salt cellar

went this evening and had a more than terrible experience. ws really looking forward to agreatnight for our anniversarymaria was able to get us a reservation at the last minute. thanks. arrived and was seated. ordered drinks with my husband. martinis. only one was brought. asked for blue cheese stuffed olives. they didn't have them but we're able to bring us the cheese (charged us) and the olives. we could stuff them ourselves. had 2 orders of rockefeller. average. then salad. one came with mushrooms (soggy) the other none. but the other had some of the core of the lettuce and some brown lettuce. told tim the waiter. not too concernedmain courses arrive. florida grouper and fried lobster with grits and a small filet. grouper rubbery but then raw in the middle. manager tells me they don't cook their fish all the way. at this point i'm done. was offered a replacement but declined. asked for the bill. grouper removed. gave payment to server who then responds. oh i see it's your anniversary. are you sure you don't want desert? leaving restaurant one of the hosts asked how it was and i said terrible and he chuckled and i said "no seriously " terrible. no one was even concerned. on drive home my husband tells me his lobster was overcooked and no seasoning on the filet. he never uses salt and pepper out but did tonight. one of the worst meals ever.
if you are reading this and thinking of going. think 2 or 3 or even 20 times before going there. bad food. bad service. no customer service

my husband & i were in town for a wedding and heard tons ofgreatreviews., including 2 couples we met on the way in. the food on it's own would rank, at best, 2 on a scale of 10. first let me say, we have no problem dropping money on dinner. the scallops had good flavor but the dish was poorly executed. the shrimp was good, but the cocktail sauce was too hot (the intensity was in line with a quality hot wing, not shrimp). the wellington was ok, but the sauce sat long enough to have a film on it and ruin the puff pastry. as for the baked stuffed lobster, not only was it over cooked to the point of mush, but the ritz cracker stuffing, was suspiciously similar in taste to a quasi gingerbread / cornbread stuffing and there were no scallops in it, as promised in the description. it was the most poorly executed baked lobster ever. when the waiter was notified, we were offered dessert, really? cause that makes up for a $45 dinner that would have been better prepared by hellen keller. the server was incompetent , at best. i have had vastly superior meals at red lobster for less than half the cost. on a bright note, the wine was good and not outlandish in cost.

my grandparents came into town from florida and wanted to go to dinner. their absolute favorite food is seafood and being that they live in a place wheregreatseafood is available everywhere, i wanted to take them someplace that would not disappoint. anytime i have ever asked anyone where to get good seafood at in arizona, the answer has always been the salt cellar.

i want to start off by saying the service staff in every aspect was stellar. we showed up with one more person than we had anticipated and the hostesses were quick to make the last minute accommodation. the ladies in your bar were so sweet, and our server was amazing.

in regards to the food, my sister and i ordered oysters on the half shell, which were the best we have ever had. my mom got the crab stuffed shrimp and really enjoyed it. my sister and i also split the crab legs and filet. unfortunately, this is where things take a different direction. crab legs were great, but the medium filet was not seasoned at all and was chewy. my fifteen year old son got the filet and shrimp. he liked the shrimp, but said the steak was not good, and he usually likes, and will pretty much eat everything with no complaints. my grandfather's fish was overcooked, and my grandmother's fried shrimp was soggy. we had cold veggies on our plates that tasted like they were warm at one time, but had sat out for quite awhile.

let me just say, money is not the issue here. our bill was 317 dollars after tip, for an average of about 53 dollars per person. totally reasonable for agreatmeal. when it comes to amazing food, service and atmosphere i would pay double that. i do realize this is a seafood restaurant, however for the amount of money that is being charged i would expect to leave feeling that everything was amazing. i originally thought about going to the keg which is similarly priced. i have ordered different steak and seafood dishes there many times and each time said to my husband, "oh my god. i loved every part of that dinner!" however, i wanted to take my grandparents to a local restaurant and not a chain restaurant that they could go to anytime in florida. after hearing thegreatthings about this restaurant, i decided to take a chance and go here instead. i was honestly so surprisingly disappointed and to be frank, embarrassed that i suggested it. it was just, eh. everyone left saying "it was ok, but not great." my mom and sister who also live here said it was totally not what they had expected.

i did not want to tell the server about this in front of my whole family when he asked how everything was, not to mention we were in a hurry and could not have had our dinners remade at that time had they offered. so i decided to return home and email the manager. in her response she just proceeded to tell me that the issue is their food supplier and not the preparation. she made absolutely no attempts to regain our service. i would have given this restaurant at least three stars but after receiving her reply bumped it down to a 1.

we had dinner there last week. as always it was awesome. started out with the crab cakes and steamers. i had steak and lobster and my boyfriend had crab legs which the server cracked open for us. we have always had agreattime dining here and the food has always been great. the servers are always very friendly. this is definitely one of our favorite places to go for special occasions.

i have dined at the salt cellar about 30 times. four of us went to dinner and had a couple entrees, dinner, and dessert. the service,foor, and drinks were all amazing. have the yako tuna, halibut with lemon caper butter or crab legs. all wonderfully prepared. all of the servers are nice and professional, the atmosphere is romantic, and the food awesome. keep up thegreatwork salt cellar and we will keep coming back.

salt cellar used to begreat- about 15 years ago. the only thing they have worth going for is clam chowder or if there is a tornado in phx... everything else seems like from freezer or worse. they don't even have real iced tea! what kind of seafood restaurant doesn't have brewed iced tea!? in az?!?!! everything is bland, tasteless & super duper overpriced. & the place smells terrible when you walk in.

one last thing to add to my previous review, i thought there was a slight smell of amonia with my lobster, it tasted ok, claws fine. i shared claw with wife and she didn't notice smell. i had been sick and thought it was me. i did some research and found out that if a lobster tail has amonia smell it died before being cooked, beware! i was lucky not to get sick!


-----02 dec, 2010-----

our service was excellent. down hiil from there. i was expecting a really cool neat underground experience withgreatfood. nothing jumped out at me and i would equate the meal to red lobster with a much bigger price tag. very small inside so don't expect any privacy while dinning there. the waitress was excellent but the rest of the deal was rather dull. there are better choices around at this price.

the dinner that saved a bad day.. we had agreatdinner on a friday night at 7:30. we started off with an oyster shooter that was fresh and delicious. we then shared 3 appetizers. the maryland soft shelled crabs were very lightly breaded, served piping hot, and cooked perfectly. the steamed clams were next. nicely salty and correctly cooked. we also tried the escargot and mushroom caps. the garlic butter sauce wasgreatand went equally well with the steamed clams.

the salad course was competent. the salad isn't really all that special, but they do serve roquefort dressing, which was very nice.

we were in the mood for steak as well as seafood, so we ordered the petite fillet and fried shrimp. the steak was ordered rare, and it was perfect. it was accompanied by somegreatbread, and, for a nice change, a baked potato that wasn't the size of a babies head. i wish more restaurants returned to reasonably sized portions instead of the waist expanding, super sized, plates of food that require you to take home leftovers. there were steamed vegetables and they were nicely prepared as well. they were actually cooked instead of just being "warmed". for dessert, we shared a chocolate lava cake. wow. extremely dark chocolate sauce, and a very nice hint of raspberries rounded out the flavors. in this class of restaurant, the coffee should be very good, and i wasn't disappointed. overall, after a crappy start to an evening (see my review of lucille's) this more than made up for it.