Chart House

Reviews 3

OM

Omar Abdelfattah

The location makes you want to fall in love with the restaurant, because the view is fantastic. Unfortunately, both the food and the service were absolute garbage. I have been a member of Landrys (the company that owns Chart House and other restaurants) for a long time and I have never experienced such a terrible experience. I was in a hurry, so I phoned-in an order for takeout. A bowl of lobster bisque, and a mixed seafood grill. That is all I wanted -- a soup starter and my dinner. The rude hostess who answered the phone said it would be 40 minutes. I didnt ask why it would take so long, and I showed up 45 minutes later. The hostess just pointed to the bartender and told me that he handled to-go orders. The bartender then pointed at the hostess and told me to ask her. The hostess then again told me to ask the bartender, who shook his head and told me he didnt have anything. I was running around like a headless chicken trying to find my order so I could be on my way. The manager stops me and asks if I had been helped. No, I havent. She then tells me that my order wasnt even in and for the inconvenience, she would comp my lobster bisque. No attempt to figure out why the person I talked to didnt enter my order in the first place. If I had the time to wait that whole time, why would I have chosen to take out instead of enjoying the view? Anyway, the food comes about 30 minutes later. They dont have to-go silverware... When I got home, I realized that they gave me the wrong order. Some sort of tilapia (which was awful) and creamed spinach (which was good but not what I ordered). I call the next day, and another manager starts arguing with me, telling me that he wasnt the manager on duty and so he cant verify what happened. I told him I had the receipt. It didnt matter. He wanted me to file a formal complaint with their corporate office. Wtf? Your restaurant screwed up and I have to work to fix it? I then asked if I could wait for the manager who was on duty to come in so I can talk to her. He said yes. Okay, so why didnt he just suggest that in the first place? I am already an annoyed customer because my order was late, and wrong. Why make it worse? Anyway, I called for the third time and the real manager told me she thought she heard me order the tilapia, but yeah, I can come and get the right order now. (They had my number but didnt call me to tell me this. I had to call and be put on hold for 10 minutes.) Great, now I can go get my dinner and bisque and we can forget about all that happened earlier. I arrive. AGAIN, THEY DIDNT INPUT MY ORDER! So AGAIN, I had to wait 45 minutes for my food to come out. And they didnt give me another lobster bisque because I already received it the day before albeit with the wrong dinner. But they did give me a dessert, after I asked them for one. In any event, the food was not good even if everything had gone the way it should have. The fish was very fishy and tasted old. The shrimp was overdone. The salmon was okay, but I have had better. Even their lava cake dessert was really dry. The lobster bisque was good. Its just not the kind of food you spend at least $50 per person on.

EM

Emma England

This is hard for me to write as my family and I have been fans of the Chart House for years, but unfortunately after events that transpired last Saturday we will never be returning to this establishment. I have also never written a negative review, nor a review this long, but I feel others need to be warned. We had reservations at 7, but ended up getting there about 20 minutes early, so we just checked in with the hostess to let her know we were there and that we would wait in the bar until our reservation rolled around. Its a nice restaurant with an ocean view, so obviously its going to be busy and we are accustomed to waiting longer than usual wait times to be seated. Our reservation time comes and goes as parties who are coming in are immediately getting seated, despite having arrived significantly after us. Eventually 7:30 hits, a solid half an hour after our reservation time (and almost an hour after our initial arrival), so my mother decided to check in at the hostess stand to see what our progress was. The manager smirked at her and asked if she needed to be taught how to hostess because she clearly didnt understand how it worked. We were all in disbelief at how rude he was being, so my mother tried to laugh it off and we sat back down in the waiting area. Its worth noting at this point that my mother approached the manager instead of the hostess, whose name was Cassidy, because the hostess had been extremely rude at several points after we arrived. Another 20 minutes go by, now almost an entire hour past our reservation time, and the manager starts to walk past our group. My father decides to try to ask how our table is coming and says, "Excuse me" to get the managers attention. The manager ignores him and keeps walking past us so my father reached out to tap his shoulder and say excuse me once more, just in case the manager hadnt heard him the first time. The second my fathers fingertip brushed against the manager, the manager whirls around and screams "DONT YOU EVER TOUCH ME! DO! NOT! TOUCH! ME!" And continues screaming at my father not to move and for the hostess to go fetch the general manager. We were extremely frightened and bewildered. My father asked the manager what his name was and he said "I dont have a name." (His name was later revealed to be Christopher). When the general manager arrives, we explain what has happened, and the GM was rightfully confused as to why the manager had acted this way and apologized, saying he would speak with both Christopher and Cassidy, but offered no reason or justification for what had just happened. Just quietly led us to a table in the back of the restaurant. In 25 years I have never been treated so poorly at a restaurant. It was traumatizing, to say the least, and we had a young child with us who was so scared and upset by the behavior of both the hostess and manager that he couldnt even eat his meal. If you dont like your dinner with a side of screaming and humiliation, I suggest you dont go to the Chart House.

KI

Kirk Perry

8-7-2014 • Over-priced... because the Chart House, like most dining-out.... is UNDER-STAFFED (except for a cluster of black dressed ladies converging around the check-in podium). And yes, to echo another reviewers sentiment, the lady in black at reservations has a special glint of infliction in her eyes - when she informs you that your reservation will be delayed, unless you opt for the first table that becomes open near your reservation time. Why not re-position a few ladies in black, by putting aprons on them or make servers out of them when the "help" doesnt show up for work? How long do your wait for dried-out local Sea Bass? As long as youll wait to get your water glass re-filled. Chart House needs a roving "water-only waiter" to keep glasses full. We cancelled the lobster bisque as the evening wore-on. My salad was chopped bite-size (easy to fork) with house balsamic, however the plate (visually appearing as unwashed?) had the balsamic oil coating the entire plate, which combined with a 3" single curved brown hair at the top margin of the saucer-bowl would have been enough to scare-off the unseasoned traveler, but rather than notify our over-worked waiter and delay dinner any longer, neither of us complained until now. We left a 15%+ tip for Adam. So ask him about the dining conditions and how much sea bass was left on the plate. The blackened-halibut was perfect. The squaw-rolls should be sold in a hot-bag to take home to eat in the car while driving. The serving staff are running non-stop down stair treads to a split level kitchen, and the stations fill-up quickly after 6:30 when each server begins running behind on their orders. Makes dining-out like...work! Next time?........Next time were eating at Las Olas across the street, or sit on the deck at Kis. Weve never had a bad fajita-combo plate. And the service is relatively fast at both. This Chart House experience reminded us of the Beach House food-service attitude before they closed. Too many people now live in North County, and not enough fine-dining restaurants that employ enough staff for the people they serve. It makes dining an ordeal and you wonder why you went out of the house at all. Try a Monday or Tuesday night, when hopefully theres not a lot of "camp-ground" diners attending, but its not the same "Chart House" that Joey Cabell developed. Its been a Lowerys for a long time now. Note: Window tables are on a first come, first served basis. So, your 6:30 reservation will most likely be delayed for an hour, unless you asked to be seated at the first available table - in which case, do not sit at the two-person table next to the northern back window over the flower bed. Theres a blasting air duct from the floor that runs up the western chair, and some of the flooring is caving, so when Adam comes striding through the aisle, the floor gives-way and youll rock like a boat. Bon Appetit !