Coast and Main Seafood and Chophouse — Restaurant in Monroeville

Let me start by saying I had high hopes for Coast and Main...so much so that became my first choice of where I would take an out of town guest. Needless to say the experience left much to be desired.

While I can honestly say the food can be rated as not bad, the food I ordered turned out to be lack luster and inedible the service was horrendous!

For starters we were sat at a wooden table that literally had several gouges in it when seemed like a splinter just waiting to happen luckily we sat on the opposite side of them.

Next it was my "fried oyster " experience....now as a self-proclaimed seafood lover when I think fried oysters I think corn meal or beer batter fried to a golden brown. Well their version had the oysters in a sauce or gravy of sorts with bits of what I believe were tasso ham. It was presented on a type of nacho style chip in a tower design. When presented to me at my table clearly due to the carelessness of our server the tower had fallen over instead of him returning to the kitchen to have the chef make things right he merely gave a half-hearted apology about it falling over and placed it in front of me, add to that upon attempting to eat the oysters I could only chew them for a bit until they became inedible. (A foreshadowing)

Speaking of server and apologies, upon arrival and before I even sat at my table I immediately saw that my knife was dirty and had a piece of leftover food on it so too was my fork dirty AND my saucer dirty which I ended up having to hand all 3 to him to be replaced! Seems to me that oversight could have been easily addressed prior to us arriving.

During our entire time there our server's attitude and body language was lack luster and unmotivated.

Next was my entree' I ordered a bone in ribeye which I asked for a specific temperature of 135 degrees and while the initial bite was delicious I quickly found that I could not complete my meal because the steak was riddled with silver skin which any steak lover knows is the equivalent of chewing a rubber band which only told me the quality of the steak did not deserve the Chop House moniker!

The Manager who for me was the only true high point of my evening was a true gem! Her level of professionalism and genuine empathy was a shining light upon an otherwise horrendous experience!

Even my guest said we should give her a tip and certainly not our server...I agreed vehemently!

Would I ever go back there....I am not sure part of me would want to see how (or if) they corrected their abhorrent mistakes and part of me feels there are too many other places here in Pittsburgh where I can spend $150+ for dinner and get a much better experience!

Would I recommend Coast and Main Seafood....absolutely not!

But if you choose to go perhaps your experience will differ from mine!

The...

Hidden upscale dining near the mall with poor customer service …

Decided to go to Coast and Main on a Thursday night. We were celebrating a milestone birthday for my mother-n-law.

The restaurant wasn’t busy and didn’t look like they had staffing issues.

When we were seated, our waitress Mary Pat wasn’t very inviting at all. She was a bit slow to get our drink orders initially. We were seated a little over 10 minutes when she finally got our orders.

She also wasn’t very knowledgeable about the menu when asked. We showed her a steak from a picture on the restaurant site and asked her if she knew the cut. She quickly stated that she did not know. At around 100.00 per person, it would have been helpful for her to be knowledgeable of the menu. “I don’t know”was unacceptable; nor did she go to a manager or anything to find out.

She was very dry and non-friendly until it was time for a tip.

Bread was placed on the table which we devoured because we were so hungry after our workday when we got there but, she never offered us another serving.

Food was good. We were a bit disappointed as you can tell with our experience.

We ordered:

crab bisque - which was good Crab Tots We also selected several salads from the menu / Caesar, wedge and chopped; which everyone seemed to enjoy.

For our meals we ordered 2 ribeyes medium well and 2 porterhouse steaks one medium and the other medium well.

Sides were: au gratin potatoes (which the waitress forgot to bring when she brought our food originally) when we mentioned this to her - she made it appear that “We” forgot to order it the first time. wild mushrooms Twice baked potatoes Grilled Onions

My husband asked for his porterhouse steak to be cooked medium. It came out closer to well done and was very dry. We think the waitress served my husbands steak with another guest but he didn’t want to complain due to the waitresses attitude. I convinced him report it to get it corrected. He did but he had to sit and watch us eat while he waited for the correction.

Total bill for 4 people was over 400 dollars. We split the check and we paid with a credit card and didn’t have a problem.

Our other guest tried to use $ 200 visa gift card and had complications. Waitress stated some policy which allowed her to leave a balance on the card for a tip or something which he was asked to pay the difference in cash. 🤔

For the price we paid, you could go to Morton’s, Ruth Chris or Capital Grille and have had a much better dining experience; especially if it’s for a special occasion.

Would have been nice if a manager would’ve came around and checked on us like they do at other high end restaurants. Rating was for the overall food and experience.

First and Last...

I have been to coast and main about 4-5 times now and have never been disappointed until tonight, New Year’s Eve. We had a reservation and they were running about 20-30 minutes behind on seating. Okay, fine, it’s NYE and you’re busy ( which, I have never ever seen them busy before even on a Friday or Saturday night, so I was happy for them) we can easily wait. We then sat at our table so long, the hostess ( manager, I think) got our drink orders and brought us waters. Again, okay, fine. Then our waitress came over and said she’d be back shortly, then got us bread and said they ran out of butter (???). Came over a few times and acknowledged us but said she’d take our order in a minute. Finally, an hour after our reservation time, she took our order. Our fried burrata app was cold. My husbands beers were warm. My Cabernet was surprisingly good. The kicker was our meal came 45-50 mins after we ordered and was raw/ cold. I got filet medium well ( and am happy if it comes out medium through well done) but I was rare to medium rare. I got a lobster tail added for $22, it was ice cold. Husband got a medium rare filet and it was completely purple raw to the point he only had two bites and ate no more. Waitress never questioned if there was an issue or even if he wanted a box. At this point we had been there two hours and wanted to get the hell out of there, so we did not complain while there.. but honestly, you didn’t realize there was a problem? We were polite, tipped our server 20% in cash, and quickly ( after two hours) left, finally.

Absolutely horrible experience. Waitress was nice but overwhelmed had what I could see a six and a ten top of elderly and needy customers, which impacted us.

Truly the shining star of the meal was the side of truffle fries which was shared and was $10.. size of a McDonald’s small fry. They were out of the other side dish we ordered.

Anyway, for a restaurant that is never busy, you should understand the amount of reservations you can handle for NYE and stick to it because you DEFINITELY sacrificed quality for quantity and when I just paid $250 for a meal for two, I certainly expect quality. Never again.

Also, we have liked the restaurant so much in the past we have even bought multiple friends and family members gift cards to there to encourage them to try it. So, it was definitely impacted by the volume of New Year’s Eve.. but if you can’t handle it.. don’t do it. What a disappointing experiences from one of the only nicer restaurants...