Red Lobster — Restaurant in Town of Vestal

I've been to this particular Red Lobster and had a good experience but today was AWFUL! I'm not even sure where to begin. A few minor mishaps, followed by terrible service and a rude waitress. First off the receptionist didn't give my son (6) a kid's menu so we had to ask the waitress for it when she came. When she came back with the kids menu, we ordered our drinks, which came fairly fast but it was all downhill from there. They didn't have milk. When the waitress, Jeanne took our order, she was rude to my husband when he tried to order the salad/soda add on to the all you can eat shrimp. He said he wanted the combo but then when she asked what side with the shrimp, he asked for a side salad and I explained he wanted the salad/soda as the add on and then something different for his side. She rudely said, "Well you have to tell me you want the combo!" Which, we had... About 15 minutes later, someone else brought our biscuits. Then our waitress came by another 10 minutes later and asked how we were. We just shrugged and said we were just waiting for our food so she stammered and said she just wanted to make sure we had biscuits. At 45 minutes after we arrived, my husband's meal and my meal came, but not our sons. And my husband's salad never came so he told the male waiter who brought the food that he didn't need a salad anymore since our food was here. The same male waiter brought my son's meal....with oranges instead of the brocolli he ordered. When the waiter brought the broccoli for our son, he asked if there was anything else we needed so we put in our next shrimp order. Next thing we know, the waitress (who we haven't seen since she "made sure we had biscuits") came to scold us for putting in our shrimp order with the waiter instead of with her. She asked how everything was so we told her about the orange/brocolli mixup and that my husband didn't get his salad. She blamed that on others and then made it a point to say that since he canceled his salad, she took off the combo but charged separately for the soda. :P About this time the table next to us requested the air conditioning be turned off...yes in November in NY when it's freezing out! Also 1 fork had green stuff all on it. I understand that it can come out of the dishwasher dirty but ideally whoever is rolling the silverware in napkins makes sure they are clean. Jeanne never asked to refill our drinks but thankfully the male waiter who brought our food did as my water was empty for quite a while. I didn't get the male waiter's name (young, blondish-red curly hair) but he deserves all of the tip we left because he did all the work and was very friendly and tried to help with all the mishaps. When we went to pay, a battery had to be added to the machine and tapping didn't work 3 times. I finally inserted my chip and then it worked fine. Instead of leaving once she saw it was working, Jeanne was staring at me while I added the tip...so awkward. The food was delicious but needless to say, we will not be going back...

We had 6:45 PM reservations at Red Lobster, 1200 Vestal Parkway East, Vestal, NY, and I've been here many times before with great food and perfect service. This time not so much. We weren't seated until nearly 8PM. Our reservation for a party of 3 had been pirated by a party of 5, our hostess didn't come out to ask for us. But when she came out looking for someone else, she was shocked and told us about having seated someone with our reservation earlier. Our server reached our table about 10 minutes later. Bad news no rolls available, drink order arrived in about 5 minutes. 1 beer, one unsweetened tea, and one very flat zero cola. (Replaced with fresh) right after the Appetizers were ordered, but they were delayed as well arriving about 30 minutes later. Thankfully we got one order of 4 rolls about 20 minutes in to tide us over. The Coconut shrimp was great, dip was perfect. On the other hand, the lobster flatbread had no flavor, none of us appreciated it, but hunger rules when you've waited that long, so we ate it. Interestingly enough, we were not sure if it had lobster when it left the kitchen, but what arrived at the table had tiny bits of what might have been lobster. When dinner arrived, the food was acceptable, and if all the waiting had not been an issue, the dinner out would have been much more appreciated, I'm sure. We were under a cold air vent, and asked to have it adjusted, but nothing changed. One of our party had a jacket, so at least he was a little more comfortable. I understand that there are times when businesses become short staffed. I feel like when they knew there were only 2 people and a manager staffing the kitchen, it would have been better to let us know there would be a long delay, and we could have waited or chosen somewhere else...

Food is okay but cartoonishly expensive, appetizers were brought out after we already had our meals, first and only round of biscuits came out as we were boxing up our food up. Kiosks are buggy and I'm unsure if my payment went through or not but after waiting 5 minutes for it to load before it glitched out I don't really care.

Staff was friendly but semi-oblivious to when people need things like refills or boxes; though I'm hesitant to say that because I've worked retail and I guarantee any supervisor that reads this review will blame it on their staff instead of stepping up to their own short-comings as a leader.

Overall I think this entire chain has really fallen from what they used to be and no longer stand for making an experience for the customers. They've very blatantly replaced their marketing strategy as "people will pay anything for mediocre seafood" rather than being a faux-fancy feasting facility.

Also, one angry complaint from everyone I've ever talked to: to whoever started throttling the "all you can eat" specialties like unlimited shrimp or all you can eat biscuits, you should be charged with treason against this beautiful country. I get it's a little more expensive to give people what they want, but that's the kind of stuff that makes me not visit this restaurant for the last 4 years. These penny-pinching tactics are obliterating your business. Stop it. Bring me my biscuits as soon as I walk through the door. Don't even give me time to tell the waitress I have a party of two, shove those biscuits in my gullet. Throw them directly at my head like a greasy game of dodgeball.

Edit: Red lobster told me to message their Facebook but I don't have Facebook and can't reply to a reply on Google...