E.R. Bradley's Restaurant and Bar

Useful? +0

What can I say….it was so unbelievable bad. After a fine day at the Art fair a group of three of us decided to go to Bradleys for a late lunch. We were seated by a nice young hostess who seemed a little stressed out. Well we sat and sat and sat, no one advanced our table and we could get no servers to meet our eye contact. We all watched in amusement at servers walking around the outdoor area with trays of food going from table to table asking customers if the food was theirs. We finally got the attention of the hostess and asked if we had a server in our area. After another short wait the waiter arrived and said he would be right back. Finally our food order was taken, two hamburgers, one rare, one medium rare an order of calamari, a cup of lobster bisque soup and three ice waters with lemon. Someone tossed a bread basket on the table but we had to wait another five minutes for the butter. The soup came hot and was tasty and passed as lobster bisque. The food came up amazingly fast for hamburgers and although I ordered calamari I was in wonderment on how they could cook a medium rare hamburger and get it to the table in less than four minutes. Well we found out…..both hamburgers were cooked well done, no pink, so it was obvious they cook their hamburgers in advance and sling them on the grill to warm them up. The calamari was well done as well, a dark brown chewy rubbery mess. The only way to describe the marinara sauce to anyone would be to ask them to imagine eating catsup with rotting tomato hunks and no spice, the other sauce resembled a spoiled sour cream milky substance with too much dry mustard a touch grained mustard and no other spice. This sauce left a dry pungent taste in your mouth that was unsettling.

As we were all starving we decided we would eat what we could of the food. We chose not to send the food back and at that point we were not looking for items to be removed from the bill…it was our choice to eat it. We did mention to the server though about the over cooked and undesirable food. He was very apologetic and took it upon himself to get the manager.

That’s when things really went out of control! The manager told us he would take one hamburger off the bill but then proceeded to give us a lecture on how Bradleys has been there for twenty some years and how they never get complaints on food and that’s why they have been in business so long, he was cocky and condescending in his approach and wanted to make it clear that there was something wrong with us not them. We became upset by this attack and commented on the bad sauces and food and how the person responsible should be demoted. The Manager then proceeded to start yelling and screaming saying how dare We personally attack HIS chef and HIS restaurant and how he has been a manager in HIS restaurant for nine years and how he never gets complains on HIS food. He then told us never to come back to HIS restaurant. Well no fear of that, we are not tourists (not that that would excuse his behavior) one in our group has lived here her whole life and the rest since 1978, there are other places to go.

What a shame that a near the water restaurant (we have so few) had such poor management. The servers were all nice but didn’t seem to have any training; they didn’t know where any of the food was going from the kitchen or how to at least acknowledge a table when arriving. The manager was never looking to see that the dining area was running smoothly. The manager was completely negligent in food quality and had the worst customer communication skills we have ever witnessed in our lives.

Flag if inappropriate