Tides Coastal Kitchen — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

Sent this email to the GM and got no response.

April 16, 2024

Dear Alexis,

Hello. I am writing to you today to express my complete disappointment with the Golden Girls Brunch that was hosted by Tides Coastal Kitchen on Sunday, April 14th. I run a very successful Facebook Brunch group and I brought a group of 14 ladies on Sunday, and everyone was dissatisfied.

From start to finish, this event was poorly organized and executed. We were instructed to make a reservation on OpenTable for the event, which would only let me reserve a table of 6, so I did that. The other girls made their own reservations because that is what we were told to do. Then, we had to get “tickets” from EventBrite but weren’t charged anything. I reached out to one of your bartenders whom I happen to know from another restaurant to ask if it was possible to have everyone in my party sit at the same table, he gave me Tally White’s contact information. When I spoke to Tally last month, I made a reservation for 20 people but told her that I would contact her the week prior to the event to confirm the count and the names of the people in my group so she could cross check the reservations so there wouldn’t be any double charges. A few days prior to the event, I sent Tally the list and my credit card information to hold our reservation. I then started getting messages from everyone in the group stating that they were getting phone calls to provide a credit card. I contacted Tally again, and she assured me that everything was all set. Three people in my group of 14 got charged prior to the event even though I had given my credit card information for the reservation. Payment was figured out, but it could and should have gone much more smoothly. I highly suggest NOT using both OpenTable and EventBrite, that was very confusing and redundant.

Now on to the food. It was absolutely not worth $35/pp. The meats were not cooked properly (the bacon was almost raw), the eggs benedict was not cooked correctly, the salmon was raw, and there was Caesar salad but no Caesar dressing and on top of that the food was all cold. The drinks priced at $15/ea is ridiculous. To compare your brunch to another one that we’ve done…The Grain in Norfolk hosts a fantastic brunch buffet for $31/pp that includes a seafood raw bar, fresh pastries, an omelet station, breakfast tacos and so much more with mimosas and other brunch drinks for $3. What we received was not on par with what we have received at other places by far.

I do have to say, the server who took care of us (I’m sorry I don’t remember her name), was great. She was very nice and was attentive. I hope that you will take this review and use it to become better. I wish you the...

We had reservations for 7 for 730. We sat pretty quick, somebody in our party mention when they told the host about reservations, she scoffed. I didn't witness myself. Overall, services was just so slow. We ask multiple staff walking by where our server was, finally after 30 minutes somebody came over with water. But not enough cups or silverware for the guest count(gave us 6 cups and 6 silverware, needed 7 cups and 7 silverware) Took an extra hour to get our appetizers, which for the price of it, I felt like they could of bit bigger. The hushpuppies and fried shrimp were good but the crab dip was dry, supposed to be blue crab dip but tasted like can crab. Maybe 10 minutes after our appetizers hit, the entree hit. She forgot to ring in one of entree, he had wait more time for that. Funny, we mention he didn't get his food. She said she gonna check on the dish. Came back, notice its still not there after 20 minutes. She said oh they didn't bring it out to you, waited another 5 minutes. Got the food. Also the drinks if they had ice in it, were heavy ice. I was lucky had martini drink but other people who had cocktail complained it to much ice, barely got any of the drinks. The actual rockfish was good, but the mashed potatoes texture was off, like it was sitting under a heat lamp to long and got a weird crust on it. The gnocchi had a weird crunch to it. The views of the beach was great.

On a side note, I cant speak for these guest. We notice there was "private area" which was semi private cause we can see partially in there, no way to close it off. We saw there was a sign for a proposal. A lot of people kept walking over there before the engagement happen, being nosy, just peaking in or walking in. While the proposal was happening, a bunch of by standers were standing on the chairs, getting close to the private area. If this was my private event I paid for, I would be personally annoyed. But I can't speak for them. I wouldn't book a outdoor private event here cause there no buffer from the...

Marriott, you should be ashamed of yourselves for letting this restaurant represent your brand. Awful. I was with a family 5, and we were seated outdoors. We waited 30-35 min for a waitress or waiter. After waiting, my partner got up to check the status of the waiter/waitress. The hostess was standing in the cashier area and she did not seem concerned about someone waiting on us after my partner complained. Then my partner went looking for the manager. He found the manager and we were trying to give him the benefit of a doubt because it seemed like he really wanted to rectify the situation. Nope. Cokoo or Cocoo what ever the manager’s name was, came by and poured us small cups of water and left no water at the table for us like the other waiters/waitresses do. He also took our orders. We ran out of water, So, again we were left without water for another 30 min without water. We received our appetizer after 25-30 min. Ate that, then received our entrees another 25 min or so later. We didn’t finish the meals. One of his other waiters, Noah, made fun of our situation by bringing 5 large size containers of waters to our table and laughed about it with other patrons. Very unprofessional.

Allegedly, the waitress that was supposed to wait on us didn’t know that we were one of her tables.🫨

We certainly didn’t ask for a service level as if we were at the Days Inn or Red Roof Inn. Do better. The lack of concern or empathy strikes me in these times. No one cares about anything. Just give 20% off your meal and everything will be just fine”. No accountability or anything. It’s actually sad.

My partner and I work as professionals in management and healthcare respectively. We see non empathetic service employees on a daily basis. Things really need to change.

Today we go to dinner at Hot Tuna and received waters within 10 min. You got it! 10 minutes and received alcoholic drinks 5...