I've been coming to Uncle Ed's for ice cream since I was a child... If you want excellent ice cream, this is your place. if you want good food, accurate food orders, and customer service - this is not the place.
We don't live super nearby anymore but after seeing how lovely the lobster rolls looked online, we decided to come down and get some for Mother's Day.
We called at 1:30 to place a pre-order for some lobster rolls. We were told that NO orders could be placed until the kitchen opens up at 3:30. We asked if they would at least take our order down as a pre-order and leave it for the kitchen to work on once they opened. We were told no, call back at 3:30.
We called back promptly at 3:30 and were told that all Lobster rolls were sold out as they had been taking orders for them for several hours now. I expressed some frustration here as we didn't understand why others were able to place orders for Lobster rolls before the kitchen opened. The young person on the phone simply said that she's not sure why we were told that when we called - but that they were sold out.
We placed a different food order at this time which included: 2 fried clam plates and an order of chicken fingers + more & ice cream pints. We asked them to confirm that they would be able to make these meals with no issue. We were told yes, no problem.
(Ultimately we found out that that they had been taking pre-orders since the day before and that we were told to call back at 3:30 because only the kitchen staff (who arrives closer to 3:30) would be able to tell us if they would have enough lobster left to accommodate our order. I wish that had been explained to us at 1:30 because then we would have assumed it was not likely that we would be able to get them - and we would have made a secondary dinner plan to find them elsewhere. Instead, based on what we were told over the phone, it led us to believe that they weren't starting to take ANY orders until 3:30...so of course we would assume that calling AT 3:30 meant we'd have no real issue. Anyway...)
We arrived to pick up the food and were told that the chicken fingers had sold out. We were also told that they had told us that over the phone already. (Nope...otherwise we wouldn't have arrived expecting them) ...Oh well - we paid for the remainder of our order and were on our way.
We began to unpack the food and discovered that food was missing. Both of the fried clam plates ($19 each) were supposed to come with clam cakes. There were no clam cakes in either meal. I called them and explained that we're missing the clam cakes for those plates. I'm told that they ran out of clam cakes. I let them know that no one told us this when we came to pick up the food. They say that we were supposed to have been given corn fritters instead of the clam cakes. I let them know that we were not given corn fritters either. (and also were not even told that a substitution needed to be made in the first place) I asked if we were charged the entire $19 per plate and I'm told yes, we would have been charged the entire amount.
I told them I'd like to give them my card number so that way some sort of refund for the missing clam cakes could be processed. The phone is handed to someone else. The new person I'm speaking with tells me that they cannot process a card refund over the phone, they need the card there in person. I let them know that coming back down wasn't going to be possible. I'm then told that the only way to refund me would be a gift certificate that they can hold there for me. Sadly, we don't live close by. Ultimately she offered to mail it to me, which was a nice gesture certainly, but it was at this point that I realized that not a single time had someone said "We're sorry this happened." or "We're sorry we weren't more clear about that..." or "So sorry we couldn't complete your order..." Had someone, anyone, expressed even a little bit of an apology along the way - I'd have said "Hey, it happens, no worries..." But at this point I was beyond frustrated and so I said yes, please do mail it to us then.
You're crazy-busy on Mother's Day - I get it. I've been there. You have some inconsistent (and unclear) messages coming out from staff - No one is perfect. You're out of various items and incorrectly charge for incomplete meals - Ok, just make it right. But good customer service and a "we're so sorry about that" would have gone A LONG WAY... But this left me frustrated, without the food items we wanted at EACH step along the way, and nothing but the equivalent of a *shrug emoji* from anyone we dealt with.
Support this long-standing small business with ice cream sales, the ice cream truly is WONDERUL - but be cautious regarding food orders.
(I initially wrote this review as 2-stars. I decided to bump it to 3-stars since the ice cream IS that good...and it's been a local staple for years and a part of my child hood. But some constructive criticism IS warranted here, in my opinion.....) read more