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After a morning and early afternoon of drinking beer and hard cider, yours truly needed some food. We were traveling up Route 1 near Wells when I remembered there was a restaurant on the estuary…. so I hollered “Let’s go!”
.
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Billy’s Chowder House made a decent margarita and had a wonderful view, so things were looking up.
.
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And when you’re in a chowder house restaurant? You have to order chowder… which is when it started to go bad.
.
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We ordered clam chowder. What we got were thin, milky bowls of potatoes. Clams? I think the chef might have grated one over the top. A more tasteless bowl of gruel would be hard to find.
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The husband had mussels, which were tiny, overcooked and swimming in enough garlic to repel a platoon of Vampires.
.
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I ordered a shrimp roll which, while edible… was nothing to write home about about.
The bill was almost $100 and I made a mental note never to cross that threshold again.
A Maine chowder house with horrible chowder? There’s no excuse for that. This place needs to sink back into the sea and be done with it.
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River's world..... 
“… but parking was ample…”
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Actually, it wasn’t. A small strip directly in front of the restaurant that was hard to maneuver off a busy road. And it’s not like you can park out back….
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ahh… but the view?
But that being said, I don’t live far (just a few miles from the Georgia coast) and I still haven’t found a GREAT seafood place – and I’ve been here 20+ years.
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The view was wonderful…. but not worth that tawdry chowder.
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Welcome to the new normal.
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I’m not impressed.
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I guess all you can count on is good company (unless you choose someone tasteless or over seasoned and too expensive). It seems more places are this way in “these times”! I had a similar expensive experience here in my touristy area! Ugh.
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The problem with these places is most of their customers are one time tourists. Even if they complain, they never go back so the restaurants can get away with overcharging for bad food.
😠
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Truth!
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My sister…from RI…told me about this place about 10 years ago…every time I come to the area I come here…maybe 2x a year…food has always been awesome as has the staff! If food is going downhill…chefs must have changed and they need to get the better chef back!!!!!
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Really? Then it’s a shame… because the location is pretty sweet.
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Lions, and tigers, bears, and watery chowder Oh My ! It is enough to drive one to cider therapy. Can we blame it on covid ?
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I have a feeling this chowder has always been sub par.
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The ‘chef’ figured if you had enough Margaritas you wouldn’t know the difference!!!
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Which is not a bad guess….
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I haven’t visited your blog in a bit and you’ll notice the first place I go is your liquid Saturday series. I’m living vicariously through you (the drinking, not the eating) so keep it up!
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If you insist…
😉
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Eeww…that’s like a steakhouse in Texas having bad steaks…blah.
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Exactly.
It should be illegal.
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Oh no!!!! One of my favorite places to go to!!!! So sad to hear all this! I am guessing they changed chefs??? As soon as you said you were traveling to Wells I knew it had to be Billy’s!! Making me so sad!!!!
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This was our first time, and our last. Maybe it’s due to Covid… but honestly it wasn’t worth the trip.
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It really was an amazing place for good food and people watching! Staff was always awesome! It will be late winter/early spring before I can go back since I am in Alaska for the next month…I hope it is all a sad Covid related story…so many places (across the country) losing good cooks and staff and not being able to hire people back!! Billy’s has always been a go to place!!! I am, I think, a little more tolerant of what is going on in restaurants these days because my youngest son is a chef/cook and I hear stories of the difficulties in restaurants these days! He has become responsible for hiring restaurant staff because the owner is frustrated with people scheduling interviews and not showing up or people agreeing to show up after being hired but not showing up…ridiculous how people are willing to behave these days while restaurants struggle to stay open! Sorry to get off on this rant!!! I really have a warm spot in my heart for Billy’s!!!!
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Maybe we just hit it on a bad day. It was Saturday, they were really crowded and I fully understand the staffing shortages. People are beyond hateful and impatient to waiters who are doing a job meant for three. I can overlook all that, but bad chowder at a chowder house? That’s kind of a deal breaker.
😉
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That is sad on so many levels. I understand mussels are in short supply, but they should at least be able to cook them properly.
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No mussel shortage here. But the over abundance of garlic was nuts.
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That is terrible What a sad disappointment; I hate it when that happens.
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Sadly it happens more often than not. Or maybe we’re just extremely picky…
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Does not look particularly appetising and costly by the sounds of it.
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It wasn’t outrageously expensive, but now I know why.
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$100 for lunch for two is considered pricey to me!
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Well, alcohol tends to add up.
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Lesson learned ~> stick with the margaritas!
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You’d think I’d know better.
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Sorry to be late, but that was one ugly-ass bowl of chowder. It would take ten dollars worth of oyster crackers to soak up all that greasy yellow stuff. And WTF is up with that shrimp roll? It looks like the roll fell off the counter and someone had to stomp on it to keep it from running away. Next time, KFC.
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It was all bad. And how does a chowder house have bad chowder?
😡
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