Elmo's Dockside — Restaurant in Vernon

Haven’t been here in a few years but decided to take my Mom and kids for Mother’s Day as we have always enjoyed the food in the past. Big mistake! From the moment we received our appetizers I knew this wasn’t going to be the same delicious meal we had enjoyed in the past. We ordered a dozen oysters and instead of plating them properly, they gave us a small plate with 6 oysters sitting on ice and then the other 6 were piled on top. Literally just sitting on top of the others. So now we are paying $36 for 6 edible oysters as the other 6 were sitting in the dirty shells of their friends who were placed on top. I could possibly excuse this, if the issues stopped there, however, they did not. The oysters themselves tasted old, salty, and flavorless. We are frequent purveyors of several other local seafood restaurants, and the taste, quality and freshness found elsewhere was sorely lacking at Elmo’s; extending well beyond just the oysters. For the main courses we had the boiled lobster, seafood crepes, red snapper, and crab cakes. The highlight of them all was definitely the seafood filling/sauce on the crepes; however they were most definitely NOT crepes, more of a thick pasty pancake. The snapper was definitely overcooked and dry but there was a pretty tasty Cajun butter on top; not a difficult task but I expect more from a $36 plate. As well as the $30/lb. lobster, I expected way more in terms of quality, preparation, and flavor. For the sides we both ordered a twice baked potato’s which were obviously previously prepared, frozen, and reheated as they were DRY and again relatively tasteless. The absolute worst meal of all had to be the crab cakes. They were decently sized however they were mushy, pasty, and clearly relied heavily on breadcrumb filling. The “Remoulade” on top was nothing more than a disgustingly sweet mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise. Definitely nothing even reminiscent of any remoulade I’ve ever tasted. With all that being said, we paid our ($500) bill and even ordered a dish to go as we were eager to try the beef Wellington that was on the menu but no one had ordered. After we concluded our meal, we asked to speak with the manager/owner to convey our feelings of disappointment regarding our meal and rather than being concerned or empathetic he was completely dismissive of everything that we stated. We were literally told that we cannot judge a restaurant on its quality since it was Mothers Day and the staff had been working a lot.. We were told that nothing had changed over the last 10 years and he would order each dish himself that night in order to prove that the food was fine. He made the entire interaction feel very combative (we weren’t asking for a discount or anything, just trying to express how the meal was not up to the standards we experienced in the past) and were just told that out of the 70 tables server that day, we were the only ones to have a complaint. In the end, we were given a $50 gift card but that’s not even relevant as we won’t be back. I’m not sure if anything has changed or not but I know that we will not be eating here again. We eat at Main Fish at least once a month and everything from the wait staff, the food quality, taste, preparation, freshness, and overall experience is hands down above and beyond what we experienced at Elmo’s today. I understand that you get what you pay for but this was definitely not worth the price. For less $ and better EVERYTHING, go...

On my birthday my family had a place picked out but I told them I wanted Seafood so at the last min. we were scurrying around trying to find a seafood restaurant. Since they were staying at my brothers condo while in town in the Vernon area I picked out "Elmo's" since it seemed to get good reviews. It was our 1st time there since at least the early 90's, def. since they changed ownership. We were very happy with our meals, my brother who took a bet he couldn't eat a vegan diet for a month was even happy with his meal which is crazy since he's a big meat eater. Like another reviewer said, the fried calamari appetizer is amazing especially when its tossed with onions and peppers. I ordered a lobster which includes two side dishes. My parents ordered two non-seafood meals (chicken) and really enjoyed them while my fiancee ordered linguini with clam sauce and unlike the Italian place, Elmo's covered her plate with clams, at least 10 full shelled clams on her plate. They had small and large booths, the large one fit 5 of us comfortably. There bar looked fantastic and they have a very Maine/Cape Cod theme, with paddles and buoys on the wall. Our waitress was great, no young or snotty people, all older and experienced and she heard it was my birthday so brought out free dessert and with 2 other waitress sang happy birthday but not in an embarrassing way. The only fault I would give it is its a little on the expensive side, but that's it. If I wanted something super cheap I would have gone to TGIF or Chili's or something. If you want really good seafood variety, in a quiet, clean, quaint building with an experienced wait staff then I recommend, "Elmo's". (The Calamari appetizer and Clam Chowder side were some of the...

I really want to give Elmo's a 5 star, but I can't. We walked in and were greeted (kind of) by a young woman who was wearing ripped up baggy jeans and a baggy sweat shirt. I wasn't immediately sure she actually worked there. She showed us to our table, she didn't once look us in the eye. She didn't smile, she didn't say anything. She came back with plates and silverware and just put them down again, not saying anything. It was as if she was actually annoyed by our presence. There were 4 people in our group and we were all pretty stunned by her demeanor.

On the other hand, our waitress came over wearing What appeared to be a uniform. She was very upbeat and pleasant and helpful. She helped us with her menu choices and came back a couple of times, making sure everything was okay. The food was as always very good. The "hostess" could definitely learn a thing or two from her.

I may be old fashioned, I know ripped jeans is a fashion thing these days. But if the rest of your wait staff is required to wear uniforms, I think that your hostess should be presentable as well. She definitely needs some lessons in customer service. I just hope the wait staff does not have to share their gratuities with the hostess because she did nothing to earn it. Overall, aside from the initial negative impressions, we did have...