McGrath’s Fish House

We hadn’t been here for a few months and we’re not sure what to expect after reading the reviews. We found the service was excellent, Amber was pleasant and kept checking back on us. The manager also stopped to inquire about our meal.
My wife ordered the clam cakes & I had the baked salmon stuffed with crab with a lobster cream sauce. The salmon was hot & delicious, the crab cakes I was told were great. I grew up in Boston and it was a pleasure to have clam chowder that isn’t a thick paste but is tasty. The sourdough bread is the best north of San Francisco.
I would highly recommend a visit to McGraths.

This restaurant was at its prime about 15 years ago and has gone straight to hell in a fast moving hand basket since then. My family used to eat here consistently before it started to decline.
Food is now served cold on a consistent basis. I’ve sent things back for this and all they say is that they’ve checked the internal temperature and it’s safe to eat. Unfortunately that doesn’t make it taste any less disgusting. I’m glad they cook it to the proper temperature. Now if only they could serve it at that same temperature instead of letting it sit for 20 minutes cooling first, it could be ok.
I’ve found numerous hairs in my food before. The manager was an asshole about one of them, trying to insinuate it was mine. Well, if you’re going to do that, it would help if the hair was the same length and color as mine! Plus my hair is typically worn in a bun. So it’s pretty much impossible for a hair in the middle of a pasta dish to be mine. My mother had one in her fish once too, on the top of it. It was immediately obvious as soon as the food was dropped off. If I can see it as the food is being sat down in front of someone, the cook, expediter, and waitress should’ve seen it long before it made it to our table. We said something to the waitress and she took it back. I’m quite sure all she did was remove the hair and bring the same plate back, because she had a «new» plate in less than 3 minutes, no apology, no removing that plate from the check, nothing. It’s obvious they just don’t give a shit anymore.
Service is atrocious. There’s one old lady there who is an absolute bitch and literally looks like she’s got a huge stick stuck up her ass, because she’s incredibly grumpy. She wrinkles up her nose and frowns every time she approaches a table and has to do her job. God forbid you ask her for a refill on a drink or anything extra. You will be met with an exasperated sigh, following by whatever you’ve asked for being begrudgingly plopped in front of you and her stalking off because you are the single biggest inconvenience of her evening.
This restaurant was once great, now it’s a pathetic shell of a restaurant, limping along and just waiting for someone to put it out of its misery. It’s like a horse with a broken leg who’s owner doesn’t have the heart to shoot it. That’s how pathetic this restaurant has become.

Terrible service, watched all the tables around us (seated after us) get served, didn’t even get a glass of water after waiting 30 minutes. Will not go back!

The seafood here is incredibly fresh ! Mcgraths often gets a bad rep because it is a large chain restaurant. But dont let that fool you, they still use only the freshest seafood available ! The shrimp tacos are the best ive EVER had. Seafood jambalaya, equally amazing ! Our server, Stacey, was very polite and a great sense of humor ! We will return just for her !

Used to be great! Now slow service inattentive wait staff. Had to get our own eating utensils from the bar after we were repeatedly ignored.
My mom got the crab cakes and was up all night with food poisoning. We shared everything else so it was easy to narrow down.

It’s an old chain restaurant so you get what you get. The food was just fine. The service was extremely slow and the waitress kept bringing us the wrong drinks. However, they did have pretty fair prices lunch items and the free bread was good. The place is due for a major renovation– I don’t think it has been touched since the 90’s. In fact I think the cobwebs in the bathroom have been there since the 90’s too.
I don’t particularly have anything against this place but I’m not really itching to return here.

The food is delicious! Go here on a birthday & they make you wear a wooden fish head & take a Polaroid photo of you! Definitely recommend this place, prices are reasonable & we had excellent service!

Got a dead fly served with my meal, weak drinks, over cooked crab, bad service, and a rude manager.

