The Wharf Restaurant and Tavern — Restaurant in San Angelo

This place is kind of a tradition for my girlfriend and I. A few months ago, we decided to try it out, checked online, and it said they were open. We got there and found out they were actually closed because the owners shut down for a week to go on vacation or something. 2 weeks later, we decided to try again. There was a bad storm raging. We got there, and the power was out, so they closed up. A few weeks later, we decided to try a third time. When we walked inside, we were told the sewer was backing up into the kitchen, and they were asking people to leave for sanitary reasons. The tradition is, we go to the Wharf, sit in the parking lot, and decide where we are going to eat dinner. Tonight, we decided to try again and, most likely, sit in the parking lot to decide what we were going to have for dinner. However, we had to break our tradition because they were actually open and serving food!

I have to preface this by saying, prior to living back in Texas again, I spent 14 years living in Las Vegas, Nevada. I am very familiar with high-end dining experiences. I have eaten at so many high-end restaurants in Vegas I can't even name them all. Beyond just that, my wife has a culinary arts degree and prides herself on being a fabulous cook. I know what good food is. I will tell you this: The Wharf is not Gorden Ramsey Steak. In the Paris in Las Vegas. But it IS very good. I had the Steak and Lobster. The steak was a perfect medium rare, and the seasoning was exactly right. It was easily the best steak I have eaten since leaving Las Vegas a year ago that I did not cook myself. Lobster turns rubbery if it's over cooked by even just a few seconds. It is very easy to overcook a lobster tail. The one I ate tonight was perfect. Quite possibly one of the best lobster tails I have ever eaten.

After all the hassle actually getting to eat there, all I can really say is that it was worth the wait. I will definitely be back.

My only complaint is that I was led to believe the Wharf was a seafood restaurant but there were more steaks on the menu than fish. The seafood section of the menu was lobster, crab, oysters, shrimp, a fried calamari appetizer and catfish. The rest of the menu was all steaks and one Hawaiian chicken dish. I would have liked to have seen some other...

I normally don't leave reviews but we were celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary and was a little disappointed 😞. I will try to keep this short. I'm also the type that hates sending food back and will eat just about anything.

-Started off by sending back my Moscow mule. Waaaay too much ginger and I LOVE ginger! -The menu was confusing and there were no prices so we had to keep asking our waitress. When we asked for the fish selections she said them fast and like we were bothering her. We weren't sure on how they could cook any of them so at that point I was kind of frustrated but I worked through it. I ordered blackened fish and rice pilaf. The rice was inedible. All I could taste was green pepper 😬 There was a ton of it. Again I like green pepper but not when that's all I can taste. It was also dry and nothing like a pilaf. -The clam chowder was ok but definitely didn't taste like they make it in house. -$40 for 12 fried oysters. She told us the price before kind of like are you sure you want those 🤦‍♀️ Half got soggy because they threw them all into a basket 🤢 -Our waitress was ok, nothing special. We told her it was our first time there as soon as she took our order. We had to ask for a drink menu. She never looked us in the eye when talking to us so that kind of made us feel like we were just another table and wanted to move on. my husband ordered the lobster and baked potato. He loved it. I think it was around $32 and the lobster was a decent size.

Overall we ended up spending close to $150 and left very disappointed 😔 We don't normally get to go out. I was hoping for a better experience.

*Oh and they don't make reservations on Friday and Saturday so we had to show up as soon as they opened hoping we would get a table. I think for special occasions they should probably make adjustments. Because we weren't sure if we were going to get a table. And we already had a babysitter soooo 🤣

I hope this helps some who chose to read through the...

Loved the atmosphere and the service was great and timely, but food was a real disappointment. Credit is due to the bottlecaps though, as they were really good and I really enjoyed the sauce they were served with. The soup and salad however, really set the tone for the night and given, it's just a Ceasar salad and it's a very simply dish, but I was served essentially wet lettuce with grated parmesan cheese and not nearly as much dressing as it needed. The cream of jalapeno soup was very bland and the only flavor I was getting was "spicy" and definitely not worth $5 for a measly 12oz cup. The coconut shrimp itself was pretty good, it had a lovely warm, sweet flavor, but the mustard marmalade it was served with was overwhelmingly sweet. It totally masks the nice flavor of the shrimp which regrettably was the only redeemable thing I had that night. The most disappointing item on the menu in my opinion was the insultingly bland crawfish etouffee. No garlic, no herbs, no seasonings, no salt, it wasn't even spicy. The texture and flavor were reminiscent of canned beans. Even the rice was bland, how to you make bland rice?? At this point I was really looking forward to dessert which unsurprisingly was another disappointment. I went with the "safe" option of key lime pie which was way too firm and had the texture of pudding with gelatin. The crust was also extremely hard almost as if it was a whole, uncrushed graham cracker. It was more like key lime pudding on a graham cracker dish.

Though I will admit that the prices are okay if you enjoy this food, I think of this place as the idea of someone who wanted to bring "good" seafood to San Angelo and got comfortable accommodating to San Angelo's palate. Terribly bland food that would get sent back anywhere else and etouffee that would send anyone with a mature, well-versed palate into...