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| - If you follow my reviews, you will see that I rarely review places that I can't give a great 4 or 5 star rating for. I really wish the best for small business having been a local business owner that failed due to difficult times. It is also noteworthy to mention that I love seafood and was excited to see that Wintzells, a big name in the South was coming home to where the owners roots are. Having the one and only choice for seafood being the overcrowded Red Lobster, the place where the elderly, people of Walmart go for lunch, I welcomed any restaurant that would even come close to providing a real seafood experience to Pleasant Hills and the South Hills of Pittsburgh. To be fair, I visited Wintzells for lunch twice prior to this experience, was not happy with the service, the lack of internet service, and the fair to be kind quality of the food. Also to be fair, this location, although close to Rt. 51, is tucked back away from the highway and not easily seen from the road, and has always been a fail for previous business ventures. This night, my wife who hates seafood was out shopping with my daughter and that left me and my son to fend for ourself. The go to restaurant would have been Red Lobster as we love the mediocre seafood entrées, lobster biscuits, salad, lobster, crab, etc. But tonight, we said, lets give Wintzells a try. From the moment we walked in, it was doomed but stay tuned because my food review may surprise you. The atmosphere is just blank, there are high school kids pretending to clean and keep busy all over the place, its 5:30 and nobody is there. The bar is impressive and yes the cigar room is great if you smoke cigars. I ordered the broiled seafood platter, oysters, scallops, fish, and shrimp. The shrimp and scallops were great, as was the fish. But if you are going for seafood, beware. This is an Oyster House and the Oysters are ok at best. I mean how bad can they be when the slimy creatures are covered in every seasoning available to mankind. There was so much seasoning on them they were crunchie, not slimy. I went there for lobster and crab. They said they don't have lobster except on holidays. Give me a break, is this a seafood restaurant or not. They did have an entrée called stuffed crab. I asked what it was and the waitress said " Oh you don't want that! It is just a deli type stuffed crab.... people complain about it all the time here." Ok, why is it still on the menu and why do you not have crab legs and lobster? Everything else on the menu other than what I ordered is fried. My salad had frozen, yes frozen cucumbers on it, wilted like dead flowers which I immediately cast off to the side with the awful coleslaw. I have to say though, there was one major improvement that I noticed from my past lunch experiences.... they have complimentary Wi-FI service so you can easily leave bad Yelp reviews right from the table. You know, this hurts me as I really wanted this place to thrive, but unless they get with it real soon, or begin bringing in bus loads of the the people of Walmart very soon, it like all of the other attempts at this location will fail miserably. I for one will not be back unless I see many future Yelpers raving about the great new things they have done or if I get a call from J.O. Wintzell himself asking for my input on how to make a go in his home town of Pleasant Hills where I have lived for 55 years and never left. For now though, I will reluctantly go back to Red Lobster with the rest of the cheap, people who are challenged in so many ways, with my tail between my legs, just to get a lobster tail whether it be cooked properly or not. It's all ok though because their cucumbers are crisp and fresh, and their lobster muffins are awesome when they are warm! You just have to pretend that the people around you have other clothing than the multi-stained elastic pull ups that they are usually wearing. You just have to close your eyes, enjoy the lobster, and imagine that you are sitting at Wintzells.
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