Coveside Restaurant & Marina — Restaurant in South Bristol

We went to Coveside on the recommendation of the owner of a local ice cream shop. Outdoor seating, live music, good food...sounded like a nice place for a meal for our group. We called and made reservations for 5pm. We arrive few minutes early and are promptly seated outside where our table already has cups of water waiting. We are informed by the hostess that the kitchen doesn't open til 5, which we already knew. Other parties get seated around us and their waiters/waitresses promptly get their drink order. We wait for almost 20 minutes without a single person even making eye contact with us, let alone taking our order. We flag someone down and they get a waitress over to us. Who doesn't apologize for the wait, but does take care of our drink order and food order. 1 member of our party doesn't care for her meal, so we ask for a quesadilla which comes out promptly, only problem is there was a long black hair in it. We discretely tell the waitress and her response was simply "Oh". Didn't offer to comp it or replace it, or even apologize for it. Just basically blows it off and walks away. At sometime around 6:20 she comes back and proceeds to tell us "The hostess wanted you to know that there is another party coming in at 6:30 for this table".

In summary the food was just ok, the overall experience was the worst that I have ever had in Maine. We will never go back to this place and would never recommend it either. 0...

There is no possible way that our dinner at the Coveside could have been improved. A fog had slowly settled onto Christmas Cove as we arrived. Beautiful. We had an inside table overlooking the harbor. The wait staff were warm, friendly, efficient and attentive. We started with a dozen Pemiquid Oysters on the half-shell. There is no way they could have been fresher and more succulent. We shared a bowl of Haddock Chowder. Sublime. The fish tender and not overcooked, the potatoes in that perfect spot between firm and soft, the chowder based with strong hints of butter and sherry. We split two orders of the Lobster Roll and the Lobster BLT. The lobster was tender and flavorful, and cooked to perfection. And WHOEVER came up with the idea of a Lobster BLT should be sainted! I mean...lobster, smoked bacon, lettuce and tomato with a light dressing of mayonaise on a perfectly grilled and butter sourdough???? YUM... And to round out a perfect meal; a chocolate torte that was rich and moist and CHOCOLATE. Not excessively sweet, and just right. This place was seafood heaven on earth. Totally worth...

We had a reservation for 5 at 8pm - we did arrive a little early but we were sat almost right away as there were plenty of open tables. The service did not reflect this, however, and we waited almost an hour for our food - none of us ordered anything very complicated, and the place didn’t seem to be busy enough to justify the time it took. Our server didn’t even come to check on us or refill our drinks at all during this waiting period, nor did we receive an apology for the wait. We watched two tables be sat, served, and leave before we even received our food. This was a Wednesday night; I can’t imagine what it must be like on a weekend. I’d save yourself the trip if you care about service at all, the place seems to be poorly managed and...