Manzanita Seafood and Chowderhouse

I walked into the Manzanita Seafood and Chowderhouse with my brother, about two years ago. I was visiting Oregon for the first time, and my brother had heard from a coworker that we should try this «amazing seafood place» in Manzanita. Unfortunately, he did not catch the name of the restaurant, but since there weren’t many options available, we decided on this one.
Walking into the place, which looked more like someone’s house rather than a restaurant, we noticed that the floors were dirty and the place was deserted. My brother walked up to the counter, to take a closer look at the fresh seafood in a display case, when suddenly a strange man came out from the kitchen and shouted «tables are over there!» It was disturbing, to say the least.
After looking over the menu, we decided to walk away and try another place for lunch that day. Now that I’ve read the reviews here, I know we made the right choice.

I would not reccomend wasting your pennies here.
I can usually pull something positive out about a place, but this place is just bad. Customer service is nonexistant and the place is dirty, very dirty. Sorry guys, I’ll drive elsewhere for seafood when I visit Manzanita.

Horrible. Everything is horrible.
I have tried twice– the first time I had chowder that tasted off. The second time, I ordered a crab cocktail and it was ROTTEN. We are a 2 minute walk from the ocean, people.
If you want crab in Manzanita and don’t feel like catching it yourself, I recommend heading down to the grocery store.
Oh, and their hours are wacky.
Service? What service?

Stay away from this place like the plague. There is nothing good to say about this place… I shouldn’t even waste my time writing this but I want my new friends on Unilocal to know. The clam chowder should be called potato chowder– 1 little bit of clam and bacon swimming in a sea of potato and flavorless paste. The onion rings do a little swimming themselves– in GREASE! Don’t be fooled by the words handmade or hand dipped– they are gross! Oh yea, if you need ice tea to wash all this down, you wont get it here cause they just ran out and they aren’t making any more. But you won’t be fooled because you won’t be here!

One star is too much for this place! Service staff unprofessional and untrained. The food was very greasy. Owner was unpleasant. Oh… don’t sit on the benches outside, very slippery. Skip this place! There’s got to be a better restaurant in this town!

It was 8pm on a Friday night and they were the only place we could find open. Our expectations weren’t too high but we left shocked at the experience.
We were able to seat ourself so that was fast, but it went downhill from there. Prices were steep but we had hoped for decent portions. WRONG. I ordered the half sandwhich and cup of soup special. $ 11.75– the choice was for crab melt, shrimp melt and turkey I think. I went for the crab melt. There was no description but for the price I was expecting a half of a sandwhich. What I received was the smallest half of an english muffin with approx two tablespoons of dry crab with a slice of american cheese melted on top. The cup of soup was served in a small paper container and was approximately one cup. It was clam chowder by description but the rubbery orange things in my chowder didn’t taste like clams.
My mom ordered a cup of the clam chowder and asked for french bread instead of the focaccia bread. She received a bowl of soup (charged for a cup and assured us that it was really a cup worth in a bowl) and a small loaf of unusual plain yellowish bread. We asked if it was in fact french bread and she said yes, and then said, I can’t get you different bread if you want and went on to say that they had french bread too. Either the server didn’t know the difference between bread types or she was having a hearing problem. She said that she would bring some garlic french bread for us. Fast forward 30 minutes– we are completely done eating and waiting for our check when she brings out bread with some butter on it. This was confusing as she had only one other table than us. Where did she go?
We overheard her tell the people at the next table that there was a problem and they had temporarily lost thier liquor license and offerred to let him go down the street and buy some to bring in.
Summary
in need of improvement: professionalism, food, service and prices. They only accept cash.
praiseworthy: longer hours, quaint décor.

Standard greasy fried seafood joint. Nothing memorable.
One of the kids in our group bought a muffin (individually wrapped on the counter) and it was moldy. Ok, that happens but the servers lack of surprise was the most unappetizing part of the situation. They didn’t even go to check if other muffins might have the same problem, so the next person will hopefully look before eating like we did…
Would recommend either making your own food or buying from one of the several tasty restaurants in Manzanita.

I was going to try this restaurant, despite the many service complaints on Unilocal.I figured that the food would be OK andost times, on the Coast, I more easygoing about service than most.
But here is the thing… four of us show up at 7:30pm on Friday and we are turned away because, and I quote, «the cook does not want to cook any more tonight.»
Really? We show up at your business during business hours and you don’t want to take our money?
(I looked at the hours posted on the door… open until 9 Monday through Thursday, on Friday the closing te is peeled off – nothing showing. Maybe they close at 7 on Friday but then why not post that?)
Bush league. Manzanita Seafood and Chowderhouse, you are dead to me. Make your own call!

