Pickles Pub — Restaurant in Ocean City

I used to love this place! I knew it as a cool bar with good live music, yummy pickle shots and good food. Unfortunately, this weekend, I had 2 bad experiences :(

The bar is still pretty good. The bartenders seriously carry the entire bar by pushing out drinks fast. But you still can’t deny their overall melancholy and borderline rude demeanor. Sure, I understand being busy, but treating your customers with disrespect or ignoring them is just not acceptable.

Last night, we waited 20 min for a server to even greet us and then it was another 10 min before we even had any drinks on the table. Then, the food was either flavorless or simply inedible. For example, the po-boy was slimy and undercooked, the nachos were all burnt, and the Caesar salad came with iceburg lettuce instead of Romain. So, they ended up giving us 50% off because the experience was so bad.

Tonight, I go back hoping for a better late night experience, and I was excited to find out it was karaoke night! Again though, even the DJ was dismissive and rude from the get go. I found that people were singing 2-3 times before I would get my turn again. Over the course of 3.5 hours, the DJ reluctantly let me sing 3 times. And I know I signed up for a 4th song after someone who sang at 1 am. I asked the DJ if I would get to go soon to which he assured me yes. Come 1:45 am, he turned off all his equipment and blatantly ignored me. I waited around for 1.5 hours excited to sing one more song (yeah, I really love singing) and it was all for nothing. I even confronted him and he just shrugged and walked off. What a sour end to what could have been a nice night in OC. Honestly, I’m really disappointed with this place and I usually don’t complain but I’m pretty upset at this point. As a former server/restaurant industry worker (for ~8 years), I know they...

I wish I could give this place zero stars unfortunately, google is too nice. I went here tonight to check out Pickles after hearing great reviews about the place. My friend had an ID with the expiration misprinted by the Maryland MVA. She provided her valid (unexpired) vertical, as she recently turned 21, but was told that she did not look like the photo that was on her vertical ID that was taken when she was 16 years old. The bouncer proceeded to kick us out and said that she could not have her horizontal ID back unless she called the police. Police were called and verified that her ID was real due to the information on the ID matching but had a misprinted date. They also agreed that she looked like an older version of her 16 year old self. I’m glad that pickles is thorough with their ID verification. But the situation could’ve been handled better and in a more professional manner. The bouncer yelled at us to get outside and told me to stop talking because he “wasn’t talking to me”. Then said “ I can be an asshole if you want me to and keep it”. We were fully cooperating with him and even called the police ourselves. Both bouncers said her IDs did not look like her but I think I trust a uniformed officer to check an ID rather than two bouncers at a bar in the off season. Overall disappointed with the lack of professionalism from the bouncers and even more so that they wasted the time of police. I did not want to call the police when they have better things to be doing but we had to in order to get the ID back. I’m very disappointed that Pickles feels that 911 should be used for this nonsense rather than real emergencies. If you can’t check an ID much less two IDs with identical information then maybe you should reconsider your profession. Thank you Pickles for an...

Visiting from Baltimore for a few days and stopped in on a Monday night a little after 10. I was surprised (in a good way) that there was a decent sized crowd because it’s offseason, but it was karaoke night so I’m assuming most of the crowd were regulars (also a good sign). The vibe was great, the food was really good, and the bartenders were fantastic. I’m a bartender as well and I usually don’t say anything about it when I go out because I’m not trying to get special treatment, but I’ve been in the industry for almost 11 years now so I do know good service when I see/experience it. Mackenzie, Collin, and “Reba” as they called him were all amazing. They moved with speed and efficiency which isn’t always easy in a bar that size, and they also did it while laughing and engaging with customers. I was seriously impressed, I didn’t see anyone waiting long or complaining about anything either. I’m by myself on this trip so I was hoping I would find a cool little spot to hangout at and I found that at Pickles. I would definitely recommend!

As for the food, I got the mozzarella sticks and they were delicious. Was a little disappointed that there were only 3 but they’re a good size so it’s like the equivalent of 6 short ones. I also ordered wings because they were half-priced on Monday and they were really good as well. Perfect size...