Mermaid Winery & Restaurant — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

Overall pretty disappointing...

The server though nice enough, but was mostly absent.

The wife ordered a salad that came out with lettuce that had browned substantially. When my wife pointed it out to the server (despite being obvious, and having should have been caught during plating) the server reacted as if my wife was bougie for not wanting to eat brown lettuce...

I had asked for details about the salmon stack. The server told me that it was two lunch sized pieces of salmon. Based on which, I ordered it. It was most certainly only one piece, and it was raw in the middle. Not medium, or rare...it was raw. I brought this to the attention of the server the next time we were graced with their presence. It had been over twenty minutes. It was explained to me that they serve their salmon "more raw". Which was not on the menu description of the dish, nor was this mentioned during ordering.. The server offered to have a new dish prepared. When it came out it was just a piece of salmon on a side plate. The dish that was taken was Salmon, french bread, arugula with almonds and goat cheese.... I can't review any of these as a plain chunk of fish is all that was returned to me.

The flight... We ordered a red wine flight. Several were short poured. The wine glasses (nearly all) had lipstick from previous patrons remaining on the rim. I took one of the glasses to show the server. It was explained to me that they are difficult to clean... I was floored by this response. In my opinion dirty dishware has no excuse. Ever. It's laziness and apathy. The single glass I handed the server was replaced despite my having pointed at the same on the other glasses. This glass was replaced with less than a short pour.

The final issue that I have with this establishment is the absence of a changing station for babies in the restroom. My wife was forced to address an emergency diaper situation on the floor of the bathroom. This is wholly unacceptable.

I will say that the pretzels were perfect in every way. The accompanying cheese, vegetables, and sauce were fantastic. Also, the she crab soup was some of the best I've had anywhere. Furthermore, the dining area although uncomfortably warm was clean, and nicely decorated. The wine selection is respectable, and the ones we tried and ordered were delicious.

Overall it was not the best experience. We will probably try again another time. However, if I'm spending over a hundred dollars on just lunch for two I expect much more from the experience.

I feel like this establishment has a lot of potential if management does a more thorough job of oversight, and professional development of the...

Edit after owners response: I'm not sure if there is a mistake happening at this location but I had a bottle of the Moscato in my hand, off the shelf at the front where you first walk in and it was also marked as $30. I couldn't justify $60 for 2 bottles in one day so I put it back. My friend bought a bottle to-go and it was also the same price as at the table and subsequently found at Wegmans for 1/4 of the price paid at Mermaid. I'm also not sure what the bottle presentation is supposed to be, but the bottle was simply left on the table, cork popped, in something to make it cold. Not sure why that's worth an extra $20 over the retail price. Like I said originally, I expect to pay a little more, just not triple the retail price. Perhaps double or triple the wholesale price, but if you're selling it for $10 to-go like you think you are, perhaps the signage was wrong, and perhaps my friend was accidentally 3 or 4x overcharged for her to-go bottle, then the wholesale price must be significantly less than that and I was really taken for a ride. I understand you're a business and you need to make money to sustain, but this isnt making sense to me. It feels more like being taken advantage of.

Edit: Kind of bummed to have found the bottle of Villa Jolanda Moscato, that I paid $30 for at Mermaid Winery, at Wegmans 10 min down the street for $9.49 a bottle. I know were paying for experience at Mermaid, but not more than 3x the price. They also had 8 different flavors available, also for $9.49 a bottle.

Excellent food and wine! Daniel was very knowledgeable and friendly and put up with a million questions from our group like a damn champ. Tried the sweet flight and was amazed to find a Pineapple Moscato I've been searching for for a couple years...

I like the venue and concept but last night's experience was less than good. I had been once before as had my companions. We all remembered the flights having less wine than before, barely a taste. The charcuterie tray had very small portions of each choice, not enough for 3 people to be able to taste each one. The rest of the tray was filled with nuts and raisins to make it look full. The spinach and artichoke dip was good, but last time was served with toast points. This one had tortilla chips with only 2 toast points. We asked our server about this and she said they used to serve it with toast points but decided to change to chips. We felt it should have listed the change on the menu. We asked if we could have more toast and she said there would be a $1.00 charge. Seriously? We declined simply on principle. The server was not attentive, rude at times, truly was annoyed in serving and not pleasant at all. We sat with dirty dishes for long time which was uncomfortable since the table was full. She was nowhere to be found for long periods of time. The server became very friendly when she brought our checks. She even smiled for the first time all evening. She , finally, cleared the table but was clumsy at best when stacking the dishes at the table. It was obvious she was friendly for a big tip, but she did not succeed. All 3 of us tip 20%, usually, however we agreed to reduce our gratuities be paid because the service was so bad. The food was a seperate issue. We live off Shore Drive, close to this restaurant, but will think about this experience when deciding where to dine in the future. I do like the ambiance, but not worth the bad service and skimpy food and wine. I gave it 3 stars only...