King Street Oyster Bar Middleburg — Restaurant in Middleburg

Alright, so we all have that one friend who is just a gentle, sweet, and awesome person. You know the rare kind that should basically be protected from the ugly side of humanity. Well this location failed to do so and instead of allowing her to pay and leave because she felt uncomfortable the bartender and manager made it worse by basically invalidating her experience and treating her like she was the one in the wrong. So the event happened in June on a Sunday. My friend was having a fantastic day. One of those rare "treat yourself" days. She went to this specific establishment because it's one of her favorite locations (not no more). She goes to the bar and sees a seat next to two elderly women. The one she sat next was obviously not happy with that. Apparently, you could see it on her face. My friend orders drinks and around the 2 or 3 drink one of the two elderly women decide to make a comment questioning her about how much she's drinking, are your gonna drive after drinking so much, do you drink so much during the week, and making statements that Sundays you shouldn't be drinking because it's the Lord's day etc.( questions and statements like these are all about tone and they did not come from a place of actually caring or conpassion but rather judgement) Keep in mind these two elderly ladies are sitting at the bar jus drinking water! Why aren't they at a table? My friend after being bombard with so many questions and accusations no longer feels comfortable and decides to leave. She request that the bartender close her out and she wants to leave. The Bartender had plenty of opportunities to step in in Defense of my friend that she decided to remain by and even defended the older ladies when my friend would try to verbally defend herself. The bartender would make claims like " oh they don't mean it like that" and "their not serious". So instead of closing out my friend (like she had requested), the bartender decides to ger the manager involved. My friend just wanted to leave and be done. The manager comes along and the situation is explained to him with the bartender still saying "they didn't mean it like that" or "their not that serious" Instead of asking the elderly women to leave, move them to table or even apologize for this horrible experience. He simply just mirrored the bartender excuses and tried to get her to stay without apologies of any sort. After many failed attempts at trying to get her to stay they closed her out and she spent the rest of the day just crying. For that the whole establishment gets a zero for failing to protect a patron.

Please keep in my mind that I didn't identify anyone's race, but did it feel racially motivated? I don't know that's...

I’m truly disappointed to be leaving this review because outside of these last 2 visits I’ve always enjoyed coming to the Oyster Bar. The service was kind and attentive and the food & beverages were delectable. My Sister and I’s visit today however left us perplexed, and profoundly astonished, especially as a former bartender of 5 years myself. I’ve been sober since February and have usually been able to order non-alcoholic beverages here with no issue. Today, this bartender was extremely aggressive when I asked if I was able to get an espresso seeing as how the menu stated they serve espresso martinis with “fresh espresso” (Which, it isn’t. You can clearly see the coffee pods in a mason jar behind the bar, but I digress as that’s not what I took issue with) When he said “We don’t do that here. We don’t even have espresso cups” I was a little confused as to why that would be a defining factor as espresso can be served in other things than an espresso cup. My sister and I found this to be odd and thought maybe he wasn’t understanding what I was asking and maybe letting him know that I’m sober and since there aren’t any “mocktails” or any non-alcoholic beverages advertised, I just wanted a “Virgin espresso martini”. He became extremely aggressive and rude saying “I already explained to you that we don’t do that here, I’m not going over this again” and the tone in which he said it was so unnecessarily vitriolic and hateful that my Sister no longer wanted her Prosecco he dismissively served her. After that, we felt it only appropriate to call out his rude behavior to which he spoke over us asking if we wanted the manager, when we declined he served my sister a bill overcharging her thinking she wouldn’t notice the difference between a $13 bill and a $17.50 bill. When she pointed out he said “okay yeah I’ll fix it, you wait” to which we said “forget it”. And left, and he loudly announced “Oh and now they’re leaving”.

This was such an insanely confrontational and bitter experience over something as small as “can I have this drink without the vodka please” Especially from someone who not only used to Bartend in Middleburg and all over the country, but also lives in this town.

Accosting customers over requesting non-alcoholic drinks, who would’ve been more than happy to pay the same price as if you had added the alcohol in it, is truly something one has to go out of their way to do. Hope that extra $4.50 helps...

What a horrible experience we had in Middleburg tonight. It started with being seated outside and not being attended to for over 10 mins. At which point my wife went inside to inquire who our server was. She has huddled by the door with another server. The hostess advised she was our person. As my wife came out to our table. The server did as well, she walked past us to the table behind us where she addressed their needs and then disappeared into a side door. I'm annoyed at this point and we both go inside. The hostess apologies profusely and seats us inside. Our hope is we get better service inside. I specifically ask for a new server, who do we get? The same server who informs us "I've had a long day". It's a awkward comment as she's looking for sympathy. While I wish no bad days on anyone, it's also not what you tell your customers to justify 20 mins of waiting. We get a new server but in the meantime the old server is giving us nasty looks everytime she walks by. The new server is great, knew her wines and menu. However my meal would ultimately go left when the pasta dish I ordered with a modification becomes something else entirely. I noted shellfish and dairy allergies. And now the pasta is a issue because of how it's prepped. So we change it to spinach. The meal comes out on a small salad sized plate. 2 pieces of chicken and small handful of spinach. I'm pretty upset at this point, I ask for some bread I figure I'll improvise a sandwich. The charged me the full price for the pasta meal, plus charged me for toast. When in reality I ended up with a kids meal chicken. The manager was unavailable as I was told so we paid the bill $63 is a small bill. The issue was the horrible service, the neglect and the feeling of being overcharged. We've been here multiple times in the past whenever we visit Salamander resort 2 to 3X a year for the last 8yrs. Taken them off the list, too many issues and worse no ownership...