Original Oyster House — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

Upon visiting The Original Oyster House in Pittsburgh recently, I found myself disappointed by what should have been a local culinary landmark. While the establishment's historic charm remains intact, the dining experience left much to be desired.

Our server, a seasoned veteran who appeared well-versed in handling tourists, initially seemed standoffish but gradually became more personable once we established rapport. We ordered their supposedly "award-winning" crab cakes and the signature fish sandwich, anticipating a taste of Pittsburgh's seafood tradition.

During our wait, I observed numerous potential customers browse the menu outside, only to move on elsewhere. The demographic was notably mature - as someone in their fifties, I felt like one of the younger patrons among a predominantly septuagenarian crowd.

The food, unfortunately, failed to meet even modest expectations. The crab cakes were disappointingly mushy, clearly made with low-quality canned crab. Accompanying sides included unremarkable frozen fries and dated coleslaw. My companion's fish sandwich suffered from excessive salt and was served on a notably stale bun - seemingly chosen for economy rather than quality.

While this establishment maintains its status as a Pittsburgh institution, it appears to be resting on its historical laurels. Unless there's a significant improvement in food quality and menu offerings, this classic eatery may struggle to remain relevant in today's competitive...

I personally love seafood, so naturally when my fiance and I were looking for a nice place to eat before a show and I found this place I was very excited. I probably should have left as soon as we got in the door. We got there around 6PM, and almost all the tables were full, which was only about 5 4 seat table tops. There was a long bar with open seats but this was about 3 feet away from the tables. There was no sign as to whether we could find a seat or had to wait to be seated. There was 1 waitress for the whole side (we later found out there was another dining room on the other side) I ordered the crab cakes with a side of clam chowder (which was very good clam chowder) and homemade chips (which were also good). The "famous" crab cakes on the other hand were a different story, they were almost all breading, with some not so tasty seasoning, the "crab" in the crab cakes, was fake crab meat. Yes, that's right, the fake crab meat you can get at the store. Needless to say I was definitely NOT impressed. Also, everything was served with plastic of paper, paper plates, plastic silverware, Styrofoam cups. My fiancee had the fish sandwich which was good with the fries, he also got a side of green beans, which were canned green beans (I thought it was the most delicious part of the dinner) My advice, go to anywhere else in...

I was born and raised in the Burgh and have known the Oyster House to be a landmark location downtown for as long as I can remember. I recently visited the Oyster House and literally got treated like I didn't belong there. I really hate to play the race card but there were 3 of us in my party, my wife, her friend & myself. We had just participated in a 1 mile walk/run through town and decided to have an adult beverage at the O.H. we sat outside where there was one other party already seated. after 5 or 6 minutes, I asked the waitress if we could have service. She said "you have to go inside to let your waiter know you are here" I though that was strange but I did. He told me to have a seat outside and he would be right with me. A few more minutes went by and by then three other parties had sat down, all were white folks, (we are African American). I again, very politely, asked the female server who had already been waiting on tables if we could get service. She said "your server will out to help you shortly". Finally after we had been there for 10 minutes he came out and immediately waited on and served the three white parties who had arrived after us and I still had to ask him for service a third time. Finally we had enough of that kind of treatment and left. Because of my experience there that night, I...