Summer House

I finally made my first visit to Summer House, which will probably surprise a lot of my friends. My wife and I stopped in for lunch and sat at the bar.

The bartender was handling around eight customers while also trying to keep up with bar duties and side work. Overall, the service was okay, but there were a few stretches where he disappeared completely and several people at the bar were looking around wondering where he went.

I ordered the farmhouse burger after hearing a lot of people recommend it, while my wife had the BLT with a cup of soup. The food came out fairly quickly and everything was good. The burger was solid, though I would not personally rank it as the best burger I’ve ever had. One thing that stood out was the pricing. The farmhouse burger alone was $19, which felt a bit high for lunch. No wonder everyone talks about going on half priced burger night.

Overall, though, it was a good lunch stop and I’d come back again to try some of the other items on the menu.

Came 2 nights in a row because our experience the first night was amazing. Our servers, Chris, and Ava, and tonight Anna. The burgers were to die for and the Sea scallops over risotto. Tonight I had the Steak Frites and two of our party got the burgers. No one was disappointed. Last night we truly enjoyed the service and tonight our server was spot on with her recommendations. If anyone needs a fabulous place to eat and super great service… So, we came back for the servers Ava and Chris. But unfortunately we got seated in a different area, which was super disappointing because they were both so fun… Very attentive. Come here and Ask for Ava or Chris, you won’t be disappointed….

I went with a party of 9, including a baby. I know bigger parties are sometimes hard, but we were not difficult.
I went in solo to make sure they could seat our larger party ahead of time. There were three hostesses at the front. I asked if they could seat us, and one hostess told us yes. The other one chimed in and said no, the table was taken/reserved. The hostesses then went back and forth and blamed each other for a mistake while I was standing at the stand, waiting for a yes or no. They eventually told me it’d be a 45 minute wait. Which was fine. We ended up only waiting about 15 minutes.
Once we were in and seated (directly in front of the host stand), I was holding my son, who was screaming. I was holding him while we waited for a highchair, while all three hostesses stood at the host stand, messing around and doing TikTok dances. I had to go up and asked them for a highchair. They told me they didn’t have any high chairs left and just gave me a booster seat with no straps, which was clearly too big for my son. I tried to have him sit in the seat anyways instead of complaining. I know it’s not their fault that they were out of high chairs. But we couldn’t make the booster seat work, so I approached them AGAIN and asked if there was any other high chairs to use because the booster was too big. They told me no, they only have two high chairs and they were both being used by one party. I told them if we didn’t get a highchair, he would fall and hurt himself because the booster was simply too big. They ended up giving us the highchair they use for the bar. It was a little tall for our regular table, but I was just glad we got a high chair for him. What kind of restaurant at the beach, where families go all the time, only has two high chairs?? I was only offered an alternative when I told them he would hurt himself.
Our server only came to our table THREE TIMES. For our drinks, for our order, and when we were rapping up. We didn’t get any refills except at the very end. She came to the table and said “okay guys what do we need?”. She knew she was gone for too long. None of the kids or adults got any refills, we only had our (very little) cups of whatever drink we initially ordered. Our kids were crying for something else to drink after a long, hot day. I ordered the crab and shrimp Alfredo. There was plenty of crab in there, but only three shrimps. The dish was $34. Three shrimps with the tails still on, I had to go through and pick the tails off. I shouldn’t be paying $34 for a dish that only comes with 3 shrimps with the tails STILL ON.
While the food was good, the service was HORRIBLE. We only saw our server 3 times, the hostesses at the front weren’t bad, but it was super unprofessional to argue in front of a guest, and to stand there and play around when they knew we needed a highchair. And again, only having two regular high chairs at a popular boardwalk restaurant is just crazy to me. I know it’s not the hostesses fault, but there’s no reason a restaurant at a family beach only has two high chairs. Also the music was super loud, which was annoying.