Sharky's Waterfront Grill — Restaurant in Houston

FINAL UPDATE: It took a total of approximately 3 weeks for this to be resolved. I had to continue calling almost daily and threaten to report to the BBB, Chamber of Commerce, and get lawyers involved before the Director of Operations to finally get on the phone and instantly was able to go in the system and issue the refund. I reluctantly accepted the refund because they were heavily trying to attach a requirement of me coming back in for a free meal to the refund, which I want nothing to do with this place after this incident.

UPDATE: it is now 2 weeks after this happened, and a week after I spoke with the GM John (I believe was his name) and I still have NOT received my refund! Absolutely the WORST service experience.

"I basically live next door and had been wanting to try this place after seeing it for the past few months. Attempted to place the order online for pickup multiple times, but the order wouldn't go through. Decided to call and place the order .... the phones were also down. After about 20 minutes of attempting to order, I decided to go in person and place the order. With it being a Friday evening, I knew they would be busy so I expected a bit of a wait. Arrived and placed the order. The inside was SUPER BUSY & FULL, which showed they had the support of the community and potential to be a really good spot. I was quoted about 15-25 minutes wait for my order to be ready. I then sat in my truck for about 35 minutes just in case. Came back in and order still not ready. I could see parts of the order had been prepared and was being packed up. Another 30 minutes passes (food certainly cold and old by this point) and the order still wasn't ready. The host or manager on duty then informed me that the order was messed up and they forgot the desserts, which meant an even longer wait time (in total waited over an hour). I watched several tables go from empty when I first arrived and placed my order, to being seated, placing their order, receiving their order, and being halfway done eating in the time it took to finally get my order. Was told the order would be refunded, but a week later, still no refund. Finally called them and got in touch with the general manager who was great on the phone and was told he would get the refund in for me. Got home and the food was underwhelming at best. Under-seasoned for my taste, but i could tell that if the place wasnt as busy and the food was fresh, it would've been really good. Disappointed i didn't truly get to experience Sharky's best. Overall, I had high hopes for this spot to become a new favorite hangout/regular spot for me, but after this first experience, I certainly have reservations about returning to support...

Horrifically inept management. Waited 1.5 hours to be seated (with two small children and a handicapped adult). We were orignally quoted 30-45 minutes. We were moved from 1st place in line to 2nd according to their online status and then told it would be another 15-20 minutes. I waited this amount of time then approached the hostess stand. They said they were cleaning our table. Another 10 minutes went by before we saw a busboy actually cleaning the table. A couple meals came out and the waitresses bringing out the food stated they would go ahead and seat the people hovering near the table there (the food seemed to be for these people??). We asked a bartender for the manager and were told he was coming. We watched him float around doing tasks that clearly showed he wasn't coming to talk to us. I eventually approached him and he went directly to the hostess stand, they acted confused (a second time after acting the same way after I approached them) and said "weren't they seated?" The manager said to me "aren't you seated" and I responded with "why are we talking if I'm seated?" he said "well other members of your party are seated" and I was like "they're absolutely not." This was his first time hearing about it. He would have no idea who the rest of my party was, much less if they were seated or not. He then went to clean the party room without saying anything to me. I followed him and asked if that's where we were going to be seated. He stated yes. I went to find my party and they had sat at the newly-cleaned table while I was trying to figure things out. Someone at my table requested the manager again. When he FINALLY came over (again, after a significant length of time), I stated that our wait had been way too long. He tried to excuse it by the rain (it wasn't raining when we got there and it wasn't raining when we left). We were there well in advance of the rain so I'm unsure what that had to do with anything. If anything, we should have been seated first. We watched multiple open tables come and go that, when adjoined, would have accommodated our group. I asked for a minimum grat of our appetizers and he offered hush puppies. I told him I was done listening to him. Our waitress, on the other hand, was great. The manager should be fired as a significant portion of his job responsibilities include the customer experience and he's a failure. Maybe they should use whatever money they have leftover from their $188K PPP loan to hire...

Tl;dr- Save yourself the trouble. Wait 6 months and go back when they get into their groove.

My family and I went today and the whole experience was really sad. We'd been going to Sharky's for years, had lovely memories, and were SO excited to go back after a 2 year hiatus. The trouble began before we even got there; we knew we had to make a reservation to even get in so we tried to do that. It literally took an hour of nearly back-to-back calls to reach someone and by then, most reservations were taken. I started calling an hour after they opened. We finally did get a reservation for early afternoon. We arrived and already there was apparent chaos. Only one person up front, phone ringing off the hook, and it took 10 minutes for us to be seated. We became immediately aware that shift change was occurring because we sat for 15 minutes before someone came to take our drink order. Thankfully we put in our appetizer order at the same time we ordered drinks because it got so much worse from this point. It took another 10 minutes to get our drinks, and probably 10 minutes after that for the appetizer to come out. Our waiter finally made it back around to take our entree order but by then, half of the drinks on the table were empty. Another server had to come over and refill the drinks after quite a while. There was no reason for any of this to be happening, there were half a dozen other servers just standing around talking while food sat and got cold. Sadly, that is exactly what happened to our food. When it finally got to us, we had been there over an hour, and every single plate was cold, overcooked, or completely wrong. We spoke with the manager and left, just simply so we wouldn't have to wait any longer for food. The appetizers were fabulous but everything else was sad and disappointing. For having been open nearly 3 months, there was very little organization, discipline, or order. They are definitely still getting back on their feet, so as stated at the very top, wait about 6 months before...