Redfish — Restaurant in Port Orford

Alright, this review is coming after a few visits. I wanted to like this place. The location is wonderful and the building is well designed. The patio is pleasant, assuming it's not too windy.

My first visit here was simple. I intended to go to the bar, order a beer, and look at the menu. I was met with a line of folks at the front door. Peering inside I noticed there were only 2 of 10 spots occupied at the bar. 25% of the tables were empty. The line felt wrong - for some reason they decided the best way to manage a crowd was leave them standing at the front door instead of seated at the empty tables. Which is dumb.

I was alone and only wanted a beer so I stuck my head in the door and asked if I could occupy one of the many empty bar stools at the bar. The busy and unfriendly woman in charge told me "The line at the door is for people who want to sit at the bar too." So I waited - another 25 minutes - the line in front of me dissipating instead of waiting. Finally, I was told I could sit at the bar. I ordered my beer and since I had waited so darn long, I decided to try an appetizer too - chicken empanadas.

The food was good when it came out. Crispy and hot - tasty. The beer was standard with both items being slightly over-priced. The service was frantic and rushed, and for that, I had compassion. However, I had no compassion for them letting me stand at the front door for 30 minutes with 30 open chairs. I was angry about that.

I went back the next day expecting that perhaps it was all an anomaly. This time I did not have to wait in a line. However, there were a similar number of tables open compared to when I had waited 30 minutes at the front door - the difference this time was an on-point gentleman who seemed to be the shift boss - he saw me seated quickly. This guy in the morning/afternoon vs that grouch sped-up woman in the evening made a big difference.

Service was solid my 2nd time. The food was good but not amazing. I ordered a burger - I elected not to pay the extra few bucks for fries, which may have been a mistake - because I left hungry. In fact, I walked right from Redfish to a little restaurant across the street and ordered a perfect rack of ribs for a bit more than what I paid for the Redfish burger.

Sadly, there's no value to anything I had here. It is above average quality - but quite frankly, the food isn't as good as the less expensive Portside Cafe up the road. I understand the property and location cost a lot of money, and therefore I should expect to pay more, which I did. However, being expected to pay more raises expectations against sub-par and borderline offensive service.

The lady running the evening show that had me stand in line when there were more than half a dozen spots at the bar felt a bit like a control freak - too dominant and bossy. Perhaps the frantic atmosphere amplifies her poor decision making such that she may be more successful on a slower shift. Either way, interacting with her wasn't pleasant and this was particularly noticeable AFTER I was seated... a feigned friendliness was offered up as if it was somehow justifiable compensation for me standing around like an idiot for 30 minutes at the door.

The atmosphere wasn't particularly "comfortable" either. Some of this is due to being understaffed and people buzzing around at high rates of speed... but there's also an air of pretentiousness in the place that could only really be explained by the pricing - a pretentiousness that this place doesn't deserve to carry. The food doesn't deserve it and the service (particularly with regards to the evening boss) doesn't.

TLDR: Be prepared to open your wallet and then be disappointed... then ultimately, justify the experience to yourself by saying "well... at least it was a nice view".

Ill try again in the future. Do not build an artificial line at the door. That was SO lame. A better way to handle that is to seat people at the open tables and moderate their expectations with regards to timely service. Get it together - Will test you all again in the future and...

We stayed in Port Orford a few days, so we had a chance to visit several restaurants. This was by far our favorite. When we first arrived in town, we asked around for restaurant suggestions, and were told that Redfish is the best but also the priciest in town. While that may be true, it definitely wasn’t extreme in cost, especially considering portion size and quality of ingredients and preparation. We had Saturday brunch, and the food and service were excellent. Our table had the Pork Tacos and Steelhead Hash, and both were fantastic. The generous amount of pork in each taco was tender and crispy — cooked just perfect, with cabbage slaw, mango salsa, and avocado on corn tortillas. I could have eaten a big bowl of the slaw by itself, it was that good. The Steelhead Hash was what they also call the Brunch Bowl (I think). It was a bowl with roasted potatoes, smoked steelhead, roasted tomato halves, topped with two eggs and hollandaise sauce, and accompanied by lightly toasted and buttered fresh sourdough bread. It was an absolutely fantastic dish. The view, of course, is amazing, especially on the outside deck. There are a couple of things to consider about the deck. First, it is very windy in Port Orford, and deck dining on a bluff over the ocean, well, it was almost too windy to enjoy a peaceful dining experience, but the view was a reasonable tradeoff for us. Also, because of the wind, there are no shade umbrellas for the tables, so the sun was very bright. Luckily, we had visors and sunglasses. The location, ambiance, and food at Redfish were all top notch, but we also got to experience some rather shocking customer service — shocking in a good way. The wind (did I mention it’s windy on the deck?) blew our credit card off the table, and when it landed on the deck, it slipped right through the cracks and disappeared from sight. Looking over the rail, we determined that the deck was surrounded by a concrete wall, so there was no way to access the space below. We told our server what happened, and although we explained that we had other credit cards and that it would be no problem to call and cancel this one, he told the manager/owner what happened and a few minutes later, I saw her walking through the shrubs to the side of the building where she got down on her hands and knees and crawled about 10 feet into the crawl space to retrieve the credit card. This was truly not necessary, but is indicative of a restaurant owner determined to ensure her guests only have a positive experience. We loved Redfish, and highly recommend it for the food, the ambiance, and the amazing...

I just remembered that I wanted to write a review for this place - but I forgot. But just now I looked through the pictures of a beautiful honeymoon on the oregon coast in September 2015 - and thought. "Wait..." Unfortunately, we made the decision to eat at Redfish (Lonely Planet recommended it). The experience in detail: The team was very nice, the view was spectacular. The terrasse was windy, and they took particular care to give us the best wind-protected spot. So far so good. We ordered clams (i think it was charleston, but do not remember...) for my wife and a soup for starters, "fresh catch" fish for my wife and a chicken for me (i dont like fish, but she does, this was supposed to be a special place/evening for her...). The food took a little long to arrive, and the soup was on the colder side of things. The clams tasted ok, i tried one. The fish was a little dry itself, and was drowned in butter sauce to compensate. Chicken was very good (funny for a seafood place: The bird was better than the fish). Wine selection was very good. Desert: Don't remember, something with chocolate, nothing spectacular... Overall: For the money a solid three out of five. Staff was friendly and fast.

But. BUTT. Three and a half hours after eating there, my wife started throwing up and could not stop to do so for the next four hours. Somewhen around that time the diarrhea started, and continued through the night and the next day. My wife is a doctor for internal medicine, and self-diagnosed for food poisoning. She diagnosed staphylococcus afterwards, which is congruent with the rapid onset of symptoms. As we did not eat anything else in the relevant time period, the only suspect was the dinner food. We went there the next day in the afternoon to talk to them. We just wanted to warn them (other customers?) and give them a heads up, perhaps get a heartfelt sorry or a coffee. We were greeted (by different waitress, team from last evening was not present) with indifference and hostility after stating our suspicion, and complimented out of the door. We thought briefly about asking for the owner, but decided it to be too much of a hassle and to many bad feelings for a honeymoon, and just continued down the wonderful oregon coast. Symptoms were gone the day after, again consistent with diagnosis. So: Beware... they are friendly as long as its about your money, not so much afterwards. The food poisoning might have been bad luck - but the reaction afterwards was...