Change the name to nightmare at McGrath’s Fish House. This was the worst dining experience I’ve had in years — This joint took almost 3 hours to seat, serve and then insult our guests. One meal never arrived. No refills on water, bread, or shrimp. Then the pass off an appetizer and say «we are giving you this extra appetizer because we would have thrown it out otherwise» WTF??? They serve grease… and it is cold.
From waits to sit, waits to order, waits to get bread plates (basket of bread was gone by the time the arrived), waits for 2 of 6 meals. 1 meal never was put in. Nobody ever refilled water. No bread refill. Manager Thursday night. Arrive at 6pm, told it’s a 30 minute wait. We watch five parties of four or less go in before us. As we sit looking at the front desk, three employees linger… not once do they smile, or touch bases with us about the long wait. If I had organized the evening I would have blown the joint then. 65 minutes later we are seated in a space that had at least six empty tables, four could have been abutted to seat us. 18 minutes to get a server to take the order. Then the hour to get the food… or 4 out of six meals. One never did show up.
Their excuse was all you can eat shrimp — which they never offer you a refill, or ask if you want one. When you use your «advertising» as an excuse to provide poor service, missing meals, and hour waits… you have a miss-​management issue.
When we complained, because one of the meals never even arrived… the manager showed zero diplomacy or professionalism. She doesn’t understand the most basic service skills… and has the most disheveled appearance. A I’ve never seen any restaurant that not one server or host smiles. The final straw was the «free appetizer» in a «to go» box they said we would have thrown this away but want to give it to you to make up for the bad experience. LOLOLOLOL.
We tipped the young server that screwed up our order, but if you want quick, pleasant or a enjoyable meal — avoid McGrath’s Fish House… it is going down like the neighboring El Torito — Greasefest Closed! Avoid this place, eat anywhere but this joint.

I’ve been going to McGrath’s (in Salem mostly) since I was a kid. I’ve always enjoyed it, but the food has gone down hill in the past few years. Overly greasy, overly breaded, just not that great. Sorry to see this place lose some of it’s prior deliciousness.

Let’s start by saying the service was great! Left her a very nice tip. But… The food was alright, kinda just bland. The real kicker was the portion size! It was tiny! 2 pieces of shrimp? Two tiny pieces of Cod? Come on, I left still hungry. For the price my portion was not at all what I expected of deserved.
I’ll give 2 stars just for the service. Sadly will not be going back.

Love McGrath’s hate the service. I have been back to McGrath’s twice since my last review hoping the service has gotten better and it absolutely has not. I will not be back as I have given this place way too many chances and it’s always a let down. You have to ask the waitress for a refill if you can even find her and every time I have been the place is not busy so that’s no excuse. Really disappointed as I’ve tried to like this place, but the service has made it so I will not be returning.

Been here twice in the last year. Heard all kinds of things since they’ve been here. Never just came here. Wish I would have then, to compare to now. I heard good. Ok, whatever. Make up my own mind.
About six months ago was my first acquaintance with them. They’ve been here for years, long enough to get it right. Not impressed. What I had, a food court in the mall could have done as well. Steamed vegetables were bad. Frozen reheated. Bad. Baked potato was adequate. Wendy’s did them better ten years ago.
Fish was, well, bad. Not just not good, bad. Try Newman’s on Coburg Road if you want good, fresh fish. This ain’t it.
Fast forward to today. Besides the appetizers, which may be called the Kryptonite, we ordered four entrees; two crab, one steak and crab, one steak. After last time I ordered steak. Who can really mess up streak?
Appetizers were local bar deep fried, frozen goodness. Um. No. Gross. Better off 7 – 11 roller food. Not good.
Three main dishes. Dungeness crab, crab legs and steak, sirloin steak.
The other 2 were so so, my steak was pretty good. Baked potato was ok. So why come to a seafood place to hopefully order an ok or pretty good steak? Because the seafood is only almost OK.
Won’t be back again unless something changes.
If the management of this confluberation wants to contact me to fix this obvious attack of unsuspecting patron’s, email me. Otherwise, God help you…

They should have no stars on Unilocal.I brought parents here and ordered swordfish. It was like a wooden plank. They actually freezer dried my fish! I asked for another and the same fish-​like product came out. This place SUCKS!

First visit and last. It took 15 minutes to get drinks and I had 4 children under the age of 7. Complained to the manager got a oh I’ll get you bread OMG 25 min later still nothing on the table and this was a wed lunch the fish was greasy which caused the fries to be greasy. Shrimp was overcooked, The water smelled like a wet dog. It was no way worth the 86.00 I spent and wow what a manager with his patronizing ok ok and winking Smh I predict a closing soon.

Members of my family have decided to go here four or five times since I moved here in 2012. I do not like it.
The lobby is nice and has cute décor, we have always been seated quickly and that’s where it all goes wrong.
The menu is absurdly long and as a seasoned traveler I know this is not promising. I have looked through this greasy dictionary wondering why the offer so many things, and how could this number of choices be fresh? It isn’t!
The hazelnut crusted fish was overcooked and dry and oddly flavorless. The next time I had the greasiest and driest fish and chips, the time after that I don’t even remember, and last time it was the last time. My son and I had over cooked trout sprinkled with salsa and served with corn chips… it looked like a meal slapped together at the last minute by someone who doesn’t know how flavors are supposed to go together. They forgot to add the bay shrimp, so brought us a little cup full of smashed up watery bay shrimp to compliment this disaster. My wonderful Aunt was treating us to this meal and we didn’t say a word, but it bothered me a lot.
I have informed my family that I do not like this place, but I love them dearly and won’t tell them why. I am telling you all, however, because if you’ve eaten fish in Seattle, San Fransisco or any other town that cooks fish well, you may be amazed that this place is liked by the locals.
I would love to see them get in a consultant to work over this menu and educate the kitchen. The servers are hit and miss, too, and the whole experience is a downer. It is expensive for fast, frozen food, which is what it really is.
This is my first negative review. I feel bad, but the whole place is not for me!

Oh boy I would not suggest this restaurant to anyone. I’m surprised this place is still in business. There needs to be something done about the décor and the food pronto.
I ordered the fish and chips and it was greasy to the max. There was way too much breading as well. Overall just really unappetizing. I had no desire whatsoever to bring any of the leftovers home.

My husband and myself visit this place often about every 3 months or so. The food is usually great and the service is usually better… Sadly that is not the case the last few times we’ve been.
The first bad experience way our «Irish nachos» came out bad. We told our Waiter who was very nice and sent them back had new ones made and gave us a 10 $ cert. To cover it. On top of the overtly breaded oysters I think it was suffient.
Second and LAST time. It was a TO GO order as we had 3 kids in the car (all under 3) Got there ordered 3 entrees and 3 appatiezer’s waited over an hour on a wens evening, got our food to eat in the car the Irish nachos were burnt, there was no bacon on the loaded potatoes, we were missing a loaded potato all together, the shrimp we got was dry and over cooked the re-​fire they did on the burnt nachos was wrong but hey, at least the potato’s were properly cooked. Through out this we went in several times to try and get it right the manager (big bald over weight dude) was standing at the counter gossiping about customers, both my husband and myself tried to get our order right several times but the manager would look at us like we were stupid and just say «okay, okay, okay» then go back to talking with these waitresses. Long story short, and 80 $ later he was a shitty manager who did is wrong and the waitresses were bitches. Needless to say we are looking for a restaurant that still had it’s class.

I had a craving for fish and chips and had always wanted to give McGraths a try, so a couple of buddies and myself visited for lunch.
The food wasn’t satisfactory. My fish was incredibly greasy. The batter soaked up an overwhelming amount of oil. The fries were super bland with a rubbery texture. I tried my husband’s crab cake and it was dry and crumbly without a good flavor. Much too heavy on the breadcrumbs. My buddy got the steak and lobster and they were small portions, but he did seem to like it. I got a brownie dessert to go, and it was very dry and tasted old. I would guess that it might have been baked last week. However, the bread was good and my clam chowder was satisfying enough, but had a very mild flavor.
The service was worse and what really ruined the meal. The waitress was short with us from the beginning and unhelpful. She didn’t offer to separate the bill, never asked us if we needed anything else, placed the bill on the table like five minutes after serving our entrees, and was rude in general throughout. At the end, we made an obvious mistake in trying to split the bill ourselves, paying partly cash and card (I accidentally slipped in an extra 20), so the friend paying with the card only had a bill of like $ 5. Knowing that we were trying to split it up, I think most intelligent people would come back and ask if that was correct before just dropping off the receipt and running off. Absolutely infuriating and unacceptable service overall.
Would not go back or recommend. I’m usually one to shrug off bad experiences, but this was unique. I should have stuck with Newman’s for my craving.

I come to McGrath’s twice a year, when I’m in town for business. When you come to the Northwest, seafood is a must. For some reason every time I come to this location it’s like a retirement party. Lots of older folks, but it tends to be a reflection of my experience here.
The food seems to be lagging behind, too. The seafood tastes more frozen fresh, than fresh. It’s fairly easy to describe. I’d rank it one notch above Red Lobster, but that’s that best they’ll get. Their sourdough bread isn’t actually ok, when it’s served warm. And, the Fisherman’s Stew is fairly good, too.
Meanwhile, the main courses lag. My Wood Fired halibut came fairly dry (I ordered it blackened) and the vegetables tasted like they came out of a can. The rice pilaf resembled something microwave type food.
Honestly, if you’ll eat Red Lobster, McGrath’s will be tasty for you. If you are used to fresh, locale seafood, you’ll leave vowing to never come back.