Quinn's Lighthouse — Restaurant in Oakland

SOO DISAPPOINTED! This is about my visit on Tuesday, August 1st 2023. Summary of review below: I FOUND A DEAD ROACH IN MY CLAM CHOWDER. Explanation below. Quinn’s hasn’t been anything to write home about these past 20 or so years I’ve occasionally visited with my grandmother. I was looking for a new, fresh spot to dine in with my boyfriend for date night. Nothing new caught my eye, but Quinn’s was something we both decided on. We both love seafood, new restaurant to him, and only a 5 minute drive from our house. The atmosphere was fun and lively and business seemed to pick up around the time we came in; 6-7PM. We were waited on promptly after we were told to choose our own seats. We ordered waters and soda, a bowl of clam chowder and bread to start. A few minutes later, we ordered our entrees; seafood pasta and tuna melt. The bowl of chowder was large, so we shared it aside our entrees. About 5-10 minutes into our entrees is where it all went downhill. Halfway into the clam chowder INSIDE THE BOWL IN MY NEXT SPOONFUL I SCOOPED FROM THE BOTTOM WAS A ROACH. It had not fallen from the ceiling or crawled into my bowl. Either of those incidents would have been forgiven considering it’s an open air restaurant on a dock. I understand there are more chances for bugs in food considering the environment, but I was so grossed out I couldn’t finish my food. It was obviously a roach that had fallen into the pot while it was cooking. I almost threw up at the table whenever I accidentally glanced at it. If I wasn’t looking at the bowl and next spoonful, I would’ve put it in my mouth. My boyfriend called the waiter over and asked to talk to someone about this because we found a roach in our soup and I didn’t want to finish my entree that I had only taken 2 bites of. My boyfriend had finished one half of his sandwich and planned on asking if we could just pay for his meal, drinks, and the side of garlic bread we picked at and get out of there. They took the soup away to the back and I could see the waiter and manager discussing the situation. We waited about 5 minutes and all employees were nowhere to be found. We never had the opportunity to have a conversation of any kind with a team member or more importantly the kitchen manager/ GM. It was so sad and truly disappointing on both ends since this was some of the best food we’ve ever had! Everything was so delicious and fresh until the roach popped its little head out of my soup. The couple next to us that had been seated about 10 minutes before this and had just ordered took notice of the incident and walked out before we did. I excused myself to the restroom to throw up after waiting for management to come to our table. My boyfriend waited about a minute after that, but when nobody approached him, he came to check on me. We looked around for a team member downstairs to try and ask who we should talk to, but when nobody was to be found we walked out. My boyfriend felt bad not paying since his food was good and nothing was wrong with his entree, but the obvious lack of empathy and care for food safety and quality made him a little more comfortable with his decision to walk out. He even said he would give it another shot after all of this in maybe as little as a year. But the lack of management or even a team member being present when all this happened has solidified my decision to give up on this...

We lived in Alameda for many years and have always liked Quinn's a lot because of its good food & atmosphere & it's on the water. We moved 30 years ago but come to Alameda several times a year so often eat at Quinn’s. I’m editing my review of Quinn’s from 6 years ago because of our sad experience here last night.

The food quality and service has slipped.

A weirdness I first noticed is that no one sat downstairs in their main dining room while we were there last night - a Friday night at 6-7pm when most restaurants are busy.

We first asked to sit downstairs & were allowed to, but when I asked to move to a table closer to the water with best view of the water, the waiter said we needed to sit at the table closer to him so he could wait on us. So we thought we’d not inconvenience him by being the only people sitting downstairs & go upstairs where everyone else was.

Upstairs it was really noisy - so noisy at the table we sat at, we couldn’t carry out a conversation over dinner.

I noticed no one was sitting outside on the deck. The waiter didn’t offer us deck seating, although maybe it was allowed and I didn’t ask.

For dinner, I ordered one of the specials listed on the board downstairs - an open face crab sandwich. Another weirdness is the specials weren’t written anywhere upstairs (that I could see) nor did the waitress mention they had specials when she came to take our order. But she ordered it for me when I remembered it from reading it downstairs.

The crab sandwich wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t good either. The crab looked & tasted like it came out of a can or maybe it has been frozen before and flaked into tiny pieces & mixed into a dip.

It came with fries but they were not particulars warm or freshly cooked. They tasted old/dried out, like they’d been fried quite a while before & kept under a warmer.

My husband ordered the big bowl of clam chowder & he liked it.

When we were leaving & walking down the fairly narrow stairs, waiters were carrying big trays with 3-4 plates of food on them up the stairs. I felt badly for the waiters, and sad that apparently Quinn’s doesn’t get enough business at 6-7pm on a Friday night to staff their downstairs & upstairs.

I am not complaining about the servers. They were friendly and polite to us and were doing the best they could.

Anyway it was a sad experience as we have always loved Quinns. But I doubt we’ll come back to Quinn’s. We have several other favorite restaurants with a water view and we’ll go to...

Quinn's Lighthouse initially looked very nice and inviting, at least my first thought when I first came here. This was my second visit to give it another shot. Here it is:

The host was polite and was prompt on getting my date and I a table on a Friday night (same as the first time), most likely because this place wasn't packed. From there, everything began to decline.

When a server comes to your table and does not introduce him, or herself, then has a body language of not being interested or tired of their job, that's a first red flag. Second red flag is the size of the menu. This tells me they have a lot of inventory but place was not busy enough (at least the two times that I've been here). Which makes sense as to why my rack of lamb and chicken piccata were horrible.

Rack of lamb (medium rare) came out to be dry, well done, and bland and the cherry sauce was drenched to compensate for it. Bone was very brittle and burnt which was very telling. Vegetables were obviously packaged and frozen like they ordered from Safeway. Very watery and noticeable if you have been to better locations. Same goes for the chicken piccata. Meat was fine but had chewy bits of tiny shrimp poured all over to make it look worth more than what it is.

For their dinner menu to be pricey, I'd expect excellent quality. You can find something equally the same at Mel's Diner. Don't understand why this place has a lot of good reviews, maybe they had a better chef in the past who knew what he/she was doing. I don't know. However, I support local restaurants in Oakland, and bay area as a whole, but this place ain't it. I gave 2 stars because at least the host was welcoming and did his job as he understood first impressions are everything. But, he knew everything else was out of...