Tidewater Grill — Restaurant in Virginia

Went for Mothers Day Brunch. The buffet was set up in a bad location which caused a long line to go down the length of the restaurant. They should have had the buffet where there were two lines to go on either side. Should’ve called the fire marshall with how terrible the tables were arranged in the room with the buffet. They kept telling ppl to go to the seafood bar. There were only spoons at the seafood buffet no forks. When we asked our server for utensils they pointed to the buffet table for us to get them. Not sure why we had an auto gratuity of 20% if we had to get our own utensils and make our own $2 coffee.

By the time we got up to the buffet table (10 min wait in the line) a lot of different dishes were empty. The chef was by the meat carver and I mentioned to him that the scrambled eggs were out. His response was “we are all working as hard as we can” then he carried on his conversation with the meat carver….. ok? So no eggs for me then. A lot of the dishes were very salty including the biscuits, bacon, what they called prime rib (gristly overcooked abomination).

I should’ve known better when I walked in and saw that they were giving out water in plastic cups and plastic utensils. Not worth $55 per person. $323 after auto gratuity and beverages. Coffee and drinks were not included. Will not go back.

**Looks like this place has had several complaints in the reviews about overly salted food, poor service, plastic utensils/cups, and the auto gratuity. The ‘owner’ responded to several of the reviews from months ago to recently about how they would work on this and share the feedback with the chef and team. Looks like this place just does not care bc nothing has...

On Wednesday, 8/2 my family and I went to Tidewater after hearing good things. Most certainly did not live up to the expectations. I was told when making the reservation that there would be live music, so they offered us outdoor seating. They however DID NOT tell us that the music was also be piped outside as well. Not only was she not good, the music was way too loud. Our server (I think Lindsay), was a good server, but way over the top and a bit boisterous. She was however very attentive. Burgers were way over cooked even though we very specifically said med/rare, they came out well. The chef arbitrarily made random substitutions to certain dishes. We finally asked for the manager after a number of missteps with our orders. She came to the table, never told us her name, and gave a number of excuses. She did give a discount, but did not seem too engaged with the whole situation. The ambiance of their location is really nice, but they don’t utilize it to their advantage. The seat cushions (outdoors) were quite dirty. The table was tacky with residue (and no, it wasn’t the humidity). The bathroom was dirty (weeks worth of dust on the woodwork, which would be beautiful if it was cleaned), hand prints all along the edge of the toilet room doors, the floors were not as clean as they should be as well. The setting is very pretty, but may not be worth it if you are looking for a clean restaurant...

I wish I didn’t even have to give 1 star to write a review. The customer service, or lack thereof, from this group is disappointing. Being in management myself I always expect my staff to be professional and hold them to high standards as the face of the company. I want senior management of this place to know how poorly our group was treated. I don’t think I have ever been to an establishment where they worked so hard to try and turn away business. We tried to book an event but they made it very clear to our group that they didn’t need or want our business or money. Maybe if they had approached us a little different we would think of them again for future business but after how we were treated we will never be back. It’s a shame that we tried to support a local neighborhood business and they had no interest in working with us as their “neighbors”. It’s not always what you say, it’s how you say it. With the folks in charge at this establishment I’ll be surprised if they are still around in a year. If you are looking for a venue to hold an event don’t even waste your time looking into this place. They don’t return calls or emails, no one knows who is doing what, they just gave us the run around and it was a complete waste...