Pier 95

Very slow service...good food....

Been going there for years. Excellent food. Excellent service.

Celebrated our 44th on March 27th at 6:30pm...Had a wonderful meal with fantastic service (wish I remembered the waiters name) he was extremely attentive. Would have given it 5 stars but (always a but) the stuffing in the stuffed shrimp was bland. As for the size of the portions, we were stuffed. :o)

I never review places on the internet however I wanted to save other patrons the misery of eating at this establishment.

I took my family of 5 to celebrate our grandmother's 85th birthday to the restaurant. For full disclosure, we did wind up about 20 minutes late for our actual reservation due to logistics of people traveling in from out of town.

The reason I say "actual" is that when I called for the reservation I specifically said 7pm. The person with whom I was speaking asked if I could do 6:30. I said no and he said that was fine. When we called to say we would be a few minutes late, they said we were an hour late. Of course they booked us for a 6:30 reservation.

At the restaurant, they seemed grossly understaffed. There was nobody seating people or even greeting them. I sought out the head waiter and he told me he gave away our reservation but would do his best to accommodate us. I was fine with that, except that we waited 45 minutes for a table. When my girlfriend asked for an appetizer to order to be sent over to the area where we were waiting, she was yelled at by the maitre d and told that they were working on out table and she needed to be patient. Once we were seated, no one came over to the table for another half hour. We didn't even get menus until we asked for them, 30 minutes later.

Once the appetizers came out, after over an hour of waiting and asking multiple times for them, they were cold. As were most of the entrees. This was the first dining experience in which I ever sent numerous dishes back because they were cold.

As for the food itself. The mussels appetizer was excellent. The sauce was light and complex and the mussels themselves were cooked perfect. The calamari was cold and rubbery. The raw oysters were good - not great. They weren't briney at all but were a little fleshy. The clams casino tasted like they had been sitting out all night. The softshell crabs were overcooked, cold and had none of the sauce they were supposedly sauteed in actually on them making them dry. The paella was bland. The risotto which I did not taste also was cold and was forgettable.

When I pulled the waiter aside as to not make a scene in front of the other patrons between courses, he assured me he would make it up to us. He did offer to buy us coffee and dessert but the 3.5 hour ordeal that was dinner left my 85 year old grandmother exhausted and we declined.

I grew up on Long Island and always enjoyed the restaurants in Freeport. Being away for over 10 years I thought it would be a special treat to take everyone out there again. I am sorry that I did. I cannot recommend this restaurant for food, ambiance, or customer service and I would strongly discourage anyone from going there.

We went for a late night dinner to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary. The ambiance was cozy. Service was excellent, you were made to feel special. The food was very good,we will make a return visit.