Portside Seafood Restaurant, Cambridge

If you like decent food, reasonably priced alcohol and bad service, Portside is for you. We've been going here for a year now. Lite Fare like crab dip, bruschetta, cream of crab soup and burgers are great. Dinner entrees are fairly greasy and tend to arrive cold. Staff seems busy, but I've come to realize that they're preoccupied with everything but service. Today we had an off-hours meal with only two other tables of customers. Service was friendly but slow. The 5 or 6 person Wait Staff was hanging together gabbing. We were "treated" to their loud conversations including a discussion of the health status of two staff members. One was coughing the entire time (gross!) and was openly discussing her Diabetes. There is a general uncaring attitude here.

Just had the worst experience ever! had to get our first round of drinks, after siting for 20 minutes waiting to be aknowledged. Got a meal that, clearly sat under the heat lamps for way to long , and when told the waiter (when he finally showed up) that it was way over cooked , he wanted to debate the issue. I am in the service business and have never been so disappointed! P.s. Still gave the waiter a good tip. And when mentioned my disappointment to another employee who i think was an Owner, Not even an appology!

Long time vistor to Cambridge, first time at the Portside. Friendly service, no issues with wait time. Ordered the Crabby burger [medium] and have to say the balance of flavors made this a top 5 burger in my book. Service was prompt and courtious. I will be sure to make it a must stop the next time I am in town.

I used to order Scallops Connor every time I went to this joint. Not anymore. They took it off the menu. Had the "BBQ Scallops" instead. BAD MOVE. Dont waste your money on that dish. As a matter of fact, your money is better spent on a large bottle of DEET, or some other potent insect repellant, as the outside deck/dining are is a magnet for the huge mosquito population. After being forced to move inside from the mosquito onslaught (which the waitress found rather humorous), the bartendress who was relating her alcohol-induced late night escapades further added to this "restaurant's" rapidly declining credability. Zero Stars. Z-E-R-O Awful. Simply awful.

Probably some of the worst service you will find in Cambridge. We ended up waiting over an hour to receive our meals on two separate occasions. I understand that things can happen when preparing food but a medium hamburger doesn't seem to warrant an hour. Literally had to flag the waitress down to get our drinks refilled and at $4/beer, one would think they might want to be on that. The restaurant was not that busy and we sat and watched as our waitress leaned up against the bar and was oblivious to her tables. It's almost as if they are not worried about bringing in money. Cambridge is not a place where fine dining is prevalent but I'd check out Snappers or Clearview because you pay about the same and have much better views.

We met here for my mothers birthday, arrived at 12:30pm 1/15/2011, we waited an hour for our food and left the resturant at 2:00pm. The prices were high for what we got, food barely warm but very over cooked. The waitress did get a bit busy but not once did she come over to say, the food will be here soon....or apoligize for the wait. There were six of us and we all had different dishes, which were not very good at all. Very disapointing!!!

If I were to give this restaurant school grades, those would be: 1. Food quality ... A. No problem there. 2. Size of the portions ... C (very small) 3. View ... C (unless you like watching cookie cutter canal-side condo's) 4. Service ... D (extremely slow ... 12 minutes to get drinks! never mind food) 5. Milieu ... D (while the male bathroom is straight F) 6. Value for money ... C In other words, the food is excellent, but the service is inexplicably slow, and the portions are tiny for the price they charge. Overall, I'd grade it POOR and will probably not go there again. Sorry

Eating in Cambdrige usually gives you two options: Portside or Snappers. If good food is what you're after, definitely go to Portside. Although the service is really slow, the crab soup, dip and imperial is great.

Very disappointing. Went to lunch with several girlfriends. Boiled shrimp was over seasoned, crab dip tasted "brought in". Crab cakes left much to be desired. Stuffed shrimp was good. Won't return.

If you ever stop by this town it's a must to check out Portside and their yummy Cream of Crab soup . Another one of my favorites is their crab melt sandwich. Price is reasonable as well.