Pilot House Bbq Restaurant & Caterer

Favorite restaurant in gloucester !! I am writing this review on the food. I do not eat inside usually but if i I do the staff is very friendly. I love the food it is always amazing! :-)

A Gloucester mainstay as far as restaurants go. Recently it was bought out and merged with another local chinese restaurant so now they serve both chinese and american food. Complete with two separate menus. This is awesome as you’re able to have a greater variety. Also good as I have a friend who doesn’t care for chinese food that much so he can order a burger while I’m getting my pu pu platter on.
The staff is extremely friendly, and always ready to help you. They’re on top of you for drinks, rolls and get your food out to you FAST. Shortest wait I have ever had for food was 5 – 7 minutes and I don’t think I’ve ever waited longer than 15. The prices are fair and can be an outright bargain at lunch time. Even in busy stretches there is always plenty of room.
While they serve seafood, this isn’t my go to for seafood in Gloucester. I’ll get the native shrimp when the mood strikes but that’s about it, go for everything else though. I’m not going to comment on price because seafood in general is getting more and more expensive as time goes on. But overall, arguably the best lower cost sit down restaurant you can go to.

This place has an identity crisis! Chinese, American and BBQ, pick one and focus on it.
When you arrive, youre greeted with «America or Chinese?» I am not sure if you sit on one side for Chinese and one side for American or its just separate menus.
We chose «American» and ordered steak tip dinner and a steak tip salad. The salad wasn’t the best, basically a bowl of lettuce with steak on top.
The steak dinner was served with 2 sides but it was just thrown on a plate, nothing appealing about the presentation. The steak itself was just ok. I didn’t dislike it but I didn’t feel like it was anything more than I could have done for myself at home.
When they changed over to this Chinese/​American combo, they should have taken the time to update the décor and atmosphere.
I would go back if someone in my party wanted to but I wouldn’t suggest this place or go on my own.

Pretty sub par. Not sure what it’s trying to be. Seafood? Chinese? Japanese? American? I got the sea food platter at market price. Giant plate of fried fish. Not bad but nothing special. Kind of boring. Then my bill was $ 35! The price was listed as market price. Since every thing else on the menu was around $ 15 I figured that is what I would pay. I learned my lesson! Had it been great fresh seafood I would understand but it wasn’t. It was fried. Could have been frozen for all I know. Do not recommend.

Very cheap food here. It’s is pretty good. The fish sandwich is very good. I tried some of the Chinese food and it was very good. My brother got sushi and he said it was the best he has ever had. I guess this place has 3 diffrent kitchens. So if you order American Chinese and sushi they come out at diffrent times.

Best haddock sandwich in town. Forget the décor. Pay 50% more elsewhere. So fresh you can’t get fresher.

Pilot house use to be notorious for it’s wonderful food. Whenever I wanted steak tips, they were my go to place. Now, the quality of the food has decreased immensely and literally. The new owners buy from different distributors for cheaper merchandise and cheaper quality inevitably. The Chinese food is good, a go to place when nothing else is open (Chinese serves until 2am). But that’s about it. Very sad.

Don’t want to sound harsh here, but this place serves the single worst food I /​my family has eaten in any restaurant in Gloucester. Swordfish, dry and tasteless. «Real» mashed potatoes tasted like they were prepared with water. No flavor. Chicken Parm. Aweful. Ribs. Tough, uneatable. Appetizers taste like they came from a box in the freezer. Now that they’ve merged with the Chinese Restaurant… I stick with the Chinese menu.
We won’t ever eat there again.
(kudos however to the very friendly staff)

For decades we’ve gone to the Pilot House when we went out at all, for consistently good food. Whatever the heck they’re thinking with this frankenfood mash-​up of the worst Chinese restaurant in town with the Best homestyle american seafood, is beyond us. The swordfish in the pick-​two combo was almost rotten it was so far gone. The chef must be nose-​deaf. Unless he’s used to smothering it in sauce and calling it after some long dead Chinese military leader. That won’t fly, and we won’t be back. So very sad.

Well the bartender was a sweetheart, but needs to go somewhere better, she’s way too good for this place. The whole place honestly looks like it is run by kindergartners. I feel bad for anyone who goes here. Yea the food is ok. Steak tips, awesome, but being perfectly located in ground zero for the Gloucester bar scene, it could be 1000 times better. The people from dragon light bought it and now they serve BBQ, Chinese, and anything else they can think of to try to make money. First thing I saw when I walked in was a scratch ticket dispenser, then in the bar there was nothing but people playing keno.

We decided to order some take-​out from The Pilot House last night. This was my first time there but overall the food wasn’t too bad. Don’t let the 1970’s décor inside fool you. It looks like the are doing some updating but the food is much better than the décor. The employees were super friendly. We ordered our food and only had to wait about 10 minutes.
I’m not sure why this place calls itself a BBQ Restaurant. I had my heart set on a BBQ pulled pork sandwich but there were only a few BBQ items on the menu. I settled for a cheeseburger and it’s didn’t disappoint. The burger was HUGE and very inexpensive at $ 5.75. The fries were like $ 2 extra but they were very good. I highly recommend the steak fries. They are more like spicy potato wedges but so delicious.
My wife got the steak tips and fries. Honestly there are better steak tip options in Gloucester. For a couple of dollars more you can get a huge portion of steak tips from Mike’s that will easily feed two.
This place delivers too so I’ll definitively try it again since the take-​out options in Gloucester are so limited.

I. Will. Never. Return. I agree that the atmosphere is dank and depressing. I could forgive that. But the food and drinks? Unforgivable. Ordered a Shirley Temple with my daughter. It was about 80% syrup and 20% ginger ale. They would not replace and remove from bill. Ordered a meal with 3 pieces of fish. They were all inedible. They were cold. The swordfish and yellowfin tuna were so rubbery and hard that I could stab it with a fork and lift it up in the air and wave it around, and the fish just stuck there like a flag. NO flakiness. Inedible. The ONLY thing I ate was my baked potato and they would not adjust my bill. Said it was MY responsibility to tell them the TEMPERATURE to which I wanted my fish cooked. !!! (This visit I was giving them a second chance, as the last visit I had fish that was FILLED with bones, both large and small. I was told that ‘that is how we get them in’. Doesn’t sound like fresh fish to me, unless they are being rudely sarcastic. also not a point in their favor.)
Not good to leave dinner FURIOUS. They really didn’t care that they lost customers.

This is the second time we have gone here. I couldn’t remember much about it before except maybe that it was just ok and cheap. Nothing I was excited about.
However, my husband and I ventured there late in the evening last night due to the few choices and it was truly horrible. We were forced to sit in the bar, which upon seeing the clientele there, we should have walked out then. If you want to hear drunk people shout obscenities throughout your meal then I guess this would be your place. Again, after looking at the menu, my husband tried to get us out of there by saying I wasn’t feeling well but we decided to stick it out after the waitress informed us that our untouched sodas would be $ 4. We sat with out jackets in by the drafty windows and that’s how we stayed. The selection of food is not good at all, mostly claