Anchor Allie’s — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

Two Sunday’s ago, I was at the Independence BLVD location with my two daughters. This was not the first time we have been here, as a matter of fact we have been a handful of times. Anchor Allies is one of my favorite spots to have brunch on the weekends. The food is always great and has never disappointed me. This review is not an indication of there food or the owner of the restaurant. This experience this time was terrible. We arrived at the restaurant around 11 or so and there was a 4 table with including us.

Now I explained to my daughters that it would not be a quick turn around to eat because they need to clean the tables and we must adhere to social distancing. The hostess also explained that to us. 45 minutes pass and were still sitting in the waiting area. So, a woman comes into the restaurant, a white woman that seemed to be familiar with the hostess. At this point we have been told we were the next table. We wait another 2 minutes, and my kids are now getting restless. The hostess comes to the lady waiting and asks if she wants to sit now since her friend has arrived. The woman tells her that it is ok they will wait because they “me and my daughters” have been waiting longer and were indeed next in line. She tells the lady that it is a high-top table, and the lady says she will wait for a booth. A table becomes available, and we are sure that it is for us.

The hostess approaches the woman to let her know a booth is ready but that her and her friend would need to seat next to each other until another family left. My kids are small, and we could have taken that booth also under those circumstances. So, another family departs opening another booth but the way social distance works, her friend swapped seats at their booth, so they are facing each other. This move prevented me and my daughters to continue to wait. The hostess ensured every white patron was seated before us. I started writing this review inside the restaurant but after some thought I wanted to clarify why I am writing this. We finally got seated in the far back of the restaurant. At that point I just wanted my daughters to get breakfast.

It was March 21, 2021, and we did not leave until around 1 pm that morning. I attached a picture of the two tables that could have been made available but due to lack of training and character a poor judgement was made. This is the type of experience that makes you never want to support again. As a Navy veteran myself, this place was fresh air and made me miss the days on the mess decks and the memories from deployments. That experience was prejudice and cruel. It lacked moral ethics. This hostess failed my family and my...

Okay, before you judge me for giving a local spot a 3-star rating, hear me out. We plan on trying this establishment again another time and, if/when we do, I’ll update this review accordingly.

Our waitress’s service was top notch. She had multiple tables at lunch on a Saturday and wasn’t batting an eye. Had it handled no problem. Friendly, personable, enough to warrant five stars on her own.

The grilled fish sandwich (has a better name than that but I’m bad at remembering creative names, so we’re gonna call it the “grilled fish sandwich,”) was pretty good, not amazing, but definitely a HUGE portion of fish for the price.

The shrimp and crab cake bomblet (also had a better name, but at least I remembered “bomblet” this time,) was, well, a major let down. Egg, shrimp, crab cake; those were the only ingredients. And the amount of crab cake was far from substantial, I had to look for it because I actually didn’t think it was even in there. Total opposite of the fish portion on the sandwich. The shrimp was super over cooked too. And there weren’t any other ingredients, like no peppers, onion, tomato, nothing. It was suuuper bland. I love all things crab cake and/or shrimp so I was excited… but alas, my craving was left unfulfilled today. Okay, so, eh on the bomblet. Worth the 3-stars? Nah, that’s not it either, just a fair warning for anybody considering that entree.

Out of brussel sprouts for their appetizer, the very first item on the lunch menu. You’re literally next to a Kroger… I debated popping over there and bringing them some back just to try out Anchor Allie’s recipe, it sounds great! 3-stars? Nah, it happens. It’s odd, but it happens.

3-stars for the kitchen staff. We were seated near (not next to) the doors to the kitchen. Usually a little rowdy, but nothing intolerable. Today though, oh man. They were yelling, a lot, like, a lot a lot. We had just ordered our food and suddenly it was like the kitchen erupted in full blown barber shop, top of the lungs, banter. I’m all for having a good time at work, but not at the expense of the patrons. Probably should’ve said something, but that’s how you get your food spit in. We tolerated it, but every minute that went by was more and more annoying. Almost left, probably would have if the next time we saw the staff wasn’t when they were bringing us our food.

I dunno, maybe the omelet wasn’t that bad, maybe I just had a bad taste in my mouth from being annoyed. We’re willing to give this place another shot. We’ll just make sure we aren’t seated on that side next time! And I’ll be ordering...

With all the breakfast type places in the area, this place just isn't some place I'd go back to often at all. It's not that the food is bad, it's what you'd expect it to be. The food itself is ok, not amazing but not bad either. The problem is the service. I want to be clear though, it's not a issue of people being rude or nasty. The staff there are all very polite and friendly. The problem is that it just seems to take so long to get anything done. I was recently there and the person I was with ordered the soup, the waitress left with our orders and then came back over 15 minutes later to tell us that the soup they originally said was available wasn't the actual soup they had that day and now the person I was with would have to order something else. Why did it take that long to find out the soup wasn't available? Unfortunately that's not the only time something like that has happened, and I've been there multiple times when it was only a few other tables there besides me and it seemed to take forever to get what has been pretty simple breakfast orders. I can understand when a place is busy that it can take extra time, but taking longer than expected just seems to be the norm here. If you have plenty of time to kill and aren't particularly hungry then I'd say try this place out, but if you are on any kind of schedule or if you're hungry when you get there you'll probably be disappointed with the waiting. In addition to the soup issue recently and the generally longer than expected wait to get food that has been ordered, I've also waited over 10 minutes for drinks (non-alcoholic) that had been ordered and had a few times where it was over 10 minutes just for someone to even come and take a drink order. Again, the people there are friendly and the food isn't bad, it's just needs some serious work on the other areas. With so many other places to eat within minutes of them, I'll probably go somewhere...