy floor manager. Yeah just like the soup man on the Steinfeld Show. No really that was their response, “NO!!!” Then was telling another woman as I was leaving. If I wasn’t embarrassed at the table then I was at the door.

I would hate to think that because I was a plus size woman that I was humiliated that way. Quite frankly it just think it was the ignorance of both the waiter and the floor manager, because I can’t understand why they would not want to sell me the soup. Especially after I asked the waiter to find out from the manager how much it would cost.

It was the She Crab soup I must admit it is very delicious. I wanted to take some home for the next day. I also had the piled high crab melt sandwich that was pretty good I just don’t eat a lot of bread so I remove the bread. My son ordered the lobster mac & cheese that was really awesome more than what I expected. He also ordered the calamari which if anyone who knows me I love calamari this was cooked to perfection. Our guest had the chef salad it was beautifully presented with candied pecans.

Now it is pricey but the food is very much worth it. However being humiliated because I’m a plus sized woman, it’s not worth the price.

Our meal was $99.00 including the tip $120, at that amount I would not have humiliated anyone. If I was rating them on the food alone I would give them...

The food here wasn't bad - nothing to write home about, but pretty decent even if it was expensive (though that's likely more a symptom of just the area in general). The issue we had that warranted a 1 star was that our order was placed, we received an email confirming it as received by the restaurant, but then when I came by for pickup, I was told that the order was never entered into the system so the kitchen had not even started on it. A manager came by, but only confirmed that I wanted to reenter the order and then left without another word. As it was the only place open that late on Sunday, I went ahead and had the order reentered. When I came by again, now roughly an hour and a half after the order was originally placed, I was told that the order was entered for dine in versus take out, so I'd need to wait again so that it could be boxed up appropriately. This took roughly another 10 minutes, which as you can imagine, meant the food was no longer as hot as when it came out of the kitchen - or in the case of the salad ordered, not as cold. I'd also mention that the salad was just sort of "flipped" into the takeout box. Maybe a small point, but instead of having the salad with the greens at the bottom, and the dressing/fruit/goat cheese/general toppings on top, it was the other way around. It wasn't visually appealing and led to a weird distribution of the ingredients in each bite.

In summary, the food was ok though expensive, the service was terrible (with the exception of the hostess I interacted with who was wonderful), and overall this just felt like a tourist trap of...