The Boathouse at Short Pump Town Center — Restaurant in Short Pump

I'd heard so much about how great this place was, and finally had a chance to find out for myself. I went with a party of 9 at 4:30pm. The restaurant was not real busy so we assumed it would move pretty quickly. That wasn't the case though. Our server was such a super nice guy, but he seemed overwhelmed at getting things done. It may not have been his fault. Not sure, but he was doing his best and we appreciated it because he was apologetic and clearly gave his best effort. The food.. we had several appetizers.. kamikaze sushi, calamari, crab & artichoke dip. I don't do sushi but the rest of the table enjoyed it. I think my favorite appetizer was the crab and artichoke dip. It had a bread to dip into it and it was seasoned and really tasty. My entree was crab stuffed shrimp. This came with 3 jumbo shrimp, crab stuffed on top, sauteed spinach and mashed potatoes. The shrimp was really good, I loved it mixed with the crab, but that spinach was blechhhk.. had too much garlic & onion taste. There's not much you can do to ruin potatoes so they were good by themselves. I also tried a ceasar salad but it had a strong overpowering onion taste that ruined it for me. I barely tasted the ceasar at all. This hurt my heart cause it looked better than it tasted and I really wanted it. For dessert, I ordered a black forest chocolate cheesecake to go. Last but not least.. my drink was a sea breeze.. this came in a tall carafe and was strong.. but sweet and good.. it had alot of alcohol in it.. in fact the server shared that theres a 2 drink minimum on them.. guess that's just how potent they are! I wouldnt even try to drink 2! Overall, this was not bad.. just a few bumps .. I would try it again to give it a second chance because so many people have spoken so highly of the one located in Rocketts Landing.

4//11/22 2nd visit, and it was my birthday ! We had a reservation, and we're seated right away on time. The server was awesome. He was perfectly attentive and friendly. We loved the digital ordering on the app. It was cool cause you order live each course to decide when you want the next course or drinks. Very, very convenient. I love this. This was my first time using this app. My food was salmon & mushrooms on Risotto and his was shrimp and fries. Both were delicious. Dessert was a warm apple pie cobbler w/icecream & banana foster - both were delicious. My only complaint was my food came out first, and his didn't come for 30 min after!!! I was upset cause it's my birthday and we wanted to eat TOGETHER. They did offer to comp his meal and my dessert, and we appreciated that since it was the kitchens fault. Regardless of that, the food and service were great so we will definitely...

A prime spot with a good amount of atmosphere. A little lacking in terms of quality seating at this pricepoint. Experience is much different as well. $375 for 6 drinks, 4 apps, 4 entrees and 1 dessert. Pricey.

TLDR: If you want to pay $70 per on avg, feel the person on the other side of the booth move every time, fumble through weird app controlled ordering, and get mediocre food, this is the place. The vegetarian mushroom ricotta enchiladas (or similar) was actually REALLY good. That and the cut clear ice, were the only highlights.

Food: They undercooked the $50 steak which hurts. The rock fish was.... really weird. It was paired with a garlic, olive, caper and roasted tomato mix. The smell was really pungent and the flavors didn't really do much to compliment each other. I would not recommend. My wife happened to get possibly the best meal they offer. These fantastic enchiladas (they may be named differently) with mushrooms and ricotta cheese. After one bite I was super jelly.

Appetizers: The hush puppies were actually interesting and relatively enjoyable. The spiced butter is what made it really. Oysters, calamari, and shrimp are all OK but sub par at this price point.

Drinks: Really good here. I'll gladly stop in for a drink again. The citrus Whiskey cocktail was so nice. They also cut large cubes here which gives you a nice clear block of ice.

Dessert: Apple cobbler was good. It's hard to mess up warm apples, a sugar cookie and ice cream. My wife thoroughly enjoyed it.

Staff: OK. Ours was very sincere and tried to help us with the app ordering process. I felt bad for her honestly. The support staff helped but frequently forgot things.

Atmosphere: Oof... just bad. Looks wise, it's OK. We were Sat at a booth. I could feel every leg shake and movement od the person behind me. Very Dennys feel. The ordering process involves using an app, individually, to total all your food and bills. It's not the experience you expect at the cost. Yes, I want to order whenever at the game bar, not here where there's a wait staff. Not a fun experience at all. If they could go to a hybrid approach that would be better.

Pass on this place unless it's for happy hour. There's quite a few other places...

This place was good. Love this new location. Been going to The Boathouse for a few years now, I’ve always gone to the Sunday Park location so I was excited to dine at the Short Pump location. Great atmosphere and the food was amazing! We started off with a dozen and a half oysters accompanied with really good Moscow mules, and vodka oyster shooters. Very nice way to start the evening. Our main course was just as good as the starters. The service was not bad, all the ordering is done with a QR code menu now which is different for me. Once you are seated you scan the code put in your name and then browse the menu and you add what you want to your cart and click order and that’s it. If you want anything else you just go back to your phone and add more to your tables cart and click order. You pretty much do everything your self. All our sever did was say hello, give us water and that was it didn’t see him much after. The QR code thing is cool, I like this idea however for my parents who are not tech savvy it would have been difficult for them to order if it was just them dining. Also due to this type of service we feel like our server wasn’t really around much. Since all ordering and stuff is all done by you on your phone. We didn’t even need to see our server to pay the bill it’s all done on your phone. Not much personal face to face human interaction with your server. Also Gratuity is also added to each table and no tipping is needed. Again cool idea for the servers to make money however again we feel that due to this “guaranteed” gratuity we feel like our server was not as attentive to our table and our needs, and was MIA a lot. I feel like when the servers have to actually work for the tips they are more in tune with the table and the guests needs, because the good service they provide depends on how well the dining experience we have is, and the tip. Our sever not once cleared our table and it was the hostess that did that. So other than that, everything’s else was good. Would most definitely come back here just hope the next time we do that our server shows a little more effort and is...