Mayflower Seafood Restaurant Smithfield — Restaurant in Smithfield

When you pull up to a seafood restaurant in North Carolina on a Sunday night at 6:45pm you expect a full parking lot. That used to be normal at Mayflower. You expected a wait for a table. That is no longer the case.

You are greeted when you walk through the door and then you hear, "hey, it's your turn to seat". The waitress was wearing far too much perfume and did not bother to bring out any hush puppies while we waited for our food. The food came out quickly which was a plus. My son got the Captain Smith's Platter which consists of fried flounder, shrimp, oysters, scallops and devilled crab with fries. I got the fried choice of three with shrimp, scallops, oysters and fried okra. The okra was overcooked to the point that some of it flew out from under my fork. There was one whole oyster and four small pieces of oyster There were four "scallops" all perfectly uniform in size and shape and probably over a pond of popcorn shrimp. The food was not terrible. There were three hush puppies on the bottom of my plate and they kindly provided us with whipped 44% vegetable oil change that did not taste anything like butter. My 13 yr old, of course, was very happy with all his food because there was A LOT of it. He ran out of drink for a while and I ended up having to go behind the waitress station to get my own take out container.

The bus boy walked around with earbuds in the whole time and there were three employees sitting in the front seemingly doing nothing. The hostess took her break with either friends or family but continued to get up to seat the few people who came in while we were there.

The one "adult" working seemed sullen and angry and with the crew of children she was stuck with, I cannot blame her.

I...

Went tonight (Sunday) for dinner around 5pm. It was not busy. The atmosphere was nice, like a slightly upscale fast food place, and the restaurant seemed very clean. Had the broiled seafood special and husband had steak. Server was pleasant, but not attentive enough to see when drinks needed to be refilled. Either the server or the kitchen messed up the appetizer of mozzarella sticks as it came out after entrees were served. (The manager offered to take it off our bill.)

Steak was not seasoned and very tough. But at least the temperature was spot on. Hubby tends to be picky about his steak being medium rare, so getting this right is impressive to us.

Broiled seafood included deviled crab (tasty), scallops (a little overcooked, over-seasoned w/ Old Bay), shrimp (a little overcooked, but otherwise OK), and two kinds of broiled fish that were so overcooked that they were inedible. What should have been light and flaky fish with delicate seasoning was hard and dry. I've had frozen fish sticks that tasted more like fresh fish.

On a positive note, the hush puppies were tasty. And the spaghetti sauce served with the mozzarella sticks was good too.

Overall, price was comparable to Red Lobster. Next time I want seafood, I'll deal with the long drive to Raleigh and the long wait for a table and skip...

Was seated old gentleman was seated after me and my party of three he the older gentleman received his beverage before we was even asked what we wanted felt like she was going to wait on us last if she wasn't told to by the manager. It was cold in there colder than normal. Placed our order specifically asked for a order of Fried Okra waitress wrote in on the ticket food finally came out no okra we waited to see if she was going bring it out finally 15 minutes after she comes asking if we had a double side of okra no we didn't we had one order you know that you took the order we asked that it be taken off the ticket to not worry about it the waitress whom claim she was the manager got snappy like I wasn't going to worry about it anyway and slammed the ticket down on the table we asked to speak to the manger why she send somebody who doesn't know whats going on a manager in training whom didnt help the situation at all. The waitress had a very nasty attitude got loud and when I got loud she wanna call the law. I wanted my food at the same time as I ordered it not 30/35 minutes afterwards. I will not be returning until the get someone that treats all...