Miki M.
Yelp
Visited The Schooner twice within the last 6 weeks (drove in from Portland). First time, food was pretty good- maybe not world class but decent. Second time, yesterday (Sunday before Independence Day), food and service were the epitome of mediocrity.
Not planning to make this a very long review but let me give examples. Ordered a full dozen of oysters ($44, which is kind of inflated, but fine considering location so close to the ocean). Oysters were great the first time, during Memorial weekend; nicely shucked, well arranged, clean, arrived fast, polite attentive service by our male server. We even got extra sauces and those mandatory small forks for the oysters. During yesterday's fiasco, the oysters hadn't been washed at all (dirt / sand / goo was left on our fingers after holding, and that felt careless, really unpleasant); oysters were just randomly slapped onto badly laid out wet ice, with some oysters not even horizontal and this much of their natural juices had already flowed out of the half shell... we ate first oysters, all of us started spitting sharp pieces of shell that were broken off and left on top of the oysters.. we spent some time spitting, trying to remove sharp shells out of our mouths. Took some pix to show you... Also, oysters were not as fresh as the first time, some felt like starting to develop bitter "chemically" flavor, which happens when oyster is already aging after harvesting.
Another thing I wanted to comment on is the service. We all know that service can either make or break a restaurant! The Schooner's service is like a textbook illustration of that... I mentioned that young male server who assisted us the first time. He was really good! But.. actually, he was a substitute for a lady with ponytail, who was clearly "too busy" to help us... we waited at least 25min for her to make time for our table, and only then, the male server took over and saved the day (saved their face). Well, guess what? Second visit, we again got seated at a table assigned to that same lady. And, guess what (again)? She walked by a few times, saw we were seated, and ignored us for a long while. I saw her chat with the ladies at the front, who usher people... also she had forgotten to write the wine to our order, so another colleague of hers ended up helping us get some wine.
One last thing. At least two of our water glasses had pink lipstick residue on the edges, so because of this, we ended up not drinking any water at all. I wiped all the utensils to make sure they are as clean as possible before eating...
Anyway, the whole time during our experience at The Schooner, our family felt amazed that these guys are even able to survive; perhaps what keeps them afloat is their magical location (walking distance to the beautiful Netarts landing / bay...) plus there is little to no competition in the area. So technically The Schooner doesn't need to really try harder to maintain a great consistent experience- they are already pretty desirable and maybe most visitors will try to turn a blind eye to the screaming imperfections, and just look at the bay and enjoy the pint of beer (hopefully in a glass with no lipstick). I wasn't even sure if I should say anything. I am far from any desire to affect a local business negatively. But then, since I paid almost $240 for bad service and a dozen oysters with sharp shell bits in them (good thing we didn't swallow), and some other goodies that were fairly decent... maybe it's still a good idea for me to mention my impressions as experienced foodie, in case if this business does actually care to read reviews from patrons... of course, this can only work if the business representative reading this is somebody other than that lady with the ponytail. I don't want any of your staff to be "in trouble", but I do want them to experience some personal / professional growth and get better in what they do. I will even be happy to remove my honest review if I receive a message from the business assuring me that they will train their servers and chefs (and that shucker who didn't wash oysters and left sharp pieces of shell in them for us to ingest!!!) and help them learn and improve.
Let's raise the bar, the quality of Oregon's restaurant scene. We are an amazing state. Let's match our immense natural beauty with culinary beauty & service excellence.