Thursday, April 22, 2010

Clearwaters ... Waynesboro's newest seafood restaurant

Feeling like seafood for lunch or dinner? You may want to check out Clearwaters Seafood Bistro, one of Waynesboro's newest restaurants.

Located on Red Top Orchard Road off Lew DeWitt Boulevard (behind Waffle House and across from the new Golden Corral), Clearwaters offers a variety of seafood, sandwiches, chicken, salads, appetizers, desserts, and even something for the little pirates age 10 and under.

Today was a nice spring day so my friend Barb and I met for lunch before heading to Milmont Nurseries on our annual buying trip for flowers. The restaurant has been divided into various dining areas and we were escorted to a booth in the bar area ... perfect for two ladies who wanted to sit and talk. A group of 20 ladies were seated at a long table in the main dining room ... other patrons were in yet a third eating area.

Barb ordered a bowl of the Loaded Baked Potato soup with cheddarjack cheese, green onions, bacon, and sour cream that came with crackers and yeast dinner rolls for $4.99. One spoonful and she was in love with the chunky pieces of potato in a creamy base. The rolls were hot and buttery.

I had the Sassy Standing, one of three "best of" selections from the lunch menu suggested by our very helpful waitress, Dana. It was described as, "An unbelievably delicious mound of lightly breaded shrimp tossed with our secret spicy sauce. There will be a skirmish over the last one! Served with fresh steamed vegetables and island rice." At $6.99, it sounded like a good value for a filling lunch. Dana said the veggies and rice could be substituted with fries and cole slaw but I went with the original.

It was yummy. The steamed veggies consisted of thinly sliced carrots, squash, zucchini, and green beans with just the right flavoring. The island rice was seasoned but a tad dry. The "secret" spicy sauce and shrimp were subtle at first and then the spiciness came through -- not too much but just enough to make your mouth water for more.

They have a nice bar area with three TVs (one was on Fox News), afternoon Happy Hour, and Sunday Brunch from 11 am to 3 pm. The restaurant offers a banquet room and private dining rooms for groups and is available for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Clearwaters Seafood Bistro's bar area.

Clearwaters Seafood Bistro
1101 Red Top Orchard Road
Waynesboro, VA 22980
(540) 949-8068

Photos by SWAC Girl
Lynn Mitchell
22 April 2010

7 comments:

Misfit410 said...

You may have been very lucky, so far not one person I know has had anything but a horrible experience there. They had a lunch Buffet on a sunday with no price listed, no seafood but a very lousy tasting salmon, the pricetag was $45 and it was terrible. A friend of mine then went for dinner and had bad and undercooked scallops.

Not a good first impression for me at all.

Lynn R. Mitchell said...

I'm not sure how long Clearwaters has been open ... maybe two or three weeks? ... so perhaps they were still "getting their sea legs" when you were there. That's no excuse by any means ... just trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.

My friend who was with me today had been there Saturday night with her husband and they both had a very good experience (they used to live in Tappahannock so know seafood). That's why she suggested we eat there today.

The prices of our lunches were very reasonable and, looking over their take-out menu, the most expensive thing I see is twin lobster tails for $25.99.

There is no price listed for the Sunday brunch but I'll bet a call to the restaurant would provide that information.

Glad I went today and not when you did! Maybe another trip would provide a better experience.

Anonymous said...

I will NEVER return to them again.

We have eaten there twice in the past 3 weeks. the food flavor is unique and really fantastic - BUT -

The second time was our last. The first time, our portions were reasonable in size. The second visit, I almost asked if they accidentally served us appetizers. The stuffed shrimp was 6 small shrimp 'stuffed' with about 1/2 teaspoon of stuffing. The orange ruffy,was about 2" across by 4" long. Their "Island Rice" was not only dried out, but there was only about 2 tablespoonsful on the plate. Maybe it was small and dried out because they ran out and had to scrape the pot?

At $18 for a dinner, I did not expect to have to stop across the street at Shoney's to eat more.

Lynn R. Mitchell said...

You ate seafood at Clearwaters and then went to Shoney's for more food? To me that somehow sounds fishy (pardon the pun). LOL.

Your experience was clearly different from mine. At lunch time on Thursday Clearwaters enjoyed a brisk business, more than I expected for the middle of the day, including a table of about 20 ladies.

My only criticism from my visit (and it's not really a criticism) was the dryness of the Island Rice. Maybe they could put some of the "secret" spicy sauce from the sassy shrimp in the rice and liven it up. Those sassy shrimp were good!

Otherwise, I stand by my original write-up and will return with my husband.

Anonymous said...

Unsure about your comment about Shoney's - if it was serious or humor - sorry.

My wife gave me 2 of her 6 shrimp. In total, the portions were so small, both of us were hungry so stopped at Shoneys after going into Home Depot. We are not big people at all. We eat out 2-3 times a week and this was VERY unusual for any place.

I am glad your experience was good. I would like to see them succeed. T-bones who was there before them started good, had large lunch crowds and the last 2 times we visited them, they went badly downhill and closed.

Obviously they were good the first time we went there or we would not have driven back from Charlottesville

Steve Harkonnen said...

Sorry to agree with the majority here, but Clearwaters so far has been a disappointment. Got scallops and fries. There were a total of 8 tiny bay scallops, fried - but they were not cooked properly, they even smelled as if they were OFF, and they presented them "around" the plate with the fries in the middle so in effect it looked like I forked out $14.99 for a plate of fries with raw scallops.

My wife got the kebab - but the chef made the mistake of wrapping the scallops inside ham, which of course meant they were raw too.

Sorry, never again. And, last time I checked, Clearwaters didn't have hardly any cars in their lot except for staff and maybe three cars tops.

I'll give them 'til the fall and they'll be shut down.

Anonymous said...

We took a group of 22 people to Clear Waters last week. They accommodated our tight schedule with outstanding service and everyone was extremely pleased with their meals and the reasonable prices.