Bill Bateman's Bistro

Bill Bateman's Bistro - Perry Hall      Ghost Rating  -  69/100

Bill Bateman's is one of those places I've been to a at least a dozen times and haven't had a good dining experience yet. Expectations are never high when venturing to Bateman's, but somehow I still end up there at least once a month or so. Many of my friends do not have the culinary & service standards that I do, so they love it there. Bateman's does however have a lot of great drink & food specials that are offered daily as well as a very affordable happy hour menu ($1 Oysters, $1 Sliders, $1 Tacos, etc.) and $5 Crushes all day, every day. Weekends you will find a decent build your own bloody bar as well. From a glance this place has a ton of potential and perceived value! Bateman's has a loyal following of locals that come for sports games, live music and all of the other promotions that they run. This place is well known for its Fried Chicken Wings and they have self proclaimed to be the best in town. They offer about 20 different flavors which is always nice. The atmosphere is pretty laid back, not much to it, but not bad. The outdoor seating is the best place to sit if the weather permits.

So its Cinco de Mayo yesterday and the Capitals play off game was on TV. Once again we meet a bunch of people up at Bateman's for $1 Coronas and some lunch. We sat down in the bar area and attempted to rustle up a fermented beverage. 20 Minutes later we finally received our first beer. The server was so slow and non complacent it was mind boggling, this was the 2nd time I've had this server and it's consistent with last time.  In that 20 minutes we saw 2 couples sit down and then proceed to leave because they were being ignored (as usual). The GM was wondering around like she gobbled a quad dose of Xanax and 7 muscle relaxers. She does this every time we are there, literally shuffling around with no sense of urgency or facial emotions. No eye contact with customers and no attempt to help her struggling, insanely slow service staff. Highly entertaining however!

We had to beg our server for a food menu...once we finally had a menu in our grasps we ordered their "Famous" Hot Wings and some French Fries to start with. The chicken wings were barely hot at all (both temperature & scoville units) they were dressed with hardly any sauce and were presented in a comical fashion with 3 decrepit little pieces of celery and a soggy hunk of lettuce. Garbage. The fries were maybe a hand full served in a soup bowl...weird. At that point we decided to drink our lunch so we were not let down any further. For $30 we had 12 beers & some food, awesome deal overall and we had a great time!

I have been here many times so I am going to travel back in time to a month ago. Four of us go to Bateman's for their weekend brunch menu. I ordered the Grilled New York Strip Salad with Blue Cheese Crumbles, Walnuts and Dried Cranberries. The salad sounded really good and hysterically enough the other 3 people at the table ordered the same thing. We were an extremely easy table for the server and for the kitchen. We were some of the first customers in the restaurant and it still took over half an hour for 4 salads. It gets better, all 4 of the salads were completely different even though they were supposed to be identical. 2 of them had no blue cheese, 2 of them had no cranberries, 1 had no walnuts, the steak portion was different on all 4 and not a one had even close to enough dressing. Eventually, the server came over to see how our food was, that's when I politely informed her how messed up our order was. She returned over 5 minutes later with the missing toppings and let us know that the kitchen had to make more dressing!!! 10 minutes later we get our dressing. The Meat was way overcooked, I ordered Medium Rare and received Med-Well, end cuts of low grade steak.

The general consensus was Terrible at best!!! Our tab was over $100 for 4 salads and 4 cocktails, they did not take anything off the bill, offer any compensation or even apologize for the mistakes.
I am a Chef of 20 years and if one of my cooks put those salads out like that they would be unemployed immediately, and how does the person bringing the food not notice all 4 items are completely different?? We will never know. I have a horror story like this one for almost every time I've eaten there, the only consistency in this place, is inconsistency! The Service is always Brutal, Disgruntled, Insanely Slow and even given with an Attitude.

Bateman's does have a surprisingly killer crab cake and an even better burger. I would even say that it is one of the best burgers in town! You will find some edible items on the menu depending on who's cooking. Keep in mind that it's a dice roll every time.....

Food  -  63   /   Service  -  34   /   Atmosphere  -  87   /   Value  -  91
Overall Ghost Rating 69/100