Kay's Dairy Bar — Restaurant in Westminster

So, perhaps I should have known that something was wrong with Kay's when I drove by today. There were no specials listed on the outside sign. None on the chalkboard inside, either. Hmm. And a long line. But I usually like the seafood at Kay's. I stopped. More bad signs: someone at the window was loudly complaining that her server had charged her $9.99 for the $6.95 clam strip special "because she wasn't paying attention" The woman next to me tried to pick up her super-sized coke in a crappy styrofoam cup and it disintegrated, dumping coke all over her. Kay's was out of napkins, just had a bathroom dispenser roll of brown paper toweling to help her clean up the mess. But I stayed in line.

I ordered the large size of Fish & Chips, $12.99, and Oysters and Onion Rings, $16.99, and 3 smoothie specials @ $1.99 ea. All fine, I got the smoothies (strawberry/banana) and went out and waited for the rest. I was #482. #481 came up, and 483, 484...and about 20 minutes after I put in my order I went to ask what became of my order...I told the girl that my order never got submitted to the fry-cooks at a recent visit and I wanted her to make sure that did not happen again. She went back to confer and came out and said that it was cooking, almost ready..."sorry, sorry, sorry".

#485, 486, 487, 488, 489...20 minutes later I was getting climbed on by other waiting customer's kids...I went to the window and asked again...what was causing the delay? I wanted to ask as whatever it was, I would not order that again. She again went back .."it is a lot of food, it takes time". What? 2 plates, "Sorry, sorry, sorry" she sounded hysterical with the sorries.

More orders came out. #490, 491, 492, 493, 494, 495, 496...I was paying attention now, people were complaining about omissions, wrong orders 1 burger instead of 2. Condiments, forks missing. No napkins...but they were out of napkins, just had that roll of rough brown paper toweling to provide. A woman came up to ask what happened to the frappe she ordered 1/2 hour ago.

I asked a man with a watch for the time, It was 2:05. The time on my receipt was 1:07. So I went to the window for the third time to ask what happened to my order. A different woman went to investigate, came out and with no explanation, asked if I wanted my money back or a free ice cream? "So what happened to my order?"

She finally admitted it never got put in. "We have ancient electronics" she offered as an explanation. Um...no more ancient than the last time this happened to me...and they had all winter to update, or go back to another form of order transferal. Apparently it was someone's first day. No excuse...I had asked specifically if my order had been lost AGAIN, 3/4 of an hour before. "Well they assumed that your order was the one they had been working on" Oh geezzzz....that is just lame.

Anyway, they finally put my order in, it took about 7 minutes to cook. I ended up wasting an hour and a half at Kay's because of gross incompetence. But of course when I got home with it, everyone had given up waiting for me and had gone off and done other things. Cold fish, yuck.

If I had run that restaurant, I would have given the customer her money back AND the meal. But I got nothing, just an offer of a free soft serve ice-cream (I'd prefer cold fish). Major Fail. I still like their fish...though I noticed that the prices are rising and the sizes are shrinking... but not sure I want to risk going to Kay's again after this repeat experience...with the added bonus of the server not being bright enough to listen to me when I asked her to make sure this was not a repeat performance fail of the order not getting submitted. Totally unacceptable. And as you may imagine, I was too PO'd to eat when I finally...

Feeling strain of the current economy and policies from our administration, I felt that it was time to try a fried seafood joint with prices that were a bit more affordable - especially compared to Kimball Farm.

Located in Westminster, MA this places feels pretty out of the way compared to many other destination restaurants. Alternatively, I guess it's pretty cool that a damn good seafood shack is available if you live way out here.

This place is totally loaded with parking spots. Although when I arrived, it was pretty busy and I still had to do a single circle around to find a spot.

Outside, there is the typical long line waiting to order ice cream. I did not get any this trip, so I don't have any comment. You must go inside if you want to order the fried foods.

Inside is pretty minimal. There are small tables along the side of the walls if you and one other person want to eat inside. The central area is clear, and of course you order at the counter. The cashier was nice made sure to double-check if everything was ordered right. The wait times though, were not so great. It took 35min from the time of ordering to finally receive my food. I guess there were about 5 orders before me, but that's still quite the long wait.

I ordered:

Double-Stuffed Lobster Roll $31.99. Oh man, at first look, this bad boy is loaded! It's a Maine-style lobster roll, so it's served cold and mayonnaisey on a lightly toasted New England-style hotdog bun. I'm not quite sure if I agree with filling the bottom of the bun with shredded lettuce. I think it dilutes the flavor of the lobster (lettuce is mostly water!), and it also feels like a shady tactic to make it look fuller than it is - like a food commercial.

Scallop and Whole Belly Clam Combo $27.99. At first glance, the serving size is a little disappointing when directly compared to Kimball Farm's "Pick Two Seafood Combo" but I have to remind myself that their equivalent combo would've been $41.45 / $49.95 (depending on the size). With that in mind, this is a fair portion, and actually it's a lot better if you don't want to feel totally stuffed and lethargic. The fries, coleslaw, and tartar sauce are all exactly what you've had before. No comments. The whole belly clams were yummy, but there weren't many huge pieces I'm accustomed to. The scallops were perfection! The batter was perfectly lightly seasoned, and the scallops were still moist with every bite, even after waiting to eat it at home.

Big fan of this place, and I'll totally come back here to try out the ice cream. This might be my new favorite scallop place if the quality...

Went to Kay's for an anniversary lunch with my husband of 29 years today. We don't go very often because we live in Holden and it's quite a hike to get there. In honor of our 29 years and because today was the first REAL beautiful weather day of 2022, we decided to venture out for seafood. I got fried clams, onion rings and a bottle of water while my husband got the Captains Platter with french fries and an iced tea. His dinner included fried clams, scallops, shrimp, haddock bites and lobster. The plate was large and full!! French fries were served in a separate tray. My fried clams were abundant and shared the plate with an oversized amount of onion rings and cole slaw. I'll be honest, with inflation being what it is, the prices of EVERYTHING increasing every day, I was expecting to pay a pretty hefty price for the dinner. I was NOT expecting to pay the $78.00 we were charged, but after receiving our meals I totally understood the cost and was a bit surprised that we weren't charged more. I ate maybe 5 delicious onion rings and all but 4 of my whole belly clams and my husband, (who HATES not getting his money's worth and never leaves his food unfinished) didn't even taste a French fry and left a few pieces of haddock. All in all it was a wonderful afternoon. We were probably there for 90 minutes and 40 minutes of that was spent waiting for our lunch after ordering. Needless to say, we totally enjoyed ourselves. The weather was perfect, the food was fantastic, clientele was very friendly and I can't wait to visit Kay's Dairy...