Claudio's Waterfront — Restaurant in Town of Southold

I haven’t been to Claudio’s in years, but I’ve seen how popular it has continued to be over the years, and was excited to eat here again. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed in almost all aspects of the restaurant.

We had a 6:45 reservation and wound up arriving at 6:44. We had to wait until close to 7 to be seated. When a reservation is made, the table should be ready by that exact time, if not a bit sooner. The table was a bit dirty still, but at least we were seated. I was a little uncomfortable though due to a hanging decoration that brushed against my head every so often. The bigger issue though was that there was a major glare in the eyes of the people facing in the direction of the sunset. We asked for the shade to be lowered, but they couldn’t do that because they had set out and extra table, which was leaned up against a door that prevented the shade from being adjusted. Our waitress arrived and took our orders for drinks (the one saving grace here was that Victoria was a very good waitress and provided the best service that she could, despite the many issues that occurred during the meal.) We waited longer than we expected for the drinks, and then placed our orders for appetizers and entrees. About 25 minutes or so later, our meals arrived, no appetizers (the appetizers arrived a few minutes after, and one of them didn’t arrive at all) Due to the overworked staff, we had to look around ourselves for the ketchup and the salt. One of our meals turned out to be undercooked, which is a major health risk with chicken. Our waitress took the plate and went in to order a new one (took about 15 minutes to come out, and by then everyone was mostly done with their meals, so that person had to take their food to go). Victoria made sure the undercooked meal was omitted from the bill, but the appetizer that never arrived was on our bill (which she promptly corrected).

I am hoping this was an unusually unlucky and unusually busy night, because I was incredibly disappointed by this experience. I think that the business needs to employ some additional staff and better manage the reservation/seating system.

Again, I want to thank Victoria for her hard work and professionalism. She was not responsible for any of the issues, but did what she could to address them; I saw how busy and overworked she was. As previously stated, her good service and kindness were really the only decent aspects...

We visited on July 4th just before 5. Starting at the end:

Claudio's is apparently under new owners with 1 chef trying to run 4 restaurants. The manager was very nice to us at the end of our meal and tried to salvage the situation.

Be aware, several items including the Calamari are pre-breaded, frozen and low quality. Since they only have space to hold and prep a certain amount they have chosen to have a larger menu with a greater variety of choice. Quality is sacrificed but there is no warning on the menu and prices are steep for a $2 bag of frozen, over breaded Calamari.

And now the blow by blow:

Chairs are very uncomfortable, appearance over substance is the theme.

Pitcher of Margaritas was awful. Way too sour.

For these prices, I'd like glassware and please offer to refill my water at least once.

Hummus did not seem homemade and the toasted bread points were stale. That was 3 strikes for me. I tapped out while my family persevered.

The mussels smelled very strong and were not eaten.

I am so sick of chefs who arrogantly don't put salt and pepper on the table. Then you bring a couple of paper packets in a small plastic cup? At your prices? Really? We had to ask 3 people and we got 2 packets of salt.

My water and my sister's fiancee's had been empty for some time at this point.

My niece wanted a small salad instead of fries with her lobster roll and was refused. The large piece of claw shell was an interesting addition.

My girlfriend asked to sub Cole slaw for her Fish and Chips. She received a giant bowl of Cole slaw but no Fish.

Fries weren't seasoned and were undercooked. I think the Fish and Chips uses frozen fish but I'm not sure as I didn't try it.

My daughter enjoyed her Caesar Salad with chicken once we got them to toss it. It was challenging to find the very small portion of chicken on the bottom.

The sushi was also good.

At this point someone realized how dissatisfied we were and the new manager entered the scene. She was very nice.

I personally have wanted to dine at Claudio's Waterfront as opposed to their seafood shack across the water but the wait was always long. This year we made an unnecessary reservation for 4:45 as the next choice was after 8.

It never got more than 2/3 full while we were there and it would have been nice to know we could walk in at 6.

Our bill would've been about $50/person. Thank you for not charging us for the...

If you like shells in your lobster rolls, hair in your food, a long wait and a manager who doesn’t care about any of that then this is the place for you. Location can’t be beat but that was the only positive for us on our Wednesday lunch visit. It was busy but we got seated right away and we were off to a good start. Our waitress, Jess, was friendly and got our drinks & appetizer promptly but it was all downhill from there. We ordered two lobster rolls, lobster Mac&cheese & one other dish that took well over an hour to deliver. All but one lobster roll was delivered by another server who looked at me blankly when I told her we were expecting another. Shortly thereafter Jess came back asking how our food was not aware that two of us were not eating. We eventually got it well after everyone had started eating their meals. Both lobster rolls had shell pieces in them & towards the end of our meal we discovered a hair in the mac&cheese. We alerted Jess who sent the manager, Mary, over. Mary was abrupt, cutting us off while we explained and unapologetic. We were told we should’ve shown them the hair & not let them clear the plate but that was one of many issues. Mary left to speak to Jess & then disappeared. Jess came back to offer us mudslides and told us the having shell pieces in our lobster was a sign it was fresh lol! She didn’t even offer us the same drinks we ordered! We declined as we had kids with us & were ready to leave. That was it! She just gave us our bill which was paid. I looked for Mary who literally disappeared so I asked to see her. When she finally arrived I told her I felt her response to our experience was very poor. Once again she cut us off but did offer a refund…on the cheapest item on our bill, the mac&cheese. I told her an apology would’ve gone a long way and she declared she did apologize…she didn’t but one would think that would be a good time to offer one, show some remorse & be less defensive & rude. Really hard to believe this woman was a manager! The redeeming part of this story is that a customer who was waiting to be seated overheard us & asked me what happened. After I shared he & his party walked away. He told me he was a local (as are we) & didn’t need to bother. Will never...