Surf & Turf Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Milford

Trying to find a positive note to start this review. Give me a minute. Let's see. The. Um. The ICE WATER was just as advertised. Very cold. Couldn't get a refill to save my life though, and since they had an issue with their CO2, it really was a lifeline needed to wash down a mediocre meal. Now for what was a disappointment. We went for my SO's Mother's Day celebration. Just the two of us. I love her very much and we have been looking forward to coming here since the first sign of the establishment being built. Neither of us want to return. We ordered the crab dip, cream of crab soup for my lovely lady, and French onion soup for me. My all time favorite. The dip looked crazy good. A big chunk of crab stuck through the broiled top layer. It, it must have been forgotten to be removed. It was the only piece found in both the dip AND the cream soup. Whatever would they used to pass over someone else's crab dish is beyond me. Plenty of undisolved lumps of flour made it through though. Lucky us. The pretzel chuncks were cool. Obviously not done being cooked. They may have been timed with the room temperature soups. Though, I dare say, the French onion, to my surprise, had onion in it. That was welcoming. If only the brought the malfunctioning microwave to the table, I could have finished their work. To accompany these atrocities, we ordered the only mention of a "surf and turf"meal. The one on the zeroxed "Mother's Day" special sheet.(really?! The name of the restaurant is what again?) For myself? I have never had the Kansas City dry aged beef. So, even though the most expensive cut, I eagerly selected that as my main dish. Since our table was for some reason the only table in a non-dinner roll zone, we were hungry and anxiously awaited our meal. At least we thought our salads would be out soon. It took almost a total of 40 minutes to get our order taken since our waitress was working in a "" hectic, half empty restaurant. We waited. We waited. Meal came. Finally. Sans salads. We had to reorder those.🤨 Turns out, the Kansas City dry aged beef is just an old NY strip. "aged" LOL. Salads came after we started our entrées. Looking around, the salads on the dinner rollable tables had much healthier sized salads, but I must say, by this time, my stomach was turning sour from frustration. How could I show my lovely lady how much I loved her by hauling us through this mess? My steak fries were soggy. My broccoli was about 50/50. Half florrets and half stalk pieces. My steak tasted very nice. Thank you. No water refill, btw. My better half enjoyed her frozen green beans and filet. Her ice cream scoop of whipped potatoes seemed as fresh as any instant potatoe I ever saw. The surf? I get shrimp at Acme bigger and it was the only thing really cooked. And cooked. And cooked. Ever seen a rubber dog chew bone? They must be the picture on their visual instruction sheet that the cook follows. We asked for containers for my french fry soup, the two salads, ( by putting them together, we made a whole side salad) and brought home the rest of the dip for some anorexic squirrels we have in our back yard.

Today I learned that, given purpose, squirrels CAN speak English very well. They used it to curse at me. SMH.

Still waiting on my water refill.....

And since I want to end on a positive...the place didn't ignite into flames. While we were there. But then again, apparently they don't know how to turn on the stove.

So, the togo bag was nice. I'll be able to alway look on it with, what? Remorse? Oh...

It started off nice. The guy seating us had a positive demeanor, and seemed genuinely friendly. We were seated and asked our drinks promptly. Great start and the dirty banana drink was very tasty.

After that is where the disappointing night began. There seemed to be favoritism going on with 2 nearby tables. Maybe friends of a staff member or something. The staff frequented their tables and the management came their often. One of them even had a separate server come by with water to refill their glasses. I'm still not sure why that server came by and ignored our empty water glasses. It wasn't until much later we specifically asked for water that they came with a pitcher.

The service was very slow for the first hour and 10 min. I will say though that the crab dip was good and the calamari. I don't recommend the daily specials. You'd think they would be specifically approved and flavorful to be offered but my shrimp and grits was lousy. $29 for a small portion with 5 shrimp and no flavor. You could taste some saltiness, but it had no buttery flavor, or any kick at all. It was just so flavorless. I've had shrimp and grits in many locations including Matt's Fish Camp in Lewes and I can tell you even if I didn't like one of them it wasn't because it lacked any flavor like here.

The mashed potatoes came out cold and they mistakenly served us mac n cheese instead of the brussel sprouts we ordered. We had to send that back to get what we ordered. Even then somehow the brussel sprouts were hard and had a sour flavor. The salmon we ordered turned out good at least.

For how professional the staff dressed, the classy ambiance, and with all of the staff I saw around the service was really lacking. They were all friendly its just they didn't check on you for long lengths of time and needed to be told to refill the water. We didn't really start to be served until after everything was over with. Some kind of supervisor or manager did come by at the end and asked how they could make it right. Its good they asked but we were done and didn't really want another meal made. We just paid up and left. It just didn't seem like it was worth the price. The night before we had excellent service at Medings Seafood. They offered me a refill when I was out of drink, they got our orders in at a good pace, and checked in on us occasionally. Heck their food came out within 20-30min of us being there. At Surf and Turf it took 1 hour and 10 min to get our food from when we came.

Edit: I almost forgot they have prime rib only on tuesdays and thursdays. How can you have fancy aged steaks of all kinds but your prime rib is barely there? They even have a steak sandwich on the menu which my wife had been hoping for since she saw it on the online menu. Well that too is only tuesday and thursday even though it says nothing of the kind on the menu. Its clearly in a main section for sandwiches. Those items should be removed from the menu and just featured on a daily specials menu for how little they...

Awesome food, excellent service & comfortable seating. But.... The owner(s) need to hire a true, experienced Restaurant Manager! Reservation system (if there is a system?) is awful & doesn't work-and there was no leader/Manager to step in and expedite the people. This has been experienced both for Thanksgiving (with a set menu) and just this New Year's Eve (with s regular menu & New Year's Eve Specials menu). People everywhere, no place to have the customers with reservations to sit - the bar was full, people (with reservations) standing shoulder to shoulder or standing next to dining customers tables for 45+ minutes waiting to be seated! What a disaster! Either the staff had double booked the reservations, didn't allow sufficient dining experience times, or had taken walk-ins ahead of the people with reservations? A definite opportunity for an "experienced" restaurant manager who would had managed the chaos, calmed disgruntled customers while maximizing profits & promoting a great dining experience.

Maybe a suggestion iwould be to close the bar for the public and use it as an "over flow/holding area" for people with reservations. If there were extended waiting times for customers offer either discounted drink specials with a few simple bar snacks - popcorn, pretzels or trail mix.

We love the food (best in the area), excellent service (inspite the difficult situation the staff has been put into) & good/comfortable seating. Please hire a Good Restaurant...