Cooleys Restaurant & Pub

Cooley's has gone downhill.  When we first moved to Fuquay, we enjoyed it well enough.  The food, for the most part, was pretty standard with the exception of a couple of standouts like their she crab soup.  The prices were reasonable and the service was friendly.  Since moving to the new location, however, things have changed for the worse.  Prices have gone up. Portions and policies have gotten stingy.  For example, our kids could have juice with their kids meals, but milk would be extra. Something the server pointed out with a bit of attitude. Most notably, the service has become awful.  Our first visit or two we figured we just got unlucky.  However, the poor service has been consistent over several visits now and seeing other recent reviews shows that it isn't just us.

During our most recent visit, the server made a mistake on a piece of fish that we ordered cooked differently than the menu called for.   When we pointed out the error, her retort was that "this is the way it comes".  When we reminded her of the special order she said, "ok, we can fix that."  No apology or acknowledgement of her error, but not a huge deal yet.  Over 15 minutes later she stopped by to tell us it would "just be another minute".  5 minutes later it still hasn't arrived. When we complained that it shouldn't take that long to cook tilapia, she replied with a bit of snark," Well, I want to make sure it's cooked all the way.  You want it cooked all the way through don't you?"  We all looked at each other wondering if we'd actually heard her correctly. At this point we told her not to bother as most of us had finished eating.  No apology was ever offered for the original mistake or the long wait.  While this was an extreme case, it's indicative of the service we've received since they moved to the new building. We won't be going back to test this again any time soon.

I had been wanting to try Cooleys for awhile, but every time I mentioned it I was vetoed and we went elsewhere. Now I know why. While the food is ok, I've had better.  I had the steak and cheese wrap (it was sot of bland) and the person with me had soup of some sort and potato salad, which she really liked.  I also had a small salad and fries, which were good.

The service was fast and friendly, which was a plus. I was expecting more of a bar/fun atmosphere, but it is nothing like that. It does remind me of where people go to eat dinner at 4:00pm like a previous reviewer said. That description was spot-on.

I would go back again and try something different so I'm not totally ruling Cooleys out... yet.

Eh, Cooley's was OK. The food was decent, but the place itself was strange. One of my son's remarked that he thought we were too young to be eating there, and I think he hit the nail on the head. It felt like a place senior citizens go for a 4:00 dinner special.  And the waitress, the waitress really had an attitude. We tried to, "kill her with kindness", but she was having no part of it. Servers who act like they'd rather be anywhere but serving my family really ruin it for me.