Duffy's Tavern — Restaurant in West Haven

This was my favorite place in west haven. Always had good food and good service. I've been for lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch. Last visit was on a Saturday night. The place was pretty full. The waitress was slow. Took awhile for her to take our drink order, we ordered drinks and asked for water...never saw the water. More time passes she comes to take our appetizer order, we still haven't received our drinks. Finally our drinks come out and she says let me take your dinner order now since it's taking so long to get your appetizers. More time passes, I've finished my drink and she asks if I'd like another. Second drink comes out but still no food. More time passes she brings a small plate with a few rolls. Finish that then finally our apps came out. Potato skins and a quesadilla, not a hard thing to make and the skins were pretty burnt. Shortly after our salads came out and I'm ordering a 3rd drink...finish our salad and again we are waiting. Watching other waitresses hustling around, checking on their tables frequently. We've been there for over an hour and a half at this point. We go to the bathroom and run into a manager, she was very nice and apologetic but at this point we want to leave. We had a show to catch and by no means figured our dinner would be hours long. Still hadn't seen our food or our absent waitress. We asked for the check and to cancel our food. We were told a round of drinks would be comped. It was explained that the cook was new, first day and slow...maybe a Saturday was not the best day to start. I give 3 stars because normally I'm more than happy with the place. But the icing on the cake was when the waitress finally gave us our check she said you know everyone else had to wait a long time tonight too. We still left her a small tip...but my tip is...if you have such a situation where the cook is new and food is coming out slow. Be a more attentive waitress, we never even got our water if you weren't serving food how busy were you that you couldn't stop at the table apologize for the wait...anything. Disappointed, first negative review...

Wow what a huge disappointment. We visited Duffy's on March 30, 2019, we were a party of 9 with reservations for 6:00pm. A number of us have been to Duffy's in the past and have always had great food and great service, this time was pretty bad. Our server was absolutely horrendous, she was very slow, not responsive and made a number of mistakes. We asked her for waters for several people in the party and a glass of ice for another person in the party, it took her over twenty minutes to get the waters and the ice and that was after being reminded at least once. One of party members ordered a seafood combo dinner and he never received his soup or salad and didn't realize until later in the meal that it was supposed to come with a soup or salad by then he said to forget it. She also did not ask him what side he wanted until approximately 20 to 25 minutes after we placed our dinner order. We asked for another round of drinks and she had forgotten about them so she had to order them after the glasses on our table sat empty for quite some time. Filet mignon was ordered medium rare and came out of the kitchen well done (like a hockey puck well done) We flagged down another waitress that had been helping ours and she brought it back to be cooked right. After everyone at the table was done with their food we still had not received the filet back. In all that time our waitress never once checked on us. Finally we flagged the other waitress down again and told her to cancel the order and have our waitress remove it from the bill. And the list goes on... It's such a shame because we really like it there. And to top it all off this was a birthday dinner for one of the members of our party and it just was not a good way to celebrate. And needless to say we didn't stay for dessert, coffee and dessert cocktails. And it will be a long time before we give it another try if we give it...

I recently moved to West Haven down the street from this place, and everyone has constantly told me to try out Duffy's. Considering it's so close to my apartment and I've lived here since July, it was about time I checked this place out. I predict as well that it will also be a frequent place I visit.

My roommate came with me, and we both got sandwiches and gave each other half of what we ordered. Her favorite sandwich to order is the French Dip, and I got the Lobster Grilled Cheese. I also got the beer battered black and tan onion rings with my sandwich. I greatly enjoyed both sandwiches and the onion rings. I also ordered a chocolate peanut butter pie piece for dessert and greatly enjoyed that as well.

The food was excellent and the atmosphere was very friendly and nice too. 4 stars is because my roommate started coming down with a stuffy nose (either allergies or a head cold) and was ready to leave, and our waitress seemed to take a very long time to get our check and return it (she was very speedy the rest of the night, but as it slowed down she did too and it was at a horrible time for our table). Other than that, will definitely...