Half Shell* (#306, 8/30/14) – 41
A new place opened up in the neighborhood so I took a walk down for breakfast on Saturday morning. While the Half Shell is obviously more of an oyster bar and grill than a breakfast joint, they’ve been pitching breakfast as well, so I figured I would check it out. As much as I would like another decent breakfast place in walking distance, this isn’t it. Just go a block down to Santa Fe.
I guess I have to start with the service. I went at about 9 a.m. and there were two other tables with people. Unfortunately, there was one person working. One. That’s it. This poor woman had to run out of the kitchen and hand me a menu, then ask for my drink order. She had to run back and keep an eye on the food, cooking, then run back out to get orders. I have no idea how she kept it up, but I do know how my order wasn’t done right. Considering the circumstances, waiting 40 minutes or so for my food wasn’t too bad. And shortly after that, my drink even showed up. And then, my order was corrected, but, well, just bad. After I had been there about 30 minutes, I watched a car pull up and park in a spot directly in front of the door. Sure enough, it was another worker. So good news that somebody else showed up, but kind of funny to have a place with three spots right in front, and have one of your workers take up one of them. This was within the first two weeks of the place being open, so I would think you would want to be over-staffed if anything. Anyway, for service, I want to give the one woman a bonus or something for trying to keep up, but the restaurant? I’ll give it a 4 out of 20.
The atmosphere was non-existent. No music, no tv’s in a sterile type place with big windows just looking outside. I guess the atmosphere was just the other people talking and all. It wasn’t bad, just non-existent. I’ll give it a 13 out of 30.
The food was okay. It did take awhile to get an omelet, but it tasted okay. I had ordered toast and received grits, which I don’t much like. I eventually received my toast, but that was simply a couple pieces of white bread, slightly burnt. All uninspired. I’m guessing serving breakfast was just an after-thought to try to get a few more customers in, but I would recommend they just stop if they can’t get people to work. Tough to go back to try the specialties when something basic wasn’t worthwhile. I’ll give it a 25 out of 50 for food.
Final score = 41.