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. the food was good, the atmosphere was good, and the service was good....up to a point. shortly after our food was 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 thistimewe 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.

spendtimein astoria when in area, and one of my eating spots is the wet dog. as yet i've not had a bad meal. i normally grab a place at the bar and my lasttimethere i ordered the "wilbur burger". house made sausage patty, ham slice, peppered bacon, pepper jack cheese, topped with a fried egg. when i ordered it i know my doctor flinched and i'm sure i felt my colon do the same, but i will eat it again nexttimei am there. oh and the beer ain't to shabby either.

loved oddites. i went there for the fristtimewith my girlfriend and the food took for ever to get to the table but in the end it was worth the wait and every penny spent.

my family and i walked in and the waittimewas 45 minutes but turned out to be longer maybe it was just people a big group or i don't know but finally when we got seated the waiter ask us what drinks we wanted and came back pretty quick then we ordered i ordered the hip hop burger it was really good the beef patty was perfectly cooked and the fires were so delicious. definitely coming back.

good eats/good service. we were seated right away, given appropriate amount oftimeto look over the menu. we both had the clam chowder in the bread bowl. i wanted a beer and after letting our server know that i'm not big on bitter or hoppy beer he made a couple of suggestions with an offer to sample anything. i sampled them, and neither was right for me. asked after their porter, which was described as a perfect fit...dark with hints of coffee and dark chocolate. it was a great beer. want to go back and try some of the other beers, but on a warmer day.

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 their food orders, 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 thistimenew 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 thetimewe 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 thistimei 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 thetimethe food is great, though the service is usually very slow.

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

i stop in everytimei am in astoria. they have a great variety of burgers and sandwiches as well as micro brews. the food is 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: the food is 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 the food is somewhat high. the firsttimei 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 firsttimewe ate there the waiter seemed to be trying to rush us out the door, other than that the service is average. the food comes out rather quickly i would say, almost at fast food speed. 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 firsttimei visited was probably not a prime time, and i figured there wouldn't be too many people there. the secondtimewas 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.

good for appetizers and people watching. i've been there three times now and the lasttimethey were out of one of their own beers!! i enjoyed their clam chowder and the view from the deck as well as the semi-clean bathrooms which is a giant plus seeing as how it's next to the bar where one's aim tends to wander after a few cocktails. i'll be going back again soon.