Casa San Carlo — Restaurant in Morehead City

Valentines Day, we had a reservation for 5:30, we were seated right away. We were then greeted and told she would return. The server came back 30 mins later, that is no exaggeration. She then said she would get us some water, 25 mins later she comes back with water & we were ready to order. We asked what the specials for the night were & she told us, but we could hardly understand what she was saying. She seemed very frazzled. The restaurant didn't seem that busy. We were being very patient because it was Valentines and wanted to have a great dinner. We ordered calamari for appetizer, which when it came out before our drinks we ordered was a bit of a surprise we still didn't have our drinks. We were told there was no bartender and the server had to make the drinks. Thank goodness I asked another server if she could make me a cosmopolitan instead of my original drink, which was delicious. Our server then came and I told her the other waitress made the drink & could she make the same for my mother. She said she would ask the other server to make it & finally we got the other drinks.The calamari was delicious. We ordered the Salmon special with pasta, Shrimp & Scallop special, chicken parmesan, and tortelinni panna.

As for the main dish, not worth a penny I paid for it. The shrimp and scallops had such a strong smell when it came out, I couldn't eat it. It was horrible, the pasta was ok. Three of our meals came with salads, for some reason we were charged $8 for one of the salads. The Salmon special came with pasta, and both were cold. We don't normally send food back, but it was so cold. They just put it in the microwave, instead of making a new dish. I just couldn't believe it wasn't re-made. The food was not good & I was so surprised because I was told this restaurant was good.

The service was below par. We wanted to have a great night so we didn't complain. I got the bill and to my surprise I paid $60 for shrimp and scallops that tasted like they were a month old. I don't mind paying if it was fresh and I was able to eat it. The salmon and pasta were so cold, it was sent back to the kitchen, I wished I had taken a picture of how it was brought back. Nothing was fresh.

I was happy to leave & go eat the sub I had leftover from lunch. We still tipped the server $40 thinking maybe she was just having a bad night as we sometimes do, so we were giving her the benefit of the doubt. The food was not good and definitely shouldn't have been charged $60 a meal. We will not go back. Total disappointment.

UPDATE: After returning home. I get a phone call from the owner at 9:15 PM. He was clearly upset I wrote this review. He told me he was upset and put all of the blame on the server. He asked me several times to take it down. I guess when you make a reservation, this gives them you phone number to call when you write a review. Trust me it wasn't the server, that could have been looked past if the food was good. But the food was the biggest disappointment. It was not fresh. He asked if we would come back tonight so he could make it up. Im sorry but I don't want bad seafood again. He shouldn't have just refunded us for the bad dishes he served.

We live in Morehead City, there is no reason any establishment in this town should serve old seafood. It...

I have 11 years experience waiting tables and therefore show LOTS of grace to restaurant workers. However, my boyfriend and I both said this was hands down, the worst restaurant experience of our lives. I have never written a negative review before now, however, this experience was so awful, I am hoping to save someone else the same fate. We had 6:30pm reservations and were seated fairly promptly. The restaurant (which has about 20-25 total tables) was about 2/3 full. By 7pm, we still had not been greeted by anyone so my boyfriend asked the hostess if we had a server. The hostess seemed clueless and went to look into it. A few minutes later, the hostess walked right past us without saying a word. The table next to us, was a family who owned restaurants in the area and who knew the owner. They went back to the kitchen where the owner was working to let him know of the issue. The owner did nothing. 10 minutes later a waitress said "I will be with you in a minute". When we were finally waited on, we ordered a glass of wine, a beer, a Caesar salad, lobster ravioli, and Baked Ziti with sausage. By the time waters were delivered, we had been seated 45 minutes. We asked repeatedly for our bar drinks and the bartender would not make them until the waitress keyed them in. By the time we received bread and our beer and wine, we had been seated for ONE FULL HOUR! Shortly after, the owner comes to our table and says they are out of lobster ravioli. He apologized for nothing. I had no menu at this point and was starving so just ordered manicotti because I didn't want to delay things even further. Our manicotti and ziti was delivered about 20 minutes later. I never received the salad I ordered, and my boyfriend's ziti did not have the sausage he ordered. Our meals were so-so. By this point, we just wanted to leave. A look around the restaurant showed every single other table visibly irritated with all of the delays. We asked for our check and upon looking at it, we were charged $36 for the lobster ravioli that they were out of, as well as $5 for the salad that was never delivered. We pointed this out to our server and she asked if I wanted a salad boxed up to go (?!?!?). I told her no and she adjusted the check. My boyfriend paid and when the server brought the bill back, she forgot to bring his credit card and we had to go back to get it. The service issues extend to multiple employees. The hostess could certainly have delivered waters and bread, but she seemed disinterested. The bartender could have done the same as she did not appear especially busy. The waitress was clearly new and struggling. Worst of all, the owner was clearly aware of the issues and did nothing to rectify them. A discount on our bill was warranted at minimum, and if he really cared, he would have comped the entire meal. Although from the look on the faces of the other diners, he would have had to comp the entire restaurant. The food was sufficient enough that we would have given this place another chance, however, the service and clear negligence of the staff has made this a place we will avoid and will warn others to...

We have been here before… numerous times. It has been our go to Italian place. We’ve done a review in the past and it was a 5 star. We made reservations for 7 a head in advance for Mother’s Day at 2:00. We were asked if we were celebrating anything, and we said that in fact we were, it was an engagement dinner. When we arrived, we were told that we didn’t have a reservation but that they could seat us. After they put the room beside the bar together, we were seated. I made a comment to the waitress about them not having our reservation and she told me that they did in fact have our reservation because she had seen it and that it was for an engagement. Apparently there was a special fixed menu on Mothers Day. Understandable… many restaurants do that. But we were not informed of that when we made our reservations and it would have been nice to know. I asked the waitress if we would be able to get fettuccini Alfredo and was told “nope”. That’s what 4 people in our party were there for, as it was their favorite. Took quite some time to get our drinks (5 waters, 2 sodas). We finally place our appetizer order… now the appetizers we waited weren’t on the special Mother’s Day menu. We had non seafood eaters with us… and there was one non seafood appetizer available. So we order the bruschetta and the calamari. Waitress says “we are out of calamari”. Ok, it’s 2:00 (we’ll probably 230 before she took our order) and they were already out of calamari….before the dinner rush was even there. The bread came out with the apps… 2 loafs for 7 people. When I asked for more I was told it would be an additional charge. This was new to us. Salads and Meals finally came (no drink refills yet though we were all empty-oh, and there were 3 other tables seated at that time). Meals were all ok… shrimp and clams were over cooked (and clams were sandy). Eggplant parm and chicken parm were both ok… the sauce on then (and the pasta) was a bit bland. Penne a la vodka we were told was was flavorless. The lobster ravioli was great. 6 desserts ordered, all were delicious. We felt forgotten about in the little room we were in. I was wished a happy Mother’s Day on our way out. Why ask if we are there for an occasion if it isn’t acknowledged at all? All the prices were up quite a bit.. which we completely understand… prices are up. We just felt like the quality was down. And our waitress was very unfriendly .If it was our first time there we wouldn’t return.

Side note… we saw a kid eating fettuccini Alfredo when we were on our way out… and we were told “nope” that it...