The Nauti Goose — Restaurant in North East

In two cars, four of us met at the Nauti Goose. We drove over an hour to get there. My wife raved about how wonderful their crab soup was to our guests for weeks. (we have been here several times and try to get there at least once per year). I always research the menu of a restaurant we are about to visit. In fact, I have never seen a restaurant website that did not have their menu available. So, when I got to the menu page on the Nauti Goose website I was a bit taken aback. There was essentially a blank page with “New Menu Coming 2020". Well, we are already 9 months into 2020, but no new menu and no old menu. This should have sent up many red flags, but we went anyway.

Upon arrival, there were not many people there at all, but we were there early so that we could drive home with the sun still up. We were handed menus (see pictures) that essentially were bar food items (and not very diversified in that sense either). We were flabbergasted. A seafood restaurant, literally on the bay, had little or no seafood or fish. No wonder the menu is not on their web page, it would likely drive customers away. At this point we considered walking out and going to Woody’s down the street. Honestly, the only thing that kept us there was the easy parking.

So, we ordered the crab dip, a small traditional pizza, and a large white pizza. The hot crab dip was terrible. I suspect the ingredients were salt, cream cheese, salt, little pieces of orange cheddar, a small quantity of crab, salt, and some melted orange cheddar on top. It had no taste of crab. If I was blindfolded and fed this, I would not know what to say other than creamy and salty. The traditional pizza was unremarkable. Nothing about it was special or worth remembering. The white pizza was worse. It had more than a considerable amount of grease on it and under it, some mozzarella cheese and a tiny bit of oregano. I couldn’t discern if there were any other ingredients.

Three of us ordered crab cake sandwiches and one person ordered nothing. The crab cakes were also unremarkable. The crab didn’t seem to have lots of fillers or binders, but was basically very bland. The french fries were cold and pasty upon arrival. The menu said that the crab cakes came with fries, but the fries were rung up separately. If my wife were aware of this she would have ordered her’s without fries instead of paying $2 for fries she didn’t want or eat. Most of the fries that were served were not eaten due to them arriving cold.

Service: generally slow. We also had to wait a while to get the check and even longer for the payment to be picked up. “Silverware” was provided in prepackaged bags containing a fork, knife, spoon, S&P packet, and a terrible napkin; something you might get at a roadside chicken BBQ fund raiser. The quality of flatware was very poor; the knife would bend trying to cut a bite of pizza. Certainly the antithesis of elegant. The drinking cups were the clear plastic Solo type cups. The plates were glass. Wouldn’t the same dish washing machine that sanitizes the plates also sanitize metal flatware and more standard drinking cups?

While none of us enjoyed the meal, the ducks on the water...

Our experience at the Nauti Goose was actually comical, the service was probably one of the worst I've ever experienced, I cannot in good conscience recommend this place to anyone. Which is such a shame because the food is actually not that bad and the location (on the water) is gorgeous.

When I arrived with my wife, the other two in our party were already seated and had already ordered Apps and Drinks. After finding our group and seating ourselves (no host/hostess) we were finally approached by a waiter about 15 mins after sitting down. We had plenty of time to look at the menu so we all ordered our Entrées, 2 of us ordered crab cakes, and our drinks, everyone in our group asked for water as well. 30 minutes go by - No appetizers, No water, no silverware, but our drinks came. 30 more minutes of not seeing anyone, still no water or silverware, but our Appetizers arrive. We couldn't trust our waiter to return in a reasonable amount of time, so we went ahead and ate with our fingers. It was like a middle-eastern experience where everyone is kind of digging in with their hands because we didn't have plates or silverware, we also didn't have the water we had asked for an hour beforehand.

30 more minutes go by, and our waiter comes out and informs us that the restaurant is out of crab cakes, so two of us have to put in new orders... more than an hour after initially ordering. At this point, we are kind of just laughing at how bad everything is.

I think the waiter started to get the idea that he was failing us, so only about 30 more minutes until our actual food arrives! It was only about 1.5 hours after sitting down, we finally go our food, he also brought us our silverware - after we asked for it and our water came out at this time too. I guess our waiter decided we didn't need water until our food came out, silverware as well.

The waiter also managed to mess up the sides for two people in our party, they asked for french fries, but he brought them out a little bag of chips instead, after we asked for the fries, he went back and put the order in, the fries came just as we were finishing our meal, so the fries were essentially our dessert.

Long story short - Basic dinner needs were not met, no silverware, no water, we were there for 2 hours and only had 1 drink. I came ready to spend money and have a good time, but about halfway through was ready to go take my money elsewhere.

I can't stress enough how many good places you can eat at around the area that will provide excellent service, with good food and good environment. It's a shame that the Nauti Goose can't capitalize on its...

We visited Nauti Goose which is accessible by boat in a beautiful location on the water. We were a party of six looking to have a nice dinner and enjoy the atmosphere out on the deck overlooking the water. We were given menus but we had to read them by using the lights on our phones since there were no lights, candles, or anything by which to see. The only thing lighting up the area was moonlight and light shining from inside the restaurant and our umbrella was up was up so it blocked out most of the moonlight. Each of us ordered a drink or two. I ordered a “bucket drink” but they were out of buckets so I got two cups placed in front of me. I asked for lids in case I couldn’t finish them, I could take them down and sit on the boat and drink them before leaving. I was told that “ lids were hard to find” so he’d have to look which we will get back to this later. As for food, we all ordered sandwiches or salads and some steamed shrimp. Later I ordered another “bucket drink” to share with my boyfriend. While waiting for our drink we started tidying up our table. My lids from the previous drink had gotten thrown into the trash pile on the table. When the waiter, Martin, came back, I asked for lids. He digs the lids out of the dirty trash pile and said “there you go”. That was his attitude the whole second half of our visit! He wasn’t very personable at all. So our bill came…$250. That want the problem. The problem was that supposedly somewhere on the menu that we couldn’t even see, it said a gratuity of 20% was added for parties of 6 or more. Our waiter never mentioned this as we added ANOTHER 20% gratuity on top of that! I called the restaurant the next day and was told to call back the following Monday. I got sick but did call back later and spoke with John the manager who was very rude and abrupt. He told me that he would talk to the owner and call me back right away. He said he’d “straighten it out if he had to take it out of his own damn pocket “. A week has gone by and he has yet to call me back. I just want everyone to know that they DO CHARGE 20% gratuity on parties of 6 or more. The waitstaff won’t tell you. If you are dining outside after dark you won’t be able to see it on the menu. Martin, I hope you enjoyed...