Bay Harbor — Restaurant in Sandusky

Don’t go here. We had my friend’s bachelorette party at Cedar Pointe for the weekend, and this seemed to be the only decent restaurant option for a “dressed up” night. However, it was extremely disappointing.

The host stand didn’t tell us that the outdoor seating options didn’t seat more than 5 seats to a table. Where we sat near the bar inside was awkwardly quiet with no music playing, so we heard every slightly awkward service industry behind-the-scenes conversation at the bar and server station.

Our drinks took over an hour and 15 minutes. Our meals dropped at the table nearly 2 hours after sitting down. The whole night was filled with nervousness, excuses, lack of urgency, and awkward glances, like they were too intimidated by a party of 9 to provide service or have a normal human interaction. The server asked what type of alcohol someone wanted in their margarita, and then asked the bartender if they knew how to make a margarita.

I asked the server to handle logistic questions through me (MOH) so the bride didn’t have to handle logistics, but logistics and timing questions were directed at the entire table the whole night, including describing mess ups, not only halting conversation but preventing me from fixing issues as they came quietly.

The calamari included over 50% fried banana pepper rings for $18 a plate, the steaks were all poor quality and cooked wrong, the burger meat looked questionable, the bride’s risotto wasn’t cooked all the way, the wine selection was bottom shelf, and the butter was hard. Even if that were all the case, we would have excused it had the service not been so terrible.

We had fast passes to use at the park that evening, which closed at 11pm. Our dinner reservation was at 7:30pm. We expected to be out of there at 9/9:30 at the latest, but our drinks arrived at 9. The food arrived when we needed to leave, and was bad. Around 9 we requested the check so we could be ready to leave asap and possibly take food to go. It took 30 mins to get the check, and I had to seek it out—

I sought a manager and explicitly asked that everything to finish the check and discount etc be handled directly and only through me so that the bride not be involved. Communication was clearly off, because one manager was with our server working on discounts in the back while another tried to do it using the computer in our room, and then talked to the whole table to provide multiple excuses such as being “short staffed”. (However, there were only a handful of other tables and more servers/hosts than tables were visible on the floor.)

The manager in the back tried to discount the food 10% as a solution… but no one even had time to eat the food because they had to leave. Ultimately, I was only able to get them to comp the calamari and prime rib— (because the other manager showed up at the computer and confirmed that she “saw the prime rib as it was going out and it did look terrible”)— (which…. Why did you let it go out?)— and give 10% off the rest of the food. For 9 people who only had time to eat a few bites of bad food and couldn’t even finish their drinks and who waited 1.5-2hours for everything, we paid $366 before tip.

I It was so comically bad that it felt like a...

I was tempted to leave a four star review but changed my mind because of the delicious food and most of all Lori for her superb service and her fantastic attitude and sweet personality. My husband and I arrived at Cedar Point at 7:30 on a Thursday night, because we had a trip planned with our friends to spend the weekend here camping with our RV. We quickly set the camper up and headed to eat (we were starving at this point!) at The Bay Harbor. We walked in and we were “greeted” by a young girl who never said hi or even looked at us, then a grumpy older lady walked out from the bar area with a look of disdain and said in a annoyed tone that they closed at 9 (it was 8:30). We then were greeted at the dining room door by Lori (our waitress) who ushered us in and she just so happened to be a pure joy to behold, she was kind, didn’t care that we were there late and never once rushed us. She gave great suggestions, gave us just the right amount of attention and she truly made us feel welcome. We ended up eating quickly so that they could close up and we were only there until a little after 9. On the way out I noticed that two of the tables hadn’t been bussed and that the grumpy older lady and two other girls (one being the annoyed teen at the host station) were in the office talking, maybe bussing tables isn’t their job but if they were in such a hurry to get out of there that they felt the need to make us feel like we weren’t welcome, maybe they could have offered to help Lori (who had two other tables she was serving during our dinner). I’ve been in the service business since I was a teenager and our first encounter at The Bay Harbor almost made me want to turn on my heels and never step foot in that place again but thanks to Lori and the cooks delicious food, we will return on our next trip. You never let a client/diner feel as though they aren’t welcome, it’s the last thing you want to do. Hate to call out people’s bad behavior but I’m guessing we weren’t the first people to experience it.

Thanks again to Lori...

I noticed the restaurant whilst on the shuttle from the park to our hotel. Our shuttle driver said that he recommended it and gave me the rundown on the way to Breakers Hotel. Looked it up in the hotel's book in the room.

Our party of 13 included seniors, adults, children & a three year old. We were seated in the lounge as we did not even think to make a reservation in advance. I called a few hours before to see what our chances were with such a large party. They accommodated us and we were seated. In a perfect world, I would have made reservations a few day's before so we had a view of the harbor & marina. However, the lounge was great too. We had two servers, plenty of options, fantastic drinks, wine and beers. The three youngest kids lost their minds when the mention of PBJ's & Goldfish on the menu. 3 dinners decided and consumed with all the joy in the world!! The adults on the other hand had fantastic appetizers, salads & entrees, desserts & coffees. Irish & regular. Our dinners ranged from the Seafood Risottos, Prime Rib & local lake Perch and just about everything in between. All 13 of us were very happy.

My ONLY issue is that a light bulb was burned out over one end of the table and when I mentioned it, the reply was "yes, we are aware of that" That end of the table was very dark. In my opinion, if it was a known issue, it should have been fixed prior to opening for dinner seating. It wasn't worth marking them down a whole star for that but had the option been available, I would have.

I highly recommend Bay Harbor if you want real food whilst at Cedar Point for a day or...