Nautilus — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

I took my Wife to Virginia Beach for the weekend, for her birthday. I wanted to take her to one last special place before we took the 3 hour ride back home. (We'd eaten at Mccormick and Schmick the night before and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, almost 200 smackeroos later...without drinks.)

I found Nautilus via Google and decided to try to it. Bad choice. I wish I'd picked a different restaurant. My Wife ordered the buffet and I ordered the Seafood Platter. My fish was fishy and unseasoned. They did let me substitute double shrimp for oysters, and they were ok, but nothing to rave over. My crab cake was the best thing on the plate, sweet, flavorful, but that was more the crab itself than the seasoning. The buffet food was mediocre, to say the least, once again, with the exception of the crab.

They told us, (after we asked,) that we couldn't have a to-go box for the buffet...then the waitress spent more time making sure I wasn't eating any of my Wife's buffet off her plate (which I did anyway,) than busing our table. She did keep asking if we needed anything, but her presence was more of an antsy watchdog pacing than an attentive waitress.

Time to leave, she insisted on boxing my food to leave with, once again to make certain there was nothing off the buffet on it. My Wife had cracked a few crab and sat some of it on my plate to eat. I did intend to leave with it, as it wasn't more than a few bites, but that watchdog of a waitress was dead on it: "I'll bix that up for you. No sir, I'LL BOX THAT UP FOR YOU. I can box everything except for the crab meat." My wide said, "Really? You know, I understand the point behind a buffet, but collectively, our meals cost almost 100 bucks. My husband's a great tipper, much better than I am. It's really a shame that you'd rather throw away this little bit of crab meat, which we've ALREADY paid for, than to let us take it with us;" Then she said to me, "Baby, let's go. I don't even want to be here anymore." We left, but not until after I left my standard 15% "You Did A Horrible Job But I Believe In Karma" Tip. People, I'm from New Orleans. I know good food, and am a damned good chef myself. I've eaten at places where the service sucked, but the food was so good, you assumed THAT was the reason for the lax service. But bad service, bad food, bad atmosphere and treatment? Fail, fail, FAIL! I've been in restaurants where the service sucked, but the food was so good that I gave the tip to the chef. I'm not a foodie, but I love good food. I pay for what I get, and I expect to get what I pay for, especially when it comes to an expensive meal. In this case, I almost wish more of the food had been better so there would be SOME saving grace in the tale. Don't get me wrong, the food wasn't horrible. It just wasn't "Run Up And Slap Your Mama" good, to warrant the prices and treatment. Long story short? Don't eat here. There literally HAS to be somewhere better to eat on the Boardwalk. At least, I...

Let’s NAUT visit this place again!

We visit Va Beach from Fredericksburg Va multiple times a year and have visited many restaurants in the area. This place was by far, the worst! The food prices were good and the vibe was casual, and since we were treating visiting family, we decided to give it a try. The lady that sat us was so nice but that was about it. Our food took nearly an hour to get to our table! We all ordered fried food which in my experience is the quickest to prepare. When we noticed guests seated after us, receiving their fried foods and boils, I decided to very politely ask our waitress, who was not in the least bit personable from the moment she took our drink orders, to help us understand the wait on our food, she said it is because we ordered fried food. I pointed this out to her and asked would we be compensated for the long wait. She said “Oh, no! There’s no way we could offer any discounts on your food.” (Just like that!) she went on to explain how everyone is working really hard to get our orders out and that even the boss is in the kitchen. I then asked to speak to a manager when a new guy came around with our food, finally. He said he was the owner and I expressed our concern with the wait and asked him to please explain and perhaps offer us something for the inconvenience. He offered us a thousand apologies and said he was short staffed. I left it at that and said thank you.

To me, it is strange that this business would not offer to even comp our drinks or offer a dessert or anything to express their apologies for an hour wait on food that was barely even worth dining in for. The food was not terrible but it definitely was not great or worth the time it took to receive it.

All in all, Naitilus is NAUT worth it!! Would rate less than 1 star if the food...

After a day spent on the beach for my friend Melissa's birthday, we decided to eat here for her birthday dinner. I ordered she crab soup and bang bang shrimp for appetizers. Both were absolutely delicious, but I could have eaten a bucket full of that heavenly she crab soup.....the best I have ever had. For entrees, Melissa chose fish and shrimp (fried) with fries as her side. I chose fried oysters with a side house salad (it was rather large which was appreciated). The oysters were very delicious but extremely small (a few weeks ago I had fried oysters in Holden Beach, NC that were at least 2 times larger than these at a restaurant named Mermaids......maybe find out where they purchase their oysters). Our waitress Diane was very attentive with great customer service provided. Two things bothered me but had no effect on my rating as I look at taste of food, customer service of my waitress, and cleanliness of the restaurant. First, when my friend and I arrived, others were seated after us. Waitresses came and waited on them, but no one came to our table. Finally, a waitress asks if a server had addressed us yet, and I told her no. She sends one to the table immediately. Second, I noticed a photographer going to EVERY table offering to take pictures. He never once approached our table our entire visit. I almost asked him if we were too ugly for his camera or something....lol. Anyway, all of our food was delicious but a bit pricey. We initially came here to eat as in the Google reviews and in Google, they are listed under VA Beach restaurants with seafood buffets which they DO NOT have. Our appetizers, my tea, and my friends Sprite cost me $97 and some change plus all tip. We could have gone to Captain George's...