King Street Oyster Bar — Restaurant in Rockville

07/09/21 Update- The owner of the restaurant group did reach out to me personally and apologize. While I am grateful for said, I do hope that he makes the steps necessary toward improving upon the condition at this location.

So, what can I say about this place...My fiancé and I were pretty excited to try it, so when he surprised me with it I was super happy. When we got there we were told by a very nice and very overwhelmed hostess that it would be a 20 minute wait. We waited for about 15 minutes, and I observed her make sure that we were seated. Shout out to the nicest/most competent person in this place. So annoyed that I didn't get her name, but she was short and had cute nails.

Once seated, we were promptly ignored for the next 25 minutes. No water, silverware or even a glance from a server. They were very busy, and all of the servers were running around very apparently overwhelmed like chickens with their heads cut off. We decided to give them a pass because between inside seating and outside seating there were not enough servers to go around. We have always been fair, but things just kept getting worse.

The hostess had to take our drink orders, and once we finally got a server, he was nice but not quite what we needed. He retook my drink order (as I never received my drink), then disappeared. I was brought my drink by a different server with no straw and had to grab another server after 10 minutes just to get said straw. I took one swig of what I thought was sprite and much to my displeasure I got a mouthful of seltzer. My fiancé then flagged down the waiter to let him know, and he, John, told us to our faces that he was aware that the sprite tap had been acting up, but he just wanted to "see what would happen." Sir what?

We sat for what felt like an eternity more before we got our food that was brought out by a totally different server than the first two, but I hadn't received my replacement drink and we were still waiting for silverware, and our appetizer. We asked him for all three, and while he remembered my drink, he struggled with the appetizer and silverware. We ordered hush puppies that we really wanted to try, but they seemed hell bent on not giving them to us. The same kid who brought our food and my drink ignored us and we had to again flag down John who had originally taken our order. He eventually brought them out and profusely apologized but continued to forget requests and seemingly disappear.

To add insult to injury we received apologies from the waiter, the hostess, and even got to speak to the chef, but it seemed as though the manager only had interest in speaking to women who he found attractive and constantly flirted with. He visited and assisted the same table of ladies at least 5 times. Didn't help the wait staff, didn't check in on those upset with the disparities in service, and didn't seem to care about anything but furthering his dating life.

He was well aware that we were having a rough time and he said nothing. Training and a true management change is needed in that place. The service staff is stressed and over worked. Management does not care. Food was ok but would've been better if not rushed. Shout out to John and that hostess for trying. I will be reaching out to corporate as I've noticed that the business manager only responds to...

My family of five and a buddy of mine family (total party of 10) reserved a table at 4:30 PM on Friday night to grab an early dinner before the main weekend rush. To get the reservation, I was unable to use the online feature and instead I had to call the restaurant which took around 30 minutes to finally get a hold of someone to take the reservation. I explained that I would have younger kids and that we needed a table to the far outside of the patio area and was assured that this would be the case.

We arrived at 4:30PM and we’re seated only to find the table that we were given was in the “middle” of the patio area and not under the covered tent but rather under an umbrella that had recently been placed there a few weeks prior. I was less concerned about not being under the covered roof of the outdoor area, but more about being seated amongst all the patrons with my young family as they get very busy at that restaurant after 5 PM.

Sure enough, within 15 minutes of our time their place began to get crowded and servers were struggling to get behind my children’s chairs and the tables next to them, frustrating the servers and everyone involved. If this has been the worst of it the night could’ve still easily been a success.

Our server, a young man who appeared to be overwhelmed even at 4:30PM, took our orders but over the course of the next 2 1/2 to 3 hours came into view once every 30 to 40 minutes, and only verbally checked on us twice! This meal should take a no more than two hours to complete and the table turned. However his absence throughout the evening, coupled with his poor attitude and lack of awareness caused a lot of frustration for myself, my family, and friends. We weren’t the only ones, as we noticed pretty much every other table looked frustrated between the hours of 430 and 6:30 PM.

I went inside twice to look for him to no avail. The food did come out and was relatively decent, so at least that deserves a mention and I thanks to the kitchen staff for doing their job. The bartenders made decent drinks, but the service from the waiter and the lack of attentiveness left at least 3 to 4 people at the table without a drink for upwards of 45 minutes to an hour.

I called the next day to speak with a manager and was told he and other staff were in a meeting before lunchtime and that I should call back in an hour. I told the hostess to take my number and name and ask the manager to call me back. I didn’t hear anything back from the manager that morning or early afternoon so I begin to call and try to get through to anyone for over another 30 to 40 minutes to no avail.

I hope I get a call back from someone because at the end of the day a table of 10 means the restaurant received full payment for the food and beverages coupled with tax and 18+ percent gratuity fee as a standard for large parties. Needless to say, my money could easily be spent elsewhere.

I really feel this restauran has a lot of potential, but I’m just not sure what’s going on in term of training, staffing, and management. My previous trip to the restaurant included a large party of 25 and even with that larger group I have to say the service was better. Hoping somebody reaches out to me...

I have been wanting to try this place for a while, but unfortunately my experience there was truly disappointing. Let me also preface by mentioning that any time I leave a negative review, I make sure to sleep on it and see if I am still equally frustrated in the morning. My wife and I had some food, a couple drinks, and were out with a friend for their birthday last night, the service was slow but acceptable (Mother's Day rush), the bar staff was quite friendly. The food was not terrible but not great, for example my calamari was soggy, and way too salty, but the bruschetta was just fine, and I imagine most items on the menu are going to be decent. The food is not the reason for my review.

About an hour or so into the meal my wife stepped away to use the restroom, and did not come back for about 10 minutes or so, she called me from the bathroom to inform me that she had become locked in the bathroom due to a malfunctioning door lock. I left my seat and went to go check on the situation, she was in fact locked in the bathroom, and through talking with her it was clear that the interior portion of the locking mechanism was set to open, while the outside was set to locked (occupied). I went to inform the bar staff who within 4 minutes or so came with a tool and immediately bypassed the malfunctioning lock. We went back to our seats, and I asked the bartender if this happens a lot and that he looked like he had done that before. He shrugged and replied, "yes and no." My wife and I were quite frustrated at this point, as not only was she locked in a bathroom for 10-15 minutes, but the bathrooms cleanliness was certainly questionable, and clearly this had happened to other patrons. I asked to speak to a manager and raise my concerns.

The manager came by in about 10 minutes, and without speaking a word to her she began telling us this story of how a deaf man who was "way too drunk" "locked himself in the bathroom and damaged the lock several nights ago", and that "he didn't know how to knock because he was deaf", after this bizarre story, which was offensive on several levels, I informed her that in that case, its incredibly negligent that they would knowingly continue to operate a restroom with a damaged lock. Immediately she changed the story and said "oh no that actually happened in another bathroom here", I then mentioned that the bartender had mentioned this was not the first time, and that either the bartender was lying in that case or she was, I am nearly positive the manager was lying, I am also nearly positive from her account that some poor deaf man was trapped in the same bathroom several nights previously, and they wrote it off on him being deaf. She asked me what she could do for us, and asked what we had. At this point I was so upset I couldn't think, so I told her to just figure it out, and that I would let her use her best judgement. She comped 20 dollars worth of drinks on our bill, which is whatever, I paid the tab for the three of us, left a generous tip for our nice bartenders, and left.

would not recommend, based on my unfortunate...