Beauchaines 211 — Restaurant in Surf City

Where to begin? I was traveling with a friend (also a female) and we decided to go out our last night to a nicer restaurant. Two that seemed delightful online were this and The Grill. Based on menus posted online, we chose this place. *spoiler alert - we went to The Grill after and were overwhelmed by how magnificent it was.

Ok. My friend and I are currently overwhelmed by the amount of "wrong" so I'm going to be as brief as possible and list the things that were wrong (in no particular order): menus were rumpled and had mystery globs and stains on them; food on the fork from a prior user; another fork sticky and gross; were seated in the middle of the room when there were several tables by the windows; the bar door was open playing wildly clashing music that competed with the sad 70s music in our area; was the only table given a check with a stapled piece of paper like a to-go order instead of a billfold and after 7 minutes - with the credit card sitting atop it - we left a HUGE tip (paying with cash) just so we could leave; staff COMPLETELY ignored us except to stare; one wait staff wasn't wearing a bra and made sure to lean over her patrons tables; staff was noy dressed professionally - leggings in lieu of pants, too-tight shirts, dirty socks paired with shorts are some of the items we saw (and yet they had no trouble looking down their nose at me); when asked what we wanted to drink, we said we wanted to wait till we decided what we were going to eat and the server rolled his eyes and then asked my friend the same question minutes later and then never asked us if we wanted anything; ran out of water 2 times and when I tried to get their attention, looking the server in the eye, he looked away and then didn't come near our table again until it was time to bring the check - which he only did after we pushed everything away from us and to the middle of the table, our more appropriate indications going unnoticed; the hostess (!!) brought our crab dip and NO ONE EVER CAME BY to ask if it was alright (it wasn't; i have a severe pepper allergy and the crostini was COVERED in it - I tried to get someone to come to the table but no one EVER looked at us); there were 4 other tables seated in the room and the braless waitress went to all of those tables repeatedly but wouldn't look at us and wouldn't acknowledge when I spoke to her; neither our server (Pete I think it was) nor 'braless' even looked at us (let alone responded) when we thanked them for something (each filled our water once).

On top of all of that, and the just horrifically bad service (at what was indicated to us as an upscale restaurant), I believe that we were treated poorly as if we were a)too poor to eat there (i assure you we had no trouble spending money on alcohol, entrees and dessert at The Beach Shop and Grill!) & b) may be lesbians. I kid you not - we were seated like in a fishbowl and treated like second-class citizens with full on stares and then quick looks away when we tried to get their attention.

The crab dip was fine (although microgreens on top of a hot item just makes for wilted greens and that is not appetizing) although the crostini was so full of salt and pepper even my friend (sans allergy) thought it was way too much. The water was...difficult to get. The silverware and plates were dirty. The staff was rude and (at least ours) MIA for the vast majority of the time.

And these are just the highlights.

Want a nice meal out? Spend your dollars elsewhere I highly recommend Chug and Grub (their food is delightful even if the ambiance is not) and The Beach Shop and Grill - where we had a TERRIFIC meal with a lovely server (Kaitlyn) and a...

Unbelievably Unimpressive! We had been looking forward to eating here for quite some time now. There was not 1 good thing that came from our experience. First of all there were Plenty of staff running around everywhere but yet it took 20 minutes for us to get our drinks, one of which i personally took back to the bar because our waitress never checked on us. I told the bar tender it tasted like water but he had said earlier that he only drinks wine so its not surprising that he didnt know what a simple lemon drop drink should taste like. Another 10-15 minutes pass. The 2nd drink was no better and was sampled in front of our waitress and when my wife refused to drink it, the waitress walked off...but yet we were still billed for it.

Then the Whole table ran out of water. Our tuna appetizers tasted good but the mango was half frozen on the inside. Periodically we would ask a passing staff member to please check on our food and they would say soon. It took an hour and a half for it to get to us! We were given a complimentary shrimp appetizer that was basically boiled shrimp dunked in a vinegar water sause....could not eat it.

Finally when our food arrived, one entrée was immediately sent back because the grits were cold. 2 dishes were barley touched because of Over seasoning and could not be eaten, 2 more dishes were only half eaten beacuse of extreme hunger. Only 1 dish out of 6 got eaten. As we were sittin there in disbelief, we noticed a mother at another table had pulled the manager aside to complain about the exact same experience that we were having. WOW! So from a terrible wait staff, bad drinks, bad food, extreme long wait times and just a complete lack of courtesy.... we will never eat here again. Especially when our experience cost us $340..... which i had to hand deliver to the manager because the women in our group were tired of waiting and walked out to the car and i was tired of sitting at a half empty table and just...

This place was a complete disappointment. Admittedly a tourist, I have been coming to topsail for 10 years(+) and have ate at Beauchaines once or twice every single trip. This year it has proven to have gone completely downhill. With all credit due, the food was honestly great, as you would expect with the “formality” of the restaurant. With that being said, the service experience is possibly the worst we all have ever experienced. With a table full of servers and restaurant workers, we couldn’t believe the utter disregard from the hostess and manager. They were rude as can be, with a short pointed response of “sure” to everything. We were in talks with a table of two nearby and they too could not comprehend the staff experience. Half of the dinner, 5 or more staff members were standing around doing nothing. It was almost like they had hired a fresh staff that morning and had no correlation or idea of what to do. For context, it took 46 minutes to get our first round of drinks (table of 5). Not to the fault of our server, we collectively agreed that our four $50 steak dinners were most likely the toughest steak we had ever eaten. This was most likely due to the fact that even with a 10oz steak being advertised; the 10oz’s came from the fact that it was a cut of half-filet/sirloin. Just bad. The adjacent table I mentioned earlier, sent their two steaks back as well for the same reason. I hate to dog on the place and it has been great in the past but—

From the rude and seemingly inexperienced staff, to the lackluster dining experience, this place is a no-go. By advertising a casual fine dining experience and having exceedingly pricy options compared to the competing local restaurants… you would think this restaurant would have a five star experience as I have experienced in past years; SURE.

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