McCormick & Schmick's Seafood & Steaks — Restaurant in Houston

Stay far away from this place! This place deserves no stars. Absolutely the worst customer service! My dad mistakenly thought this was a different restaurant and decided to do a birthday dinner here.

Our reservation was at 7 on a Friday night and the restaurant was half full. It's been a while since we lasted visited so we had some expectations that the food improved. As soon as we sat, we should have been greeted by our server but it was really hard tell who was who because we had several people come to our table, so it was really hard for me to flag down the right person. After I realized who our actual waiter was, he didn't even ask if I wanted anything else to drink. He seemed very oblivious.

So after staring at the menu for several several minutes, we flagged the waiter down to take out appetizer order. I don't know if there was an issue in the kitchen or the staff itself but it took a while for our order to come out. We ordered raw oysters, and they weren't properly shucked so we were basically trying to scrape the oysters off the shell.

So during this time, the waiter should have asked if we were ready to order but this man was no where to be found! After an hour of being seated, the waiter didn't ask us if we were ready to order, finally we flagged him down and told him we wanted to order but he kept telling us hold on. We asked him 3 times....... the 3rd time he was said hold on again and we looked at him like are you f-ing kidding me?! I think a light bulb clicked and he finally took our order.

After appetizers, salad and soup should come out right after but he was just taking our order after we were finishing our appetizers... so we waited another 20-30 mins for our soup and salad.

I was very displeased with my salad because it was literally dressing soup. So I asked the waiter if I can change it and he told me yes of course. I waited another 20 mins and wondered where my salad was... my family was finishing there's up and I see the main course coming. I flag the waiter down and I told him please cancel my salad if it hasn't been made and you know what he says! "I've already cancelled it" WHY?!

Anyways, my dad ordered a steak, he doesn't even bring him a steak knife so we had to flag another waiter down because our waiter was a ghost.

The manager walked by to apologize about the salad and asked if anything else was wrong but we didn't want to complain and make things awkward with our waiter since we were trying to have a nice birthday dinner for our mom. So we kept quiet.

I had brought cake and we asked the waiter to retrieve it for us.... 20 mins later, the cake arrives. Seriously? All you had to do was get the cake bag and bring it out!

The service here was ridiculous..... not once did anyone refill our water glass. I looked around the restaurant and the restaurant is pretty much empty at 10pm. There's no reason that the service should have been this slow. I don't know if it was our waiter because he seemed so lost, he definitely was not trained correctly. On top of that, the food was very mediocre, most of us did not even finish our food. The food edible but the wait time was just so ridiculously long in between that we had already digested the food before our main entree and had lost our appetite.

At the end, my fiancé talked to the manager and told him about the issues; but it seemed like he did not take us seriously and asked for our address so he can send us a gift certificate. Please do a favor and do not send it because I will never ever go back to this...

Went for dinner approximately 3 hours prior to writing this. We were party of 2 in a restaurant that had maybe 5 tables maximum sitting, so not very busy, with 2-3 different wait staff, manager, and bartender. Nobody up front when we walked in, the manager spotted us and got us seated pretty quickly though. Our appetizer (the crab cake) came out like a pile of pudding sat in the middle of the plate. The top and bottom were crispy but liquid and crab just oozed out from the edges, not to mention a greasy fingerprint on the edge of the plate to top it off. We were both starving so we scarfed down the crab-pudding with bread. about 30 minutes after sitting down and I finally received my single sangria. Then the entrees came, I ordered the scallops, which came out pretty bland but I'm not usually one to complain. The truffle mac and cheese was my side and just kinda meh, really bland and dry. However, I drew the line at the alfredo my partner received. Don't think you get the big shrimp in it, you're getting 40u frozen popcorn sized shrimp reheated with the tiny frozen scallops. Not the restaurant's fault if they can't change that since they're a franchise, but shame on Landry's for charging $30 for a seafood alfredo (IN A STEAKHOUSE SETTING) that's using the same frozen shrimp as popeyes minus the breading. What got me was the alfredo being this weird off colored brown/gray (mind you it wasn't a cajun alfredo or I'd have understood the sauce being another color) The only thing we could taste was black pepper, and the sauce was very watery and grainy like the cheese hadn't been incorporated well and it had separated. Not to mention there was very little sauce at all to begin with. I'm super thankful at least the scallops that I ordered were okay, we sent the alfredo back and got an 8oz filet instead. My meal was over by the time his food came out, and it was decent, but not what you'd expect from a steakhouse setting, it felt like a texas roadhouse steak, which may have been better. Our bill was not cheap, $160+, the service by Lauren was poor, it was not busy at all and we would go 20-30 minutes at a time without even seeing her. I think we were the only table in her section, but even then, like 5, maybe 6 tables with 3 servers on staff, it shouldn't have felt like we sat down in the middle of a rush. Overall, extremely disappointed in the service, food, and overall quality for a restaurant of this caliber at the prices they charge.

Gross side-note, the ladies restroom smells pretty acrid, like urine. The floor was sticky and the toilets haven't been thoroughly cleaned in a while from what...

So... This was my first time at this location and as a person that frequents fine steak houses all over, I mean I have literally traveled just for a steak house experience (because it was said to be one of the best in the state of Texas) I am not new to fine or higher cost meals (in fact I am a chef and have made more than a few and so I also kinda understand the business too). To say I am a little disappointed with my experience here is a lot, because I had heard good things from friends about the brand and location! To be fair... The food was good and the wine was great! The dessert was satisfying for what it was, but with some slight refinement, would have easily been divine! This is the majority of the positive experiences though! The service was sadly way below fitting for a fine dining establishment! Although the host were prompt and polite and our 7 top was seated quickly, it doesn't seem our server though polite, was up to the task and we had to make multiple simple request repeatedly. Further half the table was left waiting for food while the other half was served for more than 10mins, including a fish order and THE KIDS MAC AND CHEESE for the toddler! A 20oz ribeye came 10mins BEFORE A KIDS MAC AND CHEESE AND A SALMON! Again I am a chef so I KNOW that is not possible in cook times and in service! You want to get the kids food out first so the parents can eat! Sadly this isn't even the end of this story! When everyone was served there was more... As the manager did come out without me asking and apologized and promised to "take care" of an item, I saw nothing actually taken care by the end of the night and to avoid a scene, after asking the server, that told me an item I never ordered was removed from the bill, I just paid the check. All said part of the greater cost in a higher end dining restaurant, is for an experience! I pay for first class seats because it is an experience of service! Yes it cost more, but I dont have to argue about when they are bringing the nuts! I would hope that these are not the type of EXPERIENCES the hardworking staff at McCormick & Schmicks's Town & Country or its parent company Laundry's want its diners to leave with! At this time, I would say, I dont know if I would be willing to risk my money and reputation on another evening with friends here again until I felt there were efforts to address...