Stanwood Grill — Restaurant in Stanwood

The dark haired young woman at the counter was surly and seemed totally put out by having to wait on customers. The store was not particularly busy, but the wait time on our order exceeded 10 minutes. The couple sitting next to us complained that their fries were cold as ice. As was my wife's coffee and the chili on my taco salad. When she returned it for a fresh hot cup, the same counter server seemed put out, again, and snarled "Well, I guess I'll have to make another pot." My wife came back to the table and we began to eat our lunch, expecting a fresh cup of coffee to follow closely behind. We finished our lunch, and not seeing the fresh cup, I went back to the counter to get a refund on the coffee. The same counter server, clearly inconvenienced by the request snarled, "Ok. Wait a minute." And stomped back to the manager's office to arrange it. The manager came out, and graciously told me that she apologized for the coffee and that she would gladly give the refund. I thanked her, and noted that her employee seemed put out by the whole thing and that she had been surly about the whole matter. The employee, hearing this (she was standing right there) put her hands on her hips and snarled her lips at me. Laughing, I observed that she was still being surly and asked the manager to look at her. The manager did, and she must have seen the server's look and posture, which remained unchanged. The manager again apologized, still very graciously. I thanked her and we left, vowing to never return to that Wendy's franchise again. Our visit was to the Wendy's next to Lowe's in Smokey Point, WA and was at about...

Visited for the first time, as we were looking for a local restaurant for fine/good dining.

So .. our server was very pleasant and professional. Unfortunately the menu and Chef let us down. Menu was limited and seems to be the same month on month. Ordered Halibut which arrived on a bean/chirizo spicy ??soup. The delicate flavor of the fish was completely lost and two of us could only try to pick the over cooked fish out of the soup and we had to leave the bean mush as was so spicy and inedible. The staff member who collected our plates was a man, mid 40’s, who didn't even notice that two of us hadn’t eaten most of our meal, never smiled and looked fed up to be there at all. The Calamari was overly breaded and over cooked and chewy. In addition there is no choice of vegetables so you can’t choose to have a green vegetable or any vegetables. The Tuna was good. BUT the overwhelming problem is don’t sit anywhere near the area where the plates are stacked because the young man stacking plates literally deafened us on a regular basis. The noise of crashing plates was very uncomfortable. We had booked in advance and requested a booth in a quiet area ... No one got the message apparently. Management here needs to care more about their customers when this is not an inexpensive eatery. Getting perhaps too complacent? Going back to Anthony’s in Everett next time. May try again in the future but with some trepidation. Last...

Let me start by complimenting our waitress. Great service, friendly, enthusiastic, always approached the table with a smile and had great descriptions and suggestions for the available meal options. The roasted cauliflower appetizer was about the best we have ever had. The main entrées of steak and pork chops were delicious, perfectly cooked although the steak really didn't need the sauce as it was great quality and flavor without it. The pork was top-notch, moist and flavorful. What made this 3-star instead of 5-star were the sides. OMG! You couldn't overcook the vegetables more without putting them in a blender first! I don't know where the cooks got the idea of pre-preparing these vegetable sides, letting them sit steaming or under some heat lamp forever, and then, cooking them more. Not having ANY sides would have been a better experience. There is no reason why a restaurant like this that knows how to cook meat so well, cannot cook sides TO ORDER. The gin martinis were also not up to their usual quality. We ordered slightly dirty and they were very dirty and that spoiled the drink. But, a final thank you to our waitress for helping to select an excellent wine and leaving us...