Eddie O'Briens

We visited Eddie O'Briens restaurant in Canandaigua, NY for my boyfriend's birthday.  There were 4 adults in our party.

The menu states "FRESH haddock".  When the waitress came over to take our orders, I asked her to be sure - this is FRESH haddock, right?  Not frozen?  She said no, it's fresh.  So, I ordered the Fish 'n' shrimp, with scallops.   I absolutely love seafood, so I was excited to try their fish.

When our order finally arrived, I was shocked at what my dish looked like.  The scallops were burnt, there were 3 pieces of shrimp, and most importantly, my "fresh" haddock looked like a piece of cardboard.  It was completely FLAT.  I picked the entire piece up with 2 fingers, it was solid as a rock.  There was NO WAY this was fresh.  My scallops were so burnt,  I had to remove the burnt breading and just ate the scallops inside.

I eat fish fry's all the time. The entire slab of what they called fish, was about 1/2 an inch thick, and completely flat.  The entire piece.

I took ONE small bite of the fish, and it was DISGUSTING.  My boyfriend called the waitress over, which took forever to get her to come to our table.   We told her how bad the fish was, and she gave us these excuses:

   "I don't eat fish, so I don't know what fresh fish looks like"
   "The fish is usually fresh, they must have run out and used old frozen stuff"
   "I promise you, it's usually fresh and usually doesn't look like that"

Ummm, ok.  Well, it DOES look like this now, and it DOES taste worse than cardboard, so what are you going to do about it?  You could tell she was annoyed at the situation with us, and was borderline rude to us.  She asked me if I wanted something else, but by this time, everyone else at the table was finished eating, and I didn't want them to wait for them to cook me something else and then sit there and watch me eat.  So I told her I didn't want anything else, but I wasn't paying for my meal.  She said "I will take a little off your bill" and walked away.  My mom also asked for a box to bring home the rest of her burger.   It took her over 15 minutes to bring the box.

When we FINALLY got our bill, she took off $5.  My meal was $14.99.  I ate 3 little pieces of shrimp, and 4 pieces of scallops that I had to take the breading off of because they were burnt.  I couldn't eat the fish whatsoever.  We all argued with her that taking $5 off was NOT sufficient, as I could not eat my meal.  We asked for a manager and she told us "there is no manager".  We continued to tell her that taking $5 off our bill was not good enough.  She said she would see what she could do, and again walked away.

We waited... waited... and waited some more.  Another 15 minutes or so, and my boyfriend finally went to the bar and asked where our bill was.  She told him they were on the phone with a manager and trying to figure out what to do.

A different girl came back to our table, and said she took another $5 off our bill, but that's the best they could do, because "they are really funny about voids on the register".  She also made the comment "well you did eat some of your food".    Seriously?  I ate the very few bites on my plate that were edible!  She was a little snotty too.  She tells us "no one else has ever complained about the fish before."  (mind you, our waitress told us she's never seen the fish look like that before).  There were all young kids working in there - one reason I'm sure why the service was so bad.  They were not budging on the $10 off, she even said she spoke to the manager on the phone and she said to just give us $10 off, that's it.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, our waitress came over to give us her apology, but it was obvious the only reason was so she would get a tip.

So apparently, they would rather lose 4 customers here than comp my disgusting meal they placed in front of me.  And that's just what they did.  Had they been professional about this, and done the right thing, we would continue to dine at Eddie O'Briens.  But I can tell you that NONE of the 4 of us will ever step foot in another Eddie O'Briens restaurant again.  They lost us as customers, and the potentional customers of everyone we tell about our horrible service and food at their restaurant.   And as a blogger, I intend to tell everyone I know.

Want proof of my review?  I even show pics on my blog post here:  <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbargainhoundblog.com%2Freview-of-eddie-obriens-restaurant-in-canandaigua-ny-fail&s=140bcd2c6356052a9727f3eeee522eb56143d381b324f5eccb4f3609d66cf4b8" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bargainhoundblog.…</a>

I was a little nervous to visit this restaurant because of the negative yelp reviews, but my family said it was great, and there were only a few reviews, so I got over it.

When you enter the restaurant, it is very busy, so clearly a lot of people enjoy this place.  It seems to have a good bar vibe, although I felt that everyone was staring at me when I entered, which made me feel like an outsider.  Don't really have an explanation for this???  I did like the sports bar atmosphere.  They had a lot of cool unique items for different sports teams, which I appreciated.

The food:
Nachos- huge plate of nachos with everything was a great share for the four people.  
Chicken Salad Sandwich- eh, very unimpressed with this, and I didn't even finish my sandwich.  
French fries- these were fantastically seasoned and perfectly crispy.  

Basically, I would come here as a bar, but probably not for dinner again.  There are probably better things on the menu, but I'd rather not experiment.

Stopped by last week for a meal.  Got rave reviews from family who I was visiting so thought to check it out.  A little worried after the reviews on yelp but I trust family.  

Had a $1.50 Blue Light which is a steal compared to home in NYC.  Ordered the Jack Daniel's Cajun Creole Chicken sandwich.  Was pretty good and tasty.  A little dry but the red pepper creole mayo was good to dip in.  Could taste the smoky flavors and the cheese on top made it good.  The best part was their french fries.  Wow they were good.  I'd stop by just for the fries.  Seasoned, well fried and not too overdone but crispy.  I'd love to have some of those again.  We also all shared the nachos which were good and plentiful.  Good to share among four people.  

I'd recommend this place for good bar food and a place to watch a game.  I don't know if I'd want to try any fancy foods, as this is probably not a place that specializes in it but it has a long bar, lots of tv's and is definitely sports themed.  Given the option, I'd consider stopping in again for food and drinks.