Purple Urchin Restaurant — Restaurant in Hampton

Absolutely awful service.

Our group had to wait over one hour just to be brought water. We also ordered alcoholic drinks (which somehow came before the water but still probably took 50 minutes), one of which actually smelled like cat urine.

When we started ordering our drinks, our waitress (Michelle), literally walked away mid-order to bring a bottle of wine to another table. Throughout the meal, we found her to be rude and lied to us about the status of our order (example: saying our drinks would be “ready soon” when we could quite literally see them sitting on the bar melting). When it came time to order our food, she seemed annoyed to take our orders and that food also took a long time to come. The food was fine when it eventually came.

The worst part was at the end of the evening, she suddenly became extremely attentive to us and asking if we wanted to pay our bill before we’d even finished our cocktails (still our first ones, considering they took such a long time to come). Then, when we did say we were ready to pay, it took over 30 minutes for the check to come. At the beginning of the meal, we had specified that we wanted separate checks. When we finally went to pay, our waitress stood over us with the iPad and read to us what we had ordered and never showed us the screen until it was time to add gratuity. We were planning leaving less than 20% as we were so appalled with the service, but we did not realize until halfway through settling our checks that she had already added 20% tips onto all of our bills (meaning that we were then unknowingly tipping her THIRTY PERCENT for awful service). When we tried to contest this, the manager came over and told us that he could not refund a tip and instead brought us a ridiculous number of shots (no way that a restaurant should be able to bring over 25 shots to a table of 9 and follow alcohol service rules). We eventually agreed to this as no matter how hard we fought for our money back, they would not refund this. This was even more frustrating as 3 members of party do not drink for various reasons, meaning that they did not receive any sort of compensation.

Importantly, when the (male) manager came to our group to offer us (a group of 9 women) the shots, his exact words were, “how about I just get you ladies super drunk?” Which we all found to be extremely creepy, sexist, degrading, and triggering for our group. We were so desperate to just get something out of the encounter, we said yes just to be done with it all. Reflecting on it this morning, we all still feel gross about it.

When we tried to communicate our frustrations to Michelle, she called a member of our party rude (which was not the case), berated us, and argued that she hadn’t performed poorly. The worst service ever - DO...

Husband and I came here after a day at the beach before peak dinner time (around 5:30). At first I was quite pleased due to the nice view and atmosphere. However, we were only one of maybe 3 tables sat and service was still very slow. Our server was very sweet but it took surprisingly long to get food. I ordered a caprese salad (which requires zero cooking) and it took about 20 minutes to come out and was not as described on the menu - came with literally 1 small piece of basil for the entire salad, and served with green tomatoes (which were extremely hard. This might be normal for green tomatoes but I didn’t expect them to be served regardless based on the menu description or I probably wouldn’t have ordered). Also ordered Buffalo wings with onion rings. The onion rings had so much batter on them it tasted almost like soggy cornbread and while the wings were okay, they were nearly $20 and didn’t come with the carrots and celery mentioned on the menu or blue cheese. I had to ask for it on the side and it came in the smallest little container I have genuinely ever seen. I had to ask for about 6 of them to equal even half of what would be a normal side of blue cheese with an order of wings. All in all I wouldn’t be this bothered by the meal if it weren’t for the prices. We ordered the wings, an app size salad, a sandwich, two sodas, and a mudslide and the total was $105. We’ve spent that before at absolutely gorgeous restaurants with incredible views and food/cocktails in Newburyport and on Cape Cod, but I’ve truly had better meals at fast food restaurants than here. Will never go back or recommend. This place either needs to drastically lower their prices or dramatically improve the quality and presentation...

If I could give this zero stars I would. My husband and I were just at that place. I ordered chicken parm and he ordered a BBQ pulled pork sandwich. We waited over an hour for our food on top of the 30 minute wait to get seated. I took once bite of mine and it tasted horrible, barley any sauce, no cheese. The pasta was undercooked. My husband took one bite of his and his pulled pork was so salty no bbq sauce his sweet potato fries looked it marinated in grease with chunks of grease all over them. I went over to our waiter and said both of our meals are horrible so we are going to go. We were trying to pay for our drinks and the cook came out and insisted that we tell him what was wrong with it. I explained it did not taste right. Then he said, “ That’s not how this works. I will give you 50 percent off. “ I said 50 percent off for what? We both hated our food. He stormed off angrily. I am sorry my family has been in the restaurant industry for over 50 years. If someone complained about the food we would of kindly taken it back, apologized, and given a gift card. I got yelled at. Doesn’t sound like the way to run a business.

Edit!!! Excuse me theft?? 4 drinks?????my husband had one beer (warm) and I had a soda in the time span of an hour. We left money on the table for our drinks, plus tip. We left cash on the table because we couldn’t find the waiter to pay. I was getting really uncomfortable getting yelled at for not liking my meal, so I wanted to leave. I will kindly speak with the police we left money for our drinks. I will report you guys for harassment yelling at me for not liking my reply that I would not pay for food I would not eat. You guys are class acts!!! Way to...