McCormick & Schmick’s- Atlantic City, NJ
Located in Harrah’s Casino, this chain restaurant looks like it would be a great stop for lunch or dinner, but looks can be deceiving. If you want to pay high prices for food and service that just doesn’t deliver, than go to McCormick & Schmick’s.
The location in Atlantic City was my first dining experience at a McCormick & Schmick’s location. I was excited to dine here to start off my night in Atlantic City. We had reservations for 6:00 PM. At this time, the restaurant is not overly packed. I’m just going to preface this by saying this was one of the worst dining experiences I’ve ever had from the food all the way to the customer service. My drinks were good, but it took forever to get them! My first drink came 20 minutes after I ordered it. I was hesitant to order a second drink because I felt it would get to me by dessert time. Terrible! Paul’s dirty martini needed to be sent back because it tasted like straight up olive juice. Additionally, the bartender put the pick with the olives in upside down. If you are trying to be a higher end restaurant, that cannot be a mistake the bartender makes. I will touch on that drink catastrophe more in the customer service portion of this review.
Let’s start with the food. We ordered a dozen of the Connecticut Blue Point oysters to start along with our calamari “Fritto Misto” appetizer. The oysters were poorly shucked, and there was barely any oyster in there! We paid $2.50 per oyster for large shells and that was about it. The calamari was very good, but it took forever to come. It came with a roasted tomato sauce and lemon aioli. Four our meals, I had the shrimp and Andouille “mac & cheese” and Paul had the filet and stuffed shrimp. The mac & cheese was pretty good. It was very filling, and I could not fish it, but the flavor was good. The filet was OK. A little overcooked, but definitely edible; nothing mind blowing here. The shrimp was just OK. The crab meat inside the stuffed shrimp was not as fresh as it could’ve been. Whether this was just a bad night for them or not, consistency is key. The seasonal cheesecake for dessert was very good and creamy and the crème brulee was very good as well.
The atmosphere gives off the vibe that this restaurant is higher end, and I guess the prices would make one think that as well, but it’s not. At the end of the day, the atmosphere is just average.
Customer service is absolutely awful. Did I mention it was AWFUL? It took our waitress 20 minutes to greet us after we were seated. First mistake! We should be greeted within five minutes and have water brought to us at the least! Then when we placed our drink orders, as I mentioned earlier, our cocktails took 20 minutes to come. Paul’s needed to be sent back after that long wait. Our appetizer took forever to come as well. Can you say slow service? After the appetizer took forever to come, our meals followed the same pattern! I wanted to order another drink but was hesitant because of the slow service. I did not want my cocktail to come out with my dessert, but wanted to have another one over dinner. I ended up ordering my second drink right when we got our meals. Sure enough, my cocktail came at the end of my meal. We finally decided to complain to the manager who nonchalantly said, “do you want a different waiter?” No thanks because we were pretty much done with dinner! Last thoughts were to get myself to the craps table… 🙂
