Ocean — Restaurant in Town of Oyster Bay

I've been to this establishment twice. It was an impromptu date with my love and we ended up at Ocean. I loved my first experience so much; the beach, the view, the staff, the food, and the wine. I heard about the restaurant from a colleague a few years back, so I was excited to finally have lunch there. Because of that experience, I decided to have my 40th birthday brunch with my girlfriends over there, too. However, the 2nd time around paled in comparison to the first time. On August 27, 2017, I was thoroughly embarrassed and disappointed in the treatment we received from the moment we entered Ocean. As the afternoon progressed, I realized there were at least three managers on the floor. The first manager was at the podium with the maitre'd when I walked in. Not once did he acknowledge my presence, but, too add insult to injury, he answered the phone and made a couple of phone calls while I stood there awaiting at least someone to say hello. After he was done with his last call, this "manager" walks away without saying hello or informing me that the maitre'd would be right with me. Foreshadowing?!! Finally, the visibly flustered maitre'd greets me and I tell her that I was the reservation for 7. I inform her that I knew there was a wait to be seated outside, but I would have preferred to be seated outside as I was celebrating with my friends who had never been to the restaurant. At first, she laments there are no seats available and there wouldn't be any seats available in the near future. Unbothered by her first assertion, she later understood that we would prefer to sit outside. All of sudden, another maitre'd #2 gets involved. Why?! She also became visibly annoyed, but never addressing me. Mind you I"m standing less than a ft away from them. Finally, manager#2, who I later learned to be Tommy, came over and asked about my reservation. After briefly explaining to Tommy why I wanted to be seated outside, he assured us that we would be seated; however, there was await. We've now been waiting for twenty minutes. Nonplussed by the wait, I ask where my party could wait. Tommy seats us inside and I hear him tell the maitre'd- don't forget them. Tommy would wind up being our go to person for the entire ordeal. You see, after we are finally seated, the waitstaff suddenly disappears. No one- I mean no one comes to our table to offer us water or provide us with the menu. Thinking this is personal, for a number of reasons, I make a beeline for the maitre'd. I finally get her attention and exclaim that we are sitting outside for 15 minutes without anyone addressing us. She says, "we're short staffed", "'I'm looking for a manager, but I can't find anyone".W.T.F. She's flustered because other patrons are asking her about seats etc...how can't you find a manager?! I digress. As luck would have it, the patron was a restaurant owner herself. She also expressed her dismay with the service. As we are all standing in the gulley, Manager#1 and Female Manager appear. I address Manager#1 about the subpar service my group has received since we entered and I expected better service. Female Manager speaks up and says that someone would be with me. At that moment, Tommy appears. Tommy is like-"I got this." Tommy, to his credit, made the rest of the experience as pleasant as could be. Even when the waiter accidentally dropped wine on one of my guests, Tommy apologized profusely and comped that drink. Actually, Tommy tried and did make up for the horrible treatment we had at the beginning of our visit. Nevertheless, for an event hall/restaurant that is supposed to cater to parties/large groups, my group didn't receive the stellar service that we should have. Tommy shouldn't have had to serve, take our order, or monitor the staff when they were serving us. I gave my experience a strong 2! for Tommy. I am not trying to persuade you against patronizing the business,...

Crescent at Ocean Beach club 7/4/24. Family of 5.