Doesn’t accept credit cards? No thank you.

Low key place in Manzanita to get good seafood. The fried scallops were really good. Upgrade to the coconut rice from the fries for $ 1 it is worth it. You can get any of the fresh fish in the display case prepared to your liking just don’t be afraid to ask. For drinks, a few local wines by the glass are offered and a few brews on tap. Layed back place to enjoy fresh seafood, I really enjoyed my meal and my evening. Note, they don’t take credig card so just be aware of it.

We chose this restaurant because there are not many options in Manzanita where we were staying. There was a good crowd there, so we thought the food must be good. WRONG!
You seat yourself, so we got to sit down right away. We were waited on reasonably promptly, but the food took over 30 minutes to arrive. They said they were slowed down by a big take out order.
Then we got our food… not worth the wait.
As an appetizer, we got the hummus plate, which came out reasonably quickly. It was flavorful, but the vegetables were cut too large to use with the pitas. We needed to cut them up, and silverware was not provided until well after we received this plate. Barely any cucumber. This was ~$ 7.
I got a turkey cranberry cream cheese wrap… with no cream cheese! They did add sliced cheese, which normally costs extra, but we don’t know if they substituted without asking or just plain screwed up the order. This cost ~$ 10.
My dad had a seafood medley which was the most expensive thing on the menu ($ 24.99). The scallops were undercooked and cool in the center. The fish portions were very small. There were two types of clams, which were both slightly undercooked. The coconut rice was sweet and made an interesting touch to the medley, by far the most edible portion of the dish. So overall it was undercooked and way overpriced.
When the meal came, my dad asked for the check. The teenaged cashier couldn’t make the correct change to save her life, which is a problem when they only take cash! The bill was $ 42 and we gave her two $ 20s and a $ 10. She gave us $ 18 in change, and had trouble sorting out the mistake.

I had mixed feelings about this place, we (my party of three) really liked the food, but the service was so so. The folks were nice enough, but a tad slow, as much as we try to we cannot get used to seaside village time. We ordered the wings, which were surprisingly tasty, the clam chowder which was hot and delicious, the hush puppies, which garnered mixed reviews (I liked them, no one else did), the fish taco (too fishy for me) and the snapper sandwich with mango salsa, which was very very tasty. They have a cute patio you can sit on, I would just recommend not coming here if you are in a hurry. We had to physically go in to pay because we waited awhile for our check.
To sum it up:
Plus — Food is decent
Minus — Service is slow

The atmosphere is ridiculous. The food is god awful. Its really difficult to screw-​up seafood when your on the coast but they managed somehow. On the plus side, we haven’t gotten sick yet. On the fish sandwich there was more batter than fish. My wife’s tuna melt was most likely canned tuna (not fresh). Don’t fall into this tourist trap! My wife and I saw several other restaurants within 2 miles that advertised seafood! Walk or drive to another restaurant.

If there was a NO star option this resturant would recieve that rating.
To start with…
1. Small children serving you your food, not ok.
2. Rootbeer and Diet coke do not taste good together, don’t let them tell you people actually ask for it, and think its good.
3. Children go to school for a reason, to learn math and various skills, so when you child waiter brings you a check for $ 30 just pay it.
4. Water should taste like water.
5. Your food usually is not taste-​tested by a childs dirty finger.
To end with… Eat somewhere else:)

This was one of the most uncomfortable dining situations I’ve been in for awhile. In all fairness, it’s the first day that Manzanita Seafood and Chowderhouse has been open since closing for the season.
So a child took our order, likely around 10 years old. It was endearing at first, but got old after awhile when her parents were obviously more concerned about training the new servers than helping the child out more. I saw the kid lick her fingers when serving our clam chowder and take forever to manually add up our bill. I finally went up to the counter so her mother would take notice and she ended up helping out.
The food wasn’t that great, unfortunately. The fish and chips were okay, but the fries were really bad. The water tasted like there was soap in it. The clam chowder was pretty decent.
They have a display of fresh seafood and that looked good, so I recommend you stop and get fresh fish to make yourself instead of them cooking it up. Just be sure to bring cash: despite the healthy bill you’re likely to ring up, they don’t accept cards (debit or credit).

Wow, this place is a gem in the Little Apple (aka Manzanita)!! The prices actually are a little pricey for lunch, which turned me to the reasonably priced Razor Clam Chowder. For good measure I got an order of Cocktail Shrimp. The Chowder was one of the best I’ve had in quite a while! Tender pieces of clam topped with some sweet shrimp. The Cocktail Shrimp was super sweet… almost like like the Japanese amaebi that is used in some sushi. This place also has a seafood counter that you can some fresh fish or shellfish home with you.