Etta's Channel Side Restaurant, Chincoteague

My wife and I had dinner here in early November 2008. The service was good but the food was AWFUL. We shared crab balls for an appetizer which were slathered in corn meal batter and served with out of the bottle honey mustard sauce. My entree was broiled crab cakes which consisted of three small lumps of unadorned plain crabmeat slapped under the broiler for a couple of minutes. My wife's entree was fried oysters which were also given the corn meal batter treatment. Both entrees also came garnished with branch sized sprigs of rosemary which was bizarre. Gordon Ramsay would have a field day here.

My wife and I visited on August 25, 2007. Upon entry there was only one party ahead of us on the waiting list and we were told it would be a short wait. 25 minutes later, we are still second on the list and the lobby is flowing out the door. We are still being told it is just a short wait. I asked for "a short wait" to be translated into some unit of measure such as minutes, hours, moon phases, etc and was told "it will be a short time". When they finally seat us they take us into a room that has probably 11 empty tables, all the while they are having a near riot in the lobby with people waiting for a table. Massive disorganization and no communication or staff leadership. Fifteen minutes later we get to place our drink and appetizer order. The bottle of wine and appetizer were delivered very expeditiously. However, we had no plates or cutlery. I asked the server for them and was told "you hostess was supposed to do that, I will go find her". 10 minutes pass, I go find the hostess and ask for plates and cutlery. I'm told, "I will find your server and have her bring them". I respond with "show me where they are and I will get them myself" to which I am told "I wish I knew where they were but I don't"! I am now pretty much past the point of inflamed but my wife calms me down and we wait until we finally get the chance to eat our now cold appetizer. I assume we got cutlery because the staff ran out of people to pass the task to. We order our meal and it seems to come in the appropriate amount of time. However, the table next to us seated about 2 minutes after us, told the hostess TWICE that they had not yet seen a server and still had not done anything more than place a drink order when we were done eating and were leaving. End Game - Do NOT go to this place unless you are either the most patient person on the planet or relish in watching a total cluster in action.

We were recommended by our hotel to have dinner here. We made a reservation for 6 plus a small child. When we were seated- we literally sat there for 10+ minutes without menus or anything. There was a cup of Sweet-n-Low packets on the table that my son grabbed to play with to keep occupied. He likes to stack them- weird, I know, but he is 2. He did not open the packes, get them wet, stick them in his mouth, anything- you wouldn't have even known he was there. A lady who worked there came and pulled my sons fingers apart and snatched them from his hand, then took everything else off the table. Do NOT hurt my son by pulling his fingers open! I realized after we left, that I should have walked out immediately after this happened. I was just giving this older lady the benefit of the doubt. She goes about telling us that we are NOT allowed to touch the sugar unless we will be using it- now she has to throw EVERYTHING that was on the table away. An overreaction, I think, but if she has to throw it away anyway, why HURT my son in the process-- just let him have it! So, we are all stunned, but continue to wait on someone. Finally, we are brought menus and a waitress takes our drink orders. While most of the adults plan to order wine, my aunt, who is 50+ orders a Pinot Gritio- the waitress says "Let me see your ID"- not in the nicest way, but we let that slide. My aunt looks at her and jokingly asks why she would need her ID, she is obviously at least 50 years old, so the woman snaps back "Well, I don't care if you are 100 years old- Get your ID out of your wallet"--I understand this may be the policy of this "restaurant" but, I think there are more pleasant ways to state this. My aunt just orders a water as the rest of the potential wine drinkers do the same. When the waitress leaves, we all decide that we are not welcome here and we should cancel our drink orders and just leave. As we were walking out- still not trying to make a scene- we ask to see the owner of the restaurant. We were told that they were too busy to accomodate that request. Obviously, this restaurant is way too busy to serve 6 adults large dinners and 5 adults a few glasses of wine (around $4.00 per glass) per person. I will NEVER recommend this place to anyone-- and if anyone asks, I will tell them this story plus others I have heard as well. I am not the lawsuit type-- but I can't say that someone else isn't if someone pulls the kind of stunt the waitress did on my son.

While this is not the first time I have ordered scallops and not gotten the real thing, these were the worst faux scallops I have ever had anywhere. They were so rubbery you could not even cut through them with a fork. The wine we selected was brought to the table already opened with the cork stuck back in the bottle upside down. The coconut shrimp were vastly inferior to the Margarita Brand that you buy in the frozen section of the grocery store. There is simply not enough space to describe what a miserable dining experience we had. The view may be terrific, but when the staff refused to seat us at on open table by the window which remained open throughout our stay, how would we know. We had a reservation -- imagine what our experience would be like if we had been walk-ins? If the choice is go hungry or go to Etta's -- go hungry.

We enjoy going here everytime we are in chincoteague! The food is delicious and you can't beat the view! Also the service is wonderful... we've never had a problem.

We got to Chincoteague Island on 24 Sep 06. It was reccomended to us to go the restaraunt as it was already 6pm and it was allegedly one of only a few on Sundays open until 8:30pm or so. To our surprise, there were quite a few people eating at 7pm(good sign of a good place to eat in my book). We got our table with a nice view of the waterfront, and within a few minutes had our drinks at the table...nothing as bad as "frednaz68"'s experience. We did however, have to wait quite a while (10 minutes or so) between getting our dinner and being asked for continued drink refills, but overall, it wasnt really that bad. (This is supposed to be a relaxed and laid-back time..right??). The appetizers were great and reasonably priced. I had a nice heaping plate of steamed clams for $6. The dinners however, are way overpriced. I got coconut shrimp (I know, not really a VA original), which consisted of 6 shrimp, a small salad and cucumber/onion salad (there were other side options also) for and astronomical $17 or so...I could have paid that same amount for previously frozen shrimp from an Illinois shrimp farm-supplied eatery. So...If you go, enjoy a nice cup of coffee, a nice appetizer, and feast on the key lime cheesecake and call it a meal...

Etta's was recommended by the hotel staff where we were staying. We were expecting something above "average". However, the view was the only thing that made dinner a success. Our visit was on Monday 8/6, not a very busy evening but we soon discovered the restuarant was understaffed. Minor service issues started to outway any possibility of a pleaseurable evening...15 min wait time once we were seated before the waitress took our beverage order. All softdrinks served in warm cans with small cups of ice...ice melts immediately for a watered-down luke warm drink. Waited for 10 more minutes to get more ice - Finally a cold drink after 30 minutes! Longer wait than normal to place and receive dinner order. In addition, dinners were not deliverd to table at same time (6 diners 10 minutes between first and 6th). Food was OK - Crabcakes, pasta, broiled cod, children's items. Nothing to "write home" about. Food value just OK for the price. If your looking for decent service or an ABOVE AVERAGE experience GO SOMEWHERE ELSE ON THE ISLAND!