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Whenever Ken and I are in Charleston, we’re always on the lookout for good seafood restaurants. This past weekend (1/26 & 27) we were there for the annual dog show held at the fair grounds in Ladson. So, true to our usual habits, we went looking for somewhere we could get fresh seafood.
We had eaten at Gilligan’s in Summerville a few years ago and found the food to be excellent, so decided to try it again this time. As before, it was crowded and there was a line waiting for tables. We asked how long the wait was and were told 20 minutes, so we took our little pager thingy and settled down to people watching.
I walked around to the bar to order a drink - my one indulgence is getting one of Gilligan’s signature pina coladas — and I noticed several empty tables on the smoking side. I knew Ken would have asked for non-smoking since the smoke bothers both of us and didn’t think much more about it. I think they would have garnered a lot more goodwill among the waiting clientele if they had had someone walking around taking drink orders, but that’s just my take on the situation. This seems to be a busy restaurant and waiting lines were not greeted with any unusual fanfare by the “regulars”. Of course, since the dog show site was just a few miles away, there were quite a few newcomers (or, like us, once-a-year comers 
)
One party of about 6 people decided not to wait any longer (they had been there just a few minutes less than we had) and turned in their pager and left. Shortly afterwards, our pager went off and we were escorted back to be seated. Imagine my surprise at seeing about 4 empty tables! No doubt the party that left could see the empty tables just waiting and got frustrated with the wait. We couldn’t see into the non-smoking dining room from where we were seated on the benches in the lobby, so were unware of the empty tables.
They had been bussed and were apparently ready for clients, but remained empty quite a bit longer as our waitress took our drink order, then subsequently our food order. She brought our drinks and a tray of Captain Bookatee’s famous hush puppies. They were yummy!
Our food arrived quickly and we tucked into fried shrimp, flounder, oysters and scallops with french fries, fried okra and cole slaw for Ken (the Fried Seafood Platter) and fried shrimp with baked potato and salad for me. While she never brought the lemon I requested for my water, our waitress refilled our tea and water about halfway through our meal. When we were nearly finished with our meal, the manager came by and asked if everything was OK, then a bit later the waitress came to ask if we were ready for our check. No one was especially chatty or friendly - it was pretty much businesslike and efficient. That wasn’t off-putting, but it wasn’t particuarly inviting either.
Gilligan’s of Summerville, you get a B-
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Tags: Food, Gilligan's Steamer and Oyster Bar, restaurant, Review, Summerville SC
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January 29th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Sometimes, if a place is busy, they may not use all the tables because they don’t have enough people to serve those tables. I’ve seen that happen and I have friends who are servers, so that’s what they tell me.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I would have thought that too except the tables eventually filled - it just took about 10 minutes to seat people at them. It was also pretty apparent that they had been sitting empty for long enough to have seated many of the ones waiting for tables plus I never saw them seat anyone in the smoking section in the entire 25 minutes we waited for a table!