wet dog cafe

pushed out in favor of prom kids. my family and i were visiting astoria this past weekend from anacortes, wa, and we chose to have dinner at the wet dog cafe saturday night. thefoodwas good, the atmosphere was good, and the service was good....up to a point. shortly after ourfoodwas served, i noticed that our waiter and another server were having what looked like a serious discussion while staring at our table and pointing. this made me feel uneasy and wondering if we had done something wrong. around this time we noticed a couple of high school kids dressed for the prom show up and wait to be seated. we then saw our waiter talking with who i assume to be the manager, again staring us down. some more teens dressed for the prom showed up. when our waiter came by after we were done with our meal, we said we'd like some dessert. he quickly listed off about half of the dessert menu and said "we don't have that, that, that, or that!" and gave us a hard-to-swallow excuse that "today's the birthday of the girl that makes our desserts and she's been off for the past week so we've run out of desserts". we expressed our disappointment and he left to bring us our bill. less than 2 minutes later, the couple at the next table get served some of these "nonexistent" desserts. it then became apparent that these prom kids had a reservation and that we were in their table and our waiter lied to us about no dessert in order to rush us out of the restaurant. we shouldn't have been punished for what was clearly their mistake for seating us at the wrong table. the situation was handled horribly wrong. rather than apologizing to the prom kids for having to wait for a bit, they shifted the blame onto us and completely soured the rest of the evening. my wife was very upset over this. i think the odds of us dining with them again are very slim, which is a shame because up to that point i was actually liking their restaurant.

disgusting food. my wife and i traveled from kentucky to visit the oregon coast and were looking forward to a good dinner of seafood and a pleasant dinning experience on 5/17/2014. we stopped at the local tourism office in astoria and were assisted by a very pleasant attendant that helped us find lodging and referred us to the wet dog for a good seafood dinner. what a disappointment! we ordered an under fried and greasy calamari appetizer that had no flavor at all and a grilled seafood captains platter that turned out to be fried and everything tasted worse than anyfoodthat we had ever had before. seriously! we cannot describe how disgusting thefoodwas that we could not eat. the horrible experience has led us to share it.
jerry and kathy

loved oddites. i went there for the frist time with my girlfriend and thefoodtook for ever to get to the table but in the end it was worth the wait and every penny spent.

great find!. thefoodgods looked down and smiled, the place we had targeted for dinner with another couple was closed for the staff holiday party. looking down the street the neon and rustic combined to create a siren song to our hungry group. after being seated we were so well taken care of i cannot imagine better service at an upscale dining establishment. our server brought us no less than eight samples as he very sincerely wanted us to enjoy the best beer matching our personal taste. a fascinating history and chronology of each was provided and we felt like we were on a great brew adventure with a master captain piloting us through the landscape. i found the entire evening very enjoyable and would not hesitate to recommend wet dog to any beerophile or gourmand. the halibut was outstanding in the fish and chips, cooked absolutely perfectly. the chopinio was a huge bowl of sea creatures also cooked flawlessly, accompanied by a loaf of warm beer bread. i did feel the batter on the prawns was a bit thick and thus somewhat doughy on the inside but to be frank, it's a minor nit in the grand scheme of the overall experience.
i have every intention of making wet dog a regular stop on our semi annual stays in astoria.

excellent. was afraid it might not be too good from the entrance, but really loved it. server was friendly,foodwas very good, and the ambiance was great. we will be back!

we came to have lunch with friends. we were pleasantly surprised at the large building and gorgeous views of the bay.
thefoodwas great. the clam chowder was worthy of an award. fresh and great food

great pubfoodand good micro brew beers . was happy wifh the meals my wife and i got. service was good along with the veiw of the columbia river. trolley drops you off right outside......

terrible experience there!!!. my husband and i had always been fans of the wet dog, for years. so i arranged to have his 60th birthday party there on july 22, 2011. it was a fiasco. they set us up in the front of the dance floor area which was nice (because he was playing the music that night), with balloons and all...but i had invited scads of people and the table was for eight. we asked for more chairs and were refused. some of the more assertive members of the party saw that there were un-used chairs by the kitchen entrance and grabbed a couple of those. the 'host/manager' came over and told us to stop.

we asked if we could get another table moved closer (more people were joining us all the time) and were told no due to 'fire restrictions'. made no sense. several people went to talk to the bartender, who said the host was in charge. catch 22, as i had made my plans with her.

host comes over to me and sticks his face in mine and says, rudely, "from this minute on, i will speak to no one at this table but you!" our server does not know what to do and apologizes all over the place, many times, several people cancelled theirfoodorders, others did eat, but the restaurant lost money on us. i figure about 200 dollars based on the people who wanted to eat but didn't because of the rudeness and/or lack of space to sit.

a very large group left at a row of nearby tables and we then asked if we could move there because by this time new arrivals had no where to sit...we were told no, and that we could only have 'leftover tables' which also made no sense. the whole rest of the time we were there no one sat at those tables! plus instead of letting my party sit there in a row they pushed the tables apart. over 2/3rds of the restaurant was empty by this time. by this time i felt like i was in the twilight zone.

we were also told that any chairs we borrowed took money quotas 'away' from the servers working the tables...but the place was emptying out, so that was gibberish too.

one of my guests asked the 'hosts' name as he and his wife were leaving, and the man said "are you threatening me?!"

my husband (who was our musician and playing that night) knew something was wrong, and asked the 'host' what happened after he was through playing, and had heard our side, and could not get a straight answer except that the bartender had only known about it for a month...nonsense. she and i had discussed swapping the dates for his gig there clear back in march. and had talked about it many times when i would go in with him to hear him play. and why would that matter anyway? i just hope in spite of this that he still has a job there.

also, our server, who was sweet as pie, asked that we feel free to complain, evidently this person is just as rude, arrogant, autocratic and dictatorial to them as he was to us, his customers. he treated us as though we were indigent, second-class citizens, and it was very much "my way or the highway". the man needs to be fired. he lost my business as well as over 30 others that were there and all our friends and family that will hear the story. thanks for reading this long review......beware the wet dog. what's really sad is that 99% of the time thefoodis great, though the service is usually very slow.

there were more incidences but these are the highlights. perhaps tourists are treated better.

strike three - never again!. we'd heard, "thefoodis much better now", wrong. soup was barely warm, hamburgers dry and over cooked. i swear our waiter had never served a table before, first he took 6 of 7 oders (forgot my mother-in-law) brought the wrong beer and soup, forgot requested water, and messed up the bill in his favor.
we've given this place three tries now, over several years, never again. too bad, nice location and setting.

good chowder. their clam chowder is very good, the rest of thefoodis okay. service is spotty and at times can be extremely slow. it is a bit overpriced.

i stop in every time i am in astoria. they have a great variety of burgers and sandwiches as well as micro brews. thefoodis a b, the service is an a, the drinks (beers) are an easy a. plus, outdoor seating, view of the columbia river and dog-friendly (outside). summary: go, go now. no really, go.

overpriced average. i've been there twice now, both times have been average at best. here's a breakdown:

food -- 3 out of 5 stars: thefoodis pretty decent, nothing special, but it's cooked properly to the order and is in sufficient quantity i would think to satisfy most customers.

ales -- 5 out of 5 stars: the ales i have had were very good, well crafted ales. with that said there are several other breweries in the area, all with fine ales.

price -- 2 out of 5 stars: the price for thefoodis somewhat high. the first time i ate there i ordered one of the hamburgers, my wife ordered the chicken strips. after eating she commented that we could have got what we ordered at dairy queen for 1/3 of the price. i chuckled in agreement. the fries are definitely from a grocers freezer, maybe costco. the burger while tasty, didn't leave me thinking i would order it again.

service -- 3 out of 5 stars: the first time we ate there the waiter seemed to be trying to rush us out the door, other than that the service is average. thefoodcomes out rather quickly i would say, almost at fastfoodspeed. that may be due to no one being in the restaurant though (see rating below).

atmosphere -- 1 out of 5 stars: the restaurant is set up and decorated pretty well, but there is no one in this place. i've been there twice now and both times it's been no less than three, and no more than ten people in a restaurant designed to seat somewhere around fifty people. honestly i don't know how they can afford to keep the doors open. the first time i visited was probably not a prime time, and i figured there wouldn't be too many people there. the second time was a saturday night, and all i can say is it was empty, with some guy picking guitar and singing to the depressing oldies.

parking -- 4 out of 5 stars: it seems to have plenty of parking directly in front of the restaurant. having been there twice, i was able to get a parking spot right in front both times.