Cowfin Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Surf City

My family is staying in Surf City area for 2 months. Part of the adventure of staying in a new location is trying the local restaurants. We tried Cow and Fin’s outside dining experience.

Observation #1 – Service was NOT GREAT

1st impression of server was he tried to be funny.

Once he took the order, he asked; “would you like ketchup or ranch?” We asked for ketchup. Server immediately delivered 2 bottles to the condiments tray on our table, one squeeze bottle of ketchup and another with white dressing presumed to be ranch.

Our Party of 4 ordered an appetizer to share. No appetizer plates delivered. No check back by server to see if the appetizer was to our liking, so we could not ask for plates.

For dinner we ordered 2 Burgers, 1 Chicken Caesar wrap, 1 Caesar Salad add chicken and 1 side of fries.

The 2 Burgers and 1 Chicken Caesar wrap delivered in a timely manner. 8 min wait before the Caesar Salad add grilled chicken delivered and no side of fries were delivered.

Asked for side of fries. Server said we did not order a side of fries, which he recanted after reviewing the order he originally wrote down.

Server again does not check back on our satisfaction with the food.

Cesar salad was delivered with no dressing. Had to wait until fries were delivered to ask server for dressing, He showed me the dressing is in the squeeze bottle he delivered at the beginning. Embarrassed I did not realize Caesar dressing comes before the appetizer. When I attempted to use the squeeze bottle the dressing was too thick to dispense out of the tip of the bottle. This leads me to my first recommendation.

Recommendation 1– Traditional Cesar Salad is already tossed in dressing and cheese. I would recommend doing that for your patrons unless they specifically ask for dressing on the side.

Recommendation 2– Check back within 2 mins of delivering hot food. The best way to turn a potential negative experience into a positive customer experience is to check on food satisfaction in case there is a problem.

Observation #2- Quality of food was NOT GREAT and not proportionate to the price.

Our Bill was $85 for mediocre burgers, fries, cheese sticks and incomplete salad. Charged over $3 for using a debit card added to the bill.

I can assure you proprietary “Moo” sauce does not justify the price or improve the quality of food.

Observation #3 -Too many flies to enjoy the dining experience.

To be fair, the restaurant attempted to combat the pesky problem by adorning each outside table with a floppy fan apparatus to deter flies. The batteries were dead in our device, so we do not know if it works.

Recommendation – Install fans above the tables and hang banners, streamers, or flags to blow in the breeze. Flies don’t like the movement.

Once you consider the combination of poor service, overpriced food, and atmosphere you can bet we will not give Cow and Fin...

Walked into this restaurant for the very first time last night. Place looked close to being full, few tables open and just a couple spots at the bar. I waited about 3 minutes before, I would assume was a sever, approached me. Her very first word to me was,” Hi, how many?” I replied just one. She had a puzzled look and said, “Just one”? I quickly replied “yes”. She then said, “Actually we are closed”. I was baffled. How could you be open but closed when you realize you might not have a big table? Worried a single person is only going to tip so much due to smaller check? I fully understand restaurants can’t stay open just because people keep coming in. I fully understand they are ready to be off and with their families after working a long day. And I fully understand that after dealing with a lot of tourist vacationing , they are just ready to get the night over. Sad thing is, I am local! I would be your customer to support you in off-season and winter months. I would not be sitting here writing this review if I was greeted with anything like, sorry we are closed before even asking me how many in my party. Once I was asked how many and waited for my response, it was over. What I would expect was, sorry sir, we have closed for the night, but please come visit us again. Maybe like we open at whatever time tomorrow. Not a how many? Oh not dealing with this. Surely must have thought I was just visiting the beach and didn’t matter. By the way, I live in Hampstead just 10 minutes away. There are lots of local restaurants and chain restaurant that I will kindly repeat to support. Never got to try the burgers they claim are so good, If they put as much effort into their cooking as they did their hospitality, glad I didn’t...

My husband and I ate an early dinner at Cowfin Thursday afternoon. I hate that we can't remember our waitresses name, but she was very friendly, honest and attentive. My husband had the fried shrimp, flounder and oysters and he chose slaw and fries for his 2 sides... it came with hushpuppies,also. He would rather have had calabash shrimp, but they didn't offer that. He really liked the slaw and hush puppies and said everything was pretty good. He did mention that the fried oysters were very small, though. I had the classic fried chicken wrap with fries and it was pretty good...it was a lot! I brought over half of it back to our camper. Before we ordered our food we ordered 2 margaritas. My husband just sucked his down, but we both agreed that they didn't taste anything like a margarita that we had ever had. I can't describe the taste, but I couldn't even drink it. Our waitress noticed that I didn't drink mine, so she brought me something else, but it wasn't much better. Just don't waste your money on a cocktail there, because you'll probably be disappointed. All in all it was just ok, but definitely not worth $80.00!! Something else I would like to add is about the seating area outside on the covered patio. I know we chose to sit there but, it was about impossible to maneuver your chair on the gravel concrete that the table and chairs were sitting on. I would also like to add that after being seated, something black got on my cream colored little purse...I hope it will come out in the wash. Upon leaving my husband noticed that his brand new red Vans, had black stains on the top of both of his shoes. Maybe it just wasn't...