Red Lobster — Restaurant in Virginia

I went in to get a to go order for my husband and myself. We were greeted at the door and given menus then directed to the bar area to place the order. The girl that was working there wasn't the friendliest at all. I had told her we had a few questions and right in the middle of me asking my question and my husband needing to know about an item in the menu she walks off and acts like we were invisible. At first it's almost as if she was bothered or upset that she had to take time to wait on us. She was not friendly and very dismissive toward us. We finally got our order placed. She rang up our bill and I wanted to go ahead and pay for it, but was advised that I had to wait for it to run through the system. I may be wrong but once you print out the bill, shouldn't you be able to pull it up for payment. Anyways when she was finally ready to take my payment, my husband still tipped her 15.00 just for taking the order. Upon receiving the cash tip her whole attitude changed. She as friendly even talkative, making small talk and began smiling. I guess the point is we should have received that side of her from the get go, not just because you got over a 20% tip for ringing up an order. I normally wouldn't even take the time to say anything but, customer service from workers doesn't really exist anymore. So for a total of about 5 min of her time she was paid well. My husband had just had a major surgery (total knee replacement) and he wanted to ask questions about what he wanted to order and for him to take the time to get out of the vehicle and walk in (with a walker) ; he should have been treated better. The food was fantastic as always. Thank you for always giving us great food and for the most part great people. Smile more and be...

So I’m not gonna lie this review would have been a one star had it not been for a very observant manager. We are not complainers however we had some issues getting our food in a timely manner. We had a brand new server. I will say this the server was super apologetic for the inconveniences we experienced tonight and actually took responsibility for her part. Super impressed by that. We had one manager come over and apologize and offer to take the appetizer off and said they were short staffed. I get it. Every merchant is short staffed. However she made sure we were happy and she helped take care of us. That might have earned them a 3 star instead of one. I will say though there was an amazing manager in training who walked by and noticed by my body language we were not happy. She asked what had happened because we were so happy when we got there. We nicely told her that we were upset with the fact we had waited so long on the food and that we still had not been checked on for refills of drinks or shrimp and that our appetizer came out after the food and our food was cold when it finally hit the table. She apologized over and over and said I do truly want to make this right. We told her it was ok no biggie. She came back and refused to let us pay and gave us gift cards. None of that was necessary because we would have been back. However she went above and beyond and noticed by the fact my arms were crossed and I was quiet that something wasn’t right. She is the reason they got 5 stars!!!! (Not because we didn’t have to pay but because she truly went out of her way to try to put a smile back...

We decided to give this Red Lobster a try but encountered way to many problems to justify the cost of the bill or the time wasted.

We walk in to a empty staff area, 1 older gentlemen in front of us had to go behind the counter before staff acknowledged him let alone us. No greeting of any kind (happy or nonchalant) and a attitude that seemed completely annoyed/fed up, one of them was wearing gloves that touched god knows what as they grab our silverware rolls and menus.

We get to our table and it was not wiped down properly, food crumbs and dust particles.

The cheddar bay biscuits were hot and fresh so that IS A PLUS! However they were overshadowed by the rest of the food that is overpriced for the quality.. 6 "Stuffed BABY BELLA mushrooms" for $11.99 and the final bill ended up coming to $88.24... for 2 entree's (Admirals Feast and a Cabanara pasta dish), 1 app, and 2 drinks. Absolutely unacceptable.

Lastly I'm not sure how or why but we had sweet tea for our drinks and 3 separate refills each. Somehow each refill tasted different, like the tea had not been rotated out/fresh, first and third refill tasted like unsweet or not fresh tea, 2nd refill was sweet sweet.

All in all? Not worth the money or time, and just felt like a ghost town of a restaurant. $88.24 when places like Puerto Nuevo for 2 apps, 2 entrees and drinks are only 44-50 bucks....