Surf's Up Restaurant — Restaurant in Poquoson

I’m so disappointed in what the new owner did to this restaurant. My Dad and I had frequented Surfs Up for many years. It was great seafood for a reasonable price. Unfortunately, as so often happens, the owner had to sell and the new owner, in less than a year, made some bad decisions, in my opinion, in terms of what you get for the price. I realize prices need to be adjusted with time, but this seems excessive. At first the changes were minimal. But in less than a year she increased the prices close to %40. At least for what I had always ordered. Had been getting the “pick any three” for a long time. The new owner did away with that. You now buy a single platter and add items on. I had been getting the shrimp, tuna and crab cake for about $27.00. In less than a year, this same platter comes up to about $37.00. The shrimp by itself is about $18.00 and you get 8. Really? I used to get the flounder on occasion as well. I ordered it one time after she first took over and it was pretty bad. Full of bones and tasted bad. Not sure it was even flounder. She did give me something else but it was disappointing to see that happen. They still offer the “all you can eat”flounder but I didn’t even want to try it. I’ve seen similar things happen to several other restaurants in the past. Saw it with Hermans Harbour House years ago.He made big changes almost instantly and would lie about the reasoning when you approached him about it. I saw it with Madison’s a while back. Same thing. Saw it with the Poquoson diner. I understand the owners daughter has taken over the diner and that it has improved but I haven’t been there since that occurred. They usually take on a turn key restaurant that requires the new owner to just walk in and carry on business as usual but they just often times don’t see it that way.The new Surfs Up owner had been in the Bar-b- que business prior to stepping in to this restaurant. In addition to the large price hike, she has increased a focus on items more commonly associated with that type of restaurant. In my opinion that was not needed. You need to take into account what made it work for years and years. Sorry but I don’t believe a %40 increase, at least on some things, was necessary to stay afloat. I can buy a pound of large shrimp at Kroger for about $8.00, or even less on sale. I realize a restaurant is going to cost more but $18.00 for 8 shrimp is ridiculous. I personally won’t be going back unless she drops her prices but I don’t imagine that will happen. My Dad passed away last April. He had told me he thought the new owner would probably change it. We had seen it happen so many times. It’s unfortunate. What normally happens is it will move along for a while and then go out of business. I hope that doesn’t happen and since it’s in a small community maybe it wont. But I will no longer come to a place that seems to be controlled by a owner that seems to care more about presentation and profit than good food and good value. I hate to sound so negative and she seems nice. I’m just so disappointed and honestly pretty angry because this was a favorite of ours...

I give this restaurant threstaurant 3 stars for the fact that "The Surfs up" shrimp was most excellent. But only for that alone.

However the hush puppies were still raw on the inside so they were very creamy and cakey. And the French fries were hard and overcooked kinda burnt. We also asked for light salad dressing or on the side but the salad was smothered and dressing.

The person that took our order took a very long time to pay attention to us even when we came back in at the designated time we were told. Almost like she was annoyed.

She never smiled at us not one time. not from the beginning or at the end. She didn't even tell us thank you for coming, here's your order order or anything nice at all or even have a good day. Nothing....

They even took 3 parties that arrived long after we were still sitting and waiting to and waiting to place it to go order. Those 3 parties even got to order at be served something before they would even take art order.

We just sat at the table by the desk and look stupid but continued smiling. Both the waitresses called from across the room Would you like a table and we said no thank you we would like to place an order to go! Which in turn we were left sitting there Without placing an order and watching other people be served.

Even though their shrimp was excellent it was actually a pretty depressing visit at this place. The food was unacceptable and we were made to feel out of place and quite frankly an inconvenience.

Spending $50 on this type of experience is not something that we will...

It had been a while since I had been here and I’m not sure what has happened since my last visit but to say I was disappointed in my experience would be putting it mildly. We went on a Wednesday which was advertised as their wings day. We were seated pretty quickly but that is where the positive things I can say about this experience ends. We waited over 10 minutes for our drinks. Once they arrived it was another 25 minutes before our server came to take our order. We ordered wings and were told they were running low (we arrived at 6:15pm) but she would put our order in. After about 15 minutes the server came out to let us know they were out of wings. Although we were disappointed as the wing special was the main reason we had chosen this restaurant we ordered different items from the menu. Now comes the part that really made me furious. There was a large party sitting near us. They ordered more than 30 minutes after we did and multiple people ordered wings. I was somewhat confused as we were told they were out When I questioned our server, she shrugged and said she didn’t know. The final blow was when we were told that a side dish my son ordered wasn’t available. It probably would have been an option for the table next to us that were able to order wings who very obviously knew the owner who was sitting at a table next to them. So my advice is if you are in with the owner, you can probably get what you order. If they don’t know who you are may the odds be ever in your favor. Will never...