Half Shell Oyster Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Troy

I use to love Half Shell and the food was always so fresh tasting and good. Today not so...there was two of us, we seated ourselves and waited, and waited and waited. During this time there was an employee behind the bar, it looked like wrapping silverware, that looked up at us multiple times but never approached us to offer us a menu or take a drink order. No one else was in sight. After about ten minutes and as we were getting up to leave...three employee finally came out of the kitchen...still huddled and gabbing. It still took our waitress a few more minutes to acknowledge us bring us a menu and take our tea order. I will say she was very polite and nice when she did. Then the epic failure 🙄. My cup of what was to be Loaded Potatoe soup wasn't even warm enough to melt the maybe...4 strip's (literally) of shredded cheese that had been placed on top...have you ever eaten cold potato soup which also has a chalky taste to it....yuk...😖. The soup came with what was suppose to be a grilled cheese. OMG.... the sandwich was a cheap pc of cheese, slapped between two pc of bread and totally cold. My cheese was no where near melted. I ate a bit of the outside edges of the bread and tossed it aside. The house salad...it was ok...nothing to get excited about and for the cost...a little more lettuce would have been nice. I ate maybe 4 bites of my salad and one bite of my soup. The friend I was with also push her gumbo aside for the same reason....cold. Her salad was ok...again nothing to get excited about and she sat there and mostly filled up on crackers. Throughout our meal no one checked in to ask about our meal or if we needed refills on our tea. Along with us, I counted only 4 other people there and one was just having a beer at the bar.. I was SO DISAPPOINTED! I was starving, it was 1:30 pm and I had not eaten all day. I go to Troy often traveling threw and to see my doctor but I can't say that I will ever have my lunch at Half Shell again. $35+ for lunch with 95% tossed away. One last note...please do something with all those bench seats with all the crack and worn cushion tops. Not only do they look nasty they are very uncomfortable for a lady with a skirt on. They cut and scratched on my bare legs (the back of my knees) with the least movement. I finally just got up, grab extra napkins and put one under each knee. These cracked/worn seats might be ok for folks wearing blue jeans...otherwise grab one of the tables with chairs. All in all.....just a terrible lunch...

Me and 2 other friends met here last night. One was running behind so we decided to wait for her to arrive before we ordered food. We both ordered a drink while we waited. One lady approached the table and asked if we were still waiting for our friend we told her yes. She came back 2 more times after that with a rude tone. At this point we felt as if they were bothered by the fact we hadn’t ordered yet. Although there were people at the bar watching the game who had been there before us. When our friend arrived another lady who ended up being our server immediately came over to take the order not even considering she didn’t even have time to look at the menu. We had our food and ordered another drink she brought us our drinks along with our checks without even asking if we were finished. We felt unwelcome. We were not being loud we were not asking for a lot, there were not people waiting for the booth. We wanted another drink. After our checks were brought to us our server never came back to the table. We attempted to get her attention when she came by but apparently she did not hear us. We managed to get another server to stop who said she would send ours over. She came over and I asked if it was ok if we ordered another drink. She brought us our drinks and asked if I needed the check or if we would like her to keep it open in case we wanted another drink I asked her to please do that. Less than 10 mins went by before she brought us the check anyway.

The food was great but it was hard to really enjoy it when we felt unwelcome by the staff. As I said several other people were there longer than us and watching the game but we felt as if we were being rushed out.

And Yes we did tip her very well despite the fact we felt the staff wanted...

Had high hopes for this place. The menu online looked amazing. We went tonight for my birthday because I wanted crab. I got the Crab claws and crab bites as my meal. I told our waitress I wanted them boiled plain with a side of melted butter. I got them smothered in cajun seasoning sauce and no butter. The waitress was so busy fratenizing with the staff she never came back over to ask how everything was. When she did come back we weren't anywhere near done eating and she asked if we wanted dessert and after we said no she took off to hang with the staff again before we could say anything else. When she came back she dropped the bill half way on my hand and the other half in water and walked away. We had to ask for to go containers, still leaving the untouched $18.99 crab claws still sitting on the plate that she could clearly see but acted too busy to be bothered with her mistake. My daughter got the burger and asked for cheese fries as her side. She was brought a big appetizer plate of cheese fries and also had them next to her hamburger. They were good tho. My son got the French dip sandwich that he only took one bite out of and didn't like but my husband thought it was good. Needless to say, we will not be going back. $130 lesson. I'm sure other food is good but when I go out I want good seafood bc my family doesn't eat it so we don't...