The Stingray Café — Restaurant in New Bern

Bad experience. Family UN-friendly. It all started when we walked in at 8:20 p.m. and this place closes at 9pm. Walking in, the cook assured us we still had plenty of time to eat. We were a party of 3 adults and 3 children. Impressed by the pleasant attitude of the cookstaff, we sat down. Immediately upon entering, the hostess and the waitress immediately started bickering about "giving away" tables as the waitress started complaining about having 2 tables at the end of her shift to cover. We should have walked out then, but we stayed. The hostess sat us at a cramped table in the front. We got our menus and ordered our appetizers and our drinks. Everyone got a drink except my husband. We were there for his birthday. Reminding her my husband didn't have a drink when she came back to check on us, she disappeared to the kitchen. She brought out some of our appetizers and my husband's soup, of which she took the liberty to stir for him. She didn't bring our fried green tomatoes, but I thought we'd wait.. maybe they weren't done? We placed our order. I wanted the combination plate, shrimp and flounder with 2 sides. I wanted a side salad.. an extra dollar. I also wanted The baked potato, another extra dollar. I was going to order the hushpuppies, but the waitress said shed bring some anyway. My infant and my 3 year old were going to split a kids meal since neither one of them will eat the whole thing. There's a $2 fee to split plates, the waitress explained. Even on kids menu items? She checked.. and as it turned out they wont charge us for The split plate. How generous of them. The rest of my family ordered and we waited... and waited. During this long wait we had to constantly remind our waitress to refill our drinks, to provide flatware, asking to bring napkins, etc. All the while we are crammed in this little space up front beside the ONLY other table in an otherwise empty restaurant. Our food finally arrived. My $14 basket looked like my child's $4.99 plate off the kids menu. It was tiny and i was immediately disappointed. The applesauce was missing from one plate. My baked potato (the extra dollar) was cold. The ketchup bottles were empty. Don't worry, we walked around the restaurant ourselves to find one that was full. Do you have tarter sauce? Oh sure, she went to the back to get it. Then it went through another cycle of asking for refills and for napkins again.. of which we never got. We eventually decided to use the baby wipes. We asked about the fried green tomatoes since we were nearly done with our food.. what? You ordered those from me? The waitress asked bewildered. Yes ma'am we did. She disappeared again. She eventually brought them, and I asked if it came with ranch dressing and her response was "don't you have any leftover from your salad?" Yes. It was THAT bad. Our bill totaled $100. The sad thing about this story is that the flavor of the food was there, but the service was so bad I will never take my family there again. We obviously were willing to provide good business and leave a good tip, but no, I think we'll skip this place. We'll spend $100 where we can both get good service and good food and where our business will be appreciated. The service was end of shift service, but we didn't get our food end of shift price. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I never saw the...

Firstly, I'm the easiest customer ever. I eat like a farm animal and am easy to please, so bad reviews are rare for me. Bad service is perhaps my only pet peeve. It's unfortunate Stingray lost us.

We walked in and no staff to greet, nobody around, didn't notice any 'wait to be seated' (maybe there is one and I missed it?) so after several minutes we sat down confused - our table being BY the kitchen door. (It wasn't busy at all, so it shouldn't be difficult to notice us). Several wait staff finally came out of the kitchen and didn't notice us, greet, provide menus or even really make eye contact as they walked back and forth past us - and I was wearing the internationally known look of a customer obviously trying to make eye contact to engage a waiter or waitress. After being ignored for 5-10 mins were even more confused, becoming convinced there was an 'order at register' protocol that we weren't understanding. Finally after 10 more minutes I walked to the counter and asked what the ordering protocol was and if I was doing something wrong. She looked lost and asked what I meant, etc.

It's too bad, the place reminded me of the New England seafood shacks I grew up with and probably has great food - the menu looks excellent - but if the service is this bad when the restaurant is almost empty, it doesn't give me a good impression, so we left on principle. (Captain Ratty's is a block away and the...

After waiting for about 25 minutes and no food, I flagged down my waitress and told her several people arrived after me and already had food. Told her if no food within 4 minutes I would leave. Even people who sat at the table next to me commented why hadn't I gotten anything when they arrived at least 10 minutes after me and already been served. The owner (I presume) came out of the kitchen and said something and I said others have been served and how difficult was it to at least provide the chowder or salad I ordered. He mumbled something to the affect of having to take of all the EBT people. I told him I was leaving and he got a hand-written chart and said I was next. I walked out the door and he followed me and said I had to pay for the water because water is not free. He said I owed him 30 cents and I said I can't believe you are so f.....g cheap and he said it was because he had to deal with bast..ds like me. I paid for the water and as I was leaving he yelled "I should make you pay for the dinner". I ignored him and left. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word 'f.....g" but he didn't need to call me a "bast..d" Shows you what he thinks of his customers. Of course I would...