You have one Independence Day a year, so we wanted to do something special. As repeat diners we are on the mailing list for Ocean and we booked their prepaid event early - over a month out. Confirmed a few days out, and again same day asking for a good table with a nice view. We were told they have a last minute wedding and they will do their best. We are VIPs on open table, Resy, Seven Rooms - dine out all over the world, so we understand this may not always be accommodated, but all tables at a venue on a special event night should, at a minimum, deliver the event’s advertised elements. Stay tuned to hear how miserably they fell short… Arrived to be sat on the extreme side, behind the sushi counter next to the public access path and share house with the lovely smell of weed to accompany our dinner - at least we saw some of their fireworks through the bushes because we couldn’t see the ones we paid for at Crescent. We also couldn’t hear the entertainment we paid for going on in the main part of the dining deck where the fireworks were centered. Due to being on the side and under a canopy of umbrellas we couldn’t see anything. We’re were expected to sit at a 4 person table for a 5 person reservation, so I had to sit in the aisle with my feet to the side and servers maneuvering around me all night. Asked the maitr d’ / manager Mel to be moved a few times but was told they have a wedding, and others have tables “reserved”. Well, so do we - not like we are wearing shorts or jeans or ball caps, and I know I booked early - but no consideration. After visiting the podium 3 times, they said “it is what it is” and offered no solutions except Mel suggested we “get up and walk around later”, so we seated grandma in aisle and literally slid her into place in her chair because we were so packed in you couldn’t back a chair up enough to sit and pull in. The people next to us were apologetic, but they were packed in as well, and also commented about their table, sharing our view of the bad location behind Mr Lee, whose sushi was the only highlight as usual. So the entertainment was supposed to be the steel drum band, which as we have been here before, we know are regulars, but we couldn’t hear them at all as we were relegated off to the extreme side on the walkthrough for all the locals going to the beach next door. The parade of locals turned out to be the only thing to see all night. Fun. After sushi, cocktails, and apps we waited over a hour and a half for entrees, which were catering hall quality at best. This is to be expected as they took too many reservations, packed too many people in - you couldn’t move around to go to the restroom, stairs were blocked with others in our same situation trying to see something. (Good thing the Fire Marshall didn’t stop by) On top of making this event too big, they had a wedding. The servers were overloaded - many people trying to pin them down as they ran around. As a result we couldn’t get a wine list on time, or the check when we decided it wasn’t worth it and wanted to leave early as we could only hear, but not see fireworks. They advertised a 3 course meal with entertainment and fireworks at a table that was “yours for the evening”. After spending $1,000 we received a cramped table off to the side with no view, too small for the party size, a harried waitress, broken courses that took too long, no view of fireworks and no entertainment. Crescent placed profit over diner experience and ruined...

Yesterday evening was my fourth time visiting Ocean and it will most definitely be my last! The three prior times all went perfectly fine. Two bar occasions and now two dinner occasions, but last nights was for my dear friend’s birthday; of which, was her actual, birthday. Naturally, we go for the water views and overall ambience each time and yesterday’s was picture perfect as always, but everything else about the entire experience was an atrocity. From the unbelievably poor service, to the subpar food at best and weakest cocktails I have ever had in my life in a fine-dining establishment; it was an absolute disaster from start to finish. The hostess was welcoming and friendly and our waiter was truly a nice person, but all of the other moving parts just wreaked havoc on our entire experience. I try to go above and beyond to prevent myself from getting a manager involved, but my friend whose birthday it was; was truly upset by all of the above and it tarnished that part of her celebratory mood. And so she wound up addressing it with a manager while I tried to sort it out with our waiter, etc. From the long piece of black hair on our rainbow sushi roll when it was initially brought out, stale/overcooked edamame, overcooked/under seasoned lobster roll (Montauk style), cocktails that didn’t come out until after we had already finished our appetizers, stale/tasteless homemade potato chips (side of lobster roll) and not even having gotten proper cutlery to use to deconstruct our lobster dinner until it took both addressing and complaining about; we decided to actually leave without even having dessert. I brought an entire cake of my own for my friend’s birthday and requested it be brought out with candles and then cut for us, but even that was a nightmare in it and of itself because they misplaced the cake! Despite having requested it back; someone, (NOT OUR WAITER); still decided to put the candles in the cake and attempt to bring it to the table. Thankfully, our waiter stopped it before that took the already negative experience over the edge. Finally, the worst part of the experience was dealing with the manager because he did little to nothing to correct the situation. For example, because we hadn’t had our club sodas refilled once by anyone the entire time we were at the restaurant; he brought us complimentary club soda’s and literally stated that “Those are on us.” CLUB SODAS!? I was in disbelief and needed to leave the restaurant before anything else left me entirely shocked. Upon getting our bill from our waiter; he did profusely apologize and we let him know that it wasn’t 100% his fault and we actually complimented how nice, etc. he was when speaking to the manager about our overall issues. Additionally, they removed $50.00 from our bill as a courtesy without us even having to ask because they obviously knew how poor of an overall experience they had provided us. Mind you, our final bill was still over $400.00+ for two people, but I digress. I don’t know if they’re under new ownership, management, food staff, etc. but the experience has gone down hill since my last dinner outing there. And so, I will, NEVER,...