The CD Cafe — Restaurant in Solomons

Long review..

Please do not support the money hungry CD Cafe for any dining outings. They fire employees for virtually no good reason, with no warning, just because they want to. Throughout my year and a half working there, I’ve seen 5 servers fired. One of them was for giving up her shifts even though her shifts were covered by another server, one was bc she didn’t know the semifreddos were in the walk in freezer, and the other 3 were just because the kitchen manager did not like them.

The new owner and her boyfriend (kitchen manager) are running that restaurant into the ground, to the point that no employees want to work for them any longer. They drink while they are working and talk to employees like they are stupid and below them. They redid the whole restaurant and menu, completely ruining a Solomon’s Island staple to fit their aesthetic, which in my opinion looks way worse than before.

Every day is some new rule to follow for the servers from the kitchen manager, who is not the front of house manager but acts like it. We could not order anything over $30 and get our 50% employee meal even though we were paying for it. It got to the point we could not even order PASTA, which is why I was fired. Now servers cannot get a discount on any food anymore.

Dishwashers get free meals, I ordered a burger and paid for it 50% off, this specific dishwasher ordered Mediterranean pasta. We switched food, with permission from the front of house manager, and now I am being fired for it.

They were going to wait until I showed up for a very busy concert shift tonight to fire me. Needless to say, I am not showing up for my shift tonight just to turn around and be fired.

Certain servers also start drinking from the beginning to their shift all the way to the end, obviously drunk while working, yet I’m being fired for eating pasta. They have their priorities messed up completely.. They’ve lost and are going to lose their long time servers who once enjoyed to work there.

Ceiling tiles in the bathrooms fall on customers from a leak in the ceiling that they knew about but did not fix, the bathrooms smell like sewage backing up and the owners don’t do a thing. But if someone eats pasta, FIRED with no warning or write up 🤣

Am I writing this post bc I’m mad I’m fired for eating pasta? Maybe. But this post has been a long time coming from any of the servers working there that get unfairly treated by the owner and her boyfriend (who has no ownership of the restaurant at all but acts like he does).

Support CD Cafe or don’t.. I will admit their food is really good (especially the med pasta), but please know who you are supporting and putting money into their pockets to turn around and treat employees like garbage and basically degrade them with words...

I really wish I could give CD Cafe a high review like many of the others here. I really do.

But, I can't. My wife and I had a really poor experience there this evening, just about from top to bottom. Unfortunately, our service was really bad, the food was very forgettable, and just about all of the menu items are overpriced. The burger I ordered was fairly tasteless, and their homemade green goddess sauce that came on it (which I'd read was supposed to be amazing) was slathered on the burger to the point where it was dripping everywhere, and it honestly had no real flavor and just seemed to taste like a watered-down ranch sauce anyway. My wife ordered the duck special, which she thought to be way too salty, with a ratatouille side dish that was also very plain, with not much flavor. This dish was definitely not worth the $23 price.

I also had asked for a dirty martini with gin, which came out tasting like it was about 60 percent sweet vermouth. After a few polite sips and I almost gagged, I politely asked our waitress if the bartender could at least add a little more gin to help even it out. She unapologetically grabbed my drink without even a sincere "sorry," basically took my drink for a walk around the restaurant, and set it back down in front of me tasting exactly the same as before! No apologies. At the end of the meal I had her clear the drink from my check, but again--without even a sorry. This is server/patron 101.

In closing, I'm sure this was not a typical experience for many at CD Cafe, but I needed to let you know--it's definitely possible. And honestly, the food was really nothing to write home about. Diner beware if you're planning on...

Business brings us to the area several times a year, so we have eaten in a number of the local restaurants. Be forewarned, I'am a harsh critic. This is our first time at CD because we believed the menu is rather limited after reviewing it on our previous trips.  It was a late sunday evening and the restaurant choices were approaching zero. So we ended up here, I had the shrimp fettuccine, which I will most likely not order next time, but it actually had real flavor, it was not boring, it was not "spicy", but you knew you were eating a dish that the chef wanted you to enjoy. We all sampled each others dishes and all of them had real flavor.  It is as if the chef actually tasted their dishes and made adjustments to insure their guests really enjoy eating.  Both the service and prices were typical for the area, but the experience of eating was anything but typical. Everytime we are back in the area, I assure you, we will be dinning at CD.  I truly hope our experience this time is their routine, not just a one off that the stars aligned, etc.

May 2024 Returned to area for brief visit and ate again at CD. Relieved to learn that our first visit was not just a fluke. Food again was excellent with a complexely layered flavor. Wait staff informed us that the restaurant has new owners as of a few months ago so both of my visits were with the new proprietors. Menu still is rather limited, but would you rather have a large selection of boring food or a limited selection of...