Bayside Pavilion — Restaurant in Saint Albans Town

This restaurant was recommended to us from a friend. We had high expectations. We ordered a broiled seafood combo w/ baked potato to split between my wife & friend, I ordered the special prime bacon wrapped filet w/ baked potato. We ordered 8 shrimp for our shrimp cocktail (they are sold per shrimp). The girls ordered the summer sangria, which tasted more like club soda. Our salads were served before our appetizer, which they only served 4, the waiter stated that they have sold a bunch of shrimp cocktails. Our entrees we're served about 5 mins after our 4 shrimp appetizer was served. "They" served the remaining shrimp cocktail AFTER our entrees arrived. Now, back to our entrees. The broiled seafood combo was over cooked, the baked potato was at least a day old & luke warm at best. The ladies were not happy. My filet was ordered MR, it was served med-med well, my baked potato was hard, dry & luke warm at best as well. We discussed our displeasure with our waitress (who was excellent, Emily I think was her name) who removed our plates. A "waiter" arrived back at our table with my plate/steak, he said he we remove the seafood combo from our bill, (which he didn't, had to remind him) then proceeded to me/us that my filet was cooked accordingly. Well it went further down hill from there. My wife was refusing to pay for the overcooked filet. There were words exchange inside the not busy restaurant (thank goodness) but, the "waiter"/manager/owners son (found out afterwards) asked a guest sitting at the bar to video tap the conversation between my wife & said manager. Total unprofessional. The video taping guy started talking/questioning my wife. Finally I had enough, I tipped our waitress & paid the bill. Great location for sunsets, however to say the food and customer service is sub-standard would be an...

Negative experience thanks to the lack of professionalism by the manager/owner. Will never go back, and do not recommend this overpriced restaurant to others.

We ordered 3 steaks medium rare and all were cooked medium to medium well. Waitress asked us how it was and we were polite but honest. We said we didn't want to return/redo them, as we were hungry and didn't want to make a fuss.

Later the manager came over and asked us how the food was. We said it was OK but to be honest all the steaks were overcooked. She said all 3? And we said yes. Then she got angry and said you only complained about 1 steak to the waitress. We said we didn't want to make a bigger issue out of it by complaining about all 3 steaks, but since you asked us, yes, all 3 were overcooked.

She became increasingly aggressive and accused us of complaining about the service, which we didn't do. In fact we politely said "thank you" every time our waitress came by.

I told the manager the service was fine, we didn't complain about the service. I said it was just the food. I even wrote that on the receipt.

I couldn't believe the way she was treating us as customers. I requested the bill so we could please leave. She insulted me several times during the exchange of the bill, in a manner that was disproportionate to the situation at hand.

Beyond the overpriced food and aggressive manager, the other issue was the atmosphere. There were flies all over the place getting into our food, we had to keep swatting them away. It may have been the result of leaving the restaurant windows open and all the local trucks and farm equipment driving by on that main road, sometimes with foul cargo.

If you want a quality dining experience, you're better off...

We had an amazing experience at Bayside! We come up to this area at least once a year and always stop by Bayside for at least one lunch or dinner. This time we came up with a large group of us, 11 in total. We did not have a reservation and walked in on the early side for dinner. The bartender/host asked us if we had a reservation and when we said no he worked with the waitresses to make sure they could accommodate our large party. We told them we wouldn't mind sitting at separate tables and splitting up, but they insisted they could make it work for us and they were able to move some tables around and get us all seated together. The atmosphere is very cozy and inviting. The waitress, Madison, was great! We ordered shirley temples for the kids in our group and she brought them out and was so kind to the kids asking them about school and even took it upon herself to bring the kids extra cherries when she noticed they had eaten all of theirs. When we told her we were there for fishing, she went out of her way to contact her dad who was also going to be fishing that weekend to ask for some good spots for us to check out. The food came out quickly and everything was correct and cooked to perfection. Every person in our group ordered something different and we were all very happy with the taste and quality of the food. Madison then brought out a small piece of cake for the kids to share at the end of the meal on the house. Overall, this was a wonderful dining experience and exactly what we were...