Coakley's Pub — Restaurant in Havre de Grace

I can only speak for my bar experience here. My experience wasn’t great, or even passable, for an Irish pub. I don’t usually give negative reviews, but this place just didn’t seem to run well at all. It was just all service-related. I used to work in a restaurant, and this seems like one of those local places where bartenders and waitresses just kind of goof around with each other and the customers they know, and eventually take care of other customers in between. They all seem like cool people, it just left us largely ignored.

No waitress or waiter ever showed up after we were seated. No one asked us if we wanted a drink or if we wanted to look at a food menu at any point during our stay, minus the time we physically had to go to the bar to get someone to interact with us, which is just weird for a restaurant on a Saturday with waitresses hanging out and joking with each other. We had just been sitting at an empty table waiting for a waitress that we soon realized just wasn’t going to come.

The young hostess was fairly aloof and we had to wait for her to clear her personal items (cell phones, jacket, her glass of water, etc) from the table before we could even sit down at the only other vacant table in the bar area. It’s supposedly an “Irish pub” and they either didn’t know how to pour a proper Guinness or didn’t care to put in the effort. Either excuse would be odd. Bartender poured and instantly gave them to us without a settling/top-off and one was overfilled and kind of spilling about. This is a total no-no at any Irish-pub establishments I’ve ever been in. I wouldn’t be as bummed if it was supposed to be your average college bar, but this is an Irish pub, right?

We finished up our beers and went across the street to MacGregors to try our luck again and we were taken care of all night by employees that seemed way more interested in our business, serving us awesome food and beer while continuously checking in on how we were doing. It was a total 180 experience. They were also way busier. Sorry for the brutal honesty, guys. Hopefully we just caught you on an off night. These things should be an easy fix.

Update Below

Note to Owner: If “Need a menu? Ask!” is your policy when customers are seated in your restaurant, as you suggested to my friend, it’s an objectively terrible policy. It is also not the policy of literally any other restaurant I’ve ever been to that’s worth going to again. I’m legitimately not trying to stoke a fire or be mean, it’s just really weird to hear that from an owner of a restaurant with competition in the exact same market right across the street. If I had ever said that to a customer when I waited tables in my teen years, my boss would have fired me on the spot.

When a host/hostess seats you, you shouldn’t have to ask for a menu, much less for the waitress/waiter to even show up to your table. The way we were greeted, sat, and ignored wasn’t acceptable at any point during our entire visit. It’s just that simple. You don’t need to lecture grown men on how to ask for a menu. You’re a businesswoman and it’s a simple problem. I worked directly for a business owner for years and all small businesses rely on sales and service to get repeat customers. It’s the lifeblood of any business. If two guys (potential repeat customers) came in ready to spend $100 for beer and food, and they left to spend it somewhere else (which is exactly what happened tonight) because they were completely ignored, that’s something that should be unacceptable to you, and should infuriate you as an owner.

Wishing you and your crew the best of luck. Like I said, I hope we just caught you on an off night. Just had to pass on some...

Ok, so took the family to lunch here. First time in the area and it seemed like a nice place. First it was not that busy when we got there (other than people drinking at the bar) and it took almost 10 minutes for a hostess to show up and seat us. We got our drinks and ordered and waited over AN HOUR to get our food. Again, there were not a lot of people dining in and we didn't order anything too complicated. As a matter of fact, everything other than the tuna was likely delivered to the restaurant in a bag and frozen, so to cook it you move it from the bag to the grill or fryer to the plate....and even still half hour-forty minutes is well over a reasonable time to wait for the type of food we ordered...nope, we waited OVER an hour. We complained to the waitress but didn't ask for or expect anything, other than just an acknowledgement. Several minutes later the owner came out and with every statement made it out that our expectations were what was unreasonable. She made comments like, "well, this is not a fast food restaurant" and "I have five top chefs working as hard as they can to get food out, and we are super busy" and "I've been here for 20 years, so...". One of the salmon steaks was cold and well done when we asked for medium, and it was very dry. When my sister brought it to the owners attention she offered to nuke it for her, when my sister said she didn't want to pay $15 for microwaved fish, the owner rudely took the plate from in front of her saying, "fine, we'll take that off the bill". Honestly, other than being mildly annoyed at how long it took, I was content UNTIL the owner came out. SHE was the one who ended up making most of us upset by totally making us feel like we were unreasonable to expect reheated frozen food in under an hour, when only a third of the tables were occupied. She even went as far as to say, "well, you should've made reservations" as if that would have made any difference in how long it took. At the end of the day, we weren't looking to complain or get a free meal, as paying customers, we just expected acknowledgement and good customer service, and we didn't get that. The food was just ok, my suggestions would include buying FRESH seafood, not frozen and cut your own french fries, and don't use the frozen bagged ones. Also the bathrooms were pretty nasty. The urinal had pee and pubic hairs all over it, and having a three year old who usually comes in contact with the urinal when "going potty", it was...

Update 2017: Found ourselves meeting friends in Havre de Grace, and since we had enjoyed Coakley's before, we suggested it and met our friends there. This was a different experience. The food was still good (not as good as the original visit), but nothing special. On this occassion, though, our waitress must have been having a bad day as she kept forgetting to bring out beverages. Had to be reminded 3-4 times that we were looking for beverages. They also had a long list of things that they were out of (waffle fries, hamburger buns, rye bread, etc....), which struck us all as rather bizarre, especially something like hamburger buns or rye bread. How hard would it be to send someone to a local grocery store to pick up some buns & rye bread? Oh well, that solution seemed to elude them. Next time, we'll try some place new when we are in Havre de Grace.

Original Review: Great place to go in Havre de Grace. We were exploring the city (never been there before), and were keeping an eye out for a good place to grab lunch. Checked out several places while we were exploring the city & the waterfront areas, and ended up at Coakley's. No regrets. Very good service, really good food, and it has great character. We primarily got sandwiches, but everyone in the group was really happy with their food. And their pricing is reasonable for a tourist town. Too many times we have been in restaurants in tourist areas, and the prices seem to be 25-50% higher than normal places for the same thing, but Coakley's was very reasonably priced. I'd recommend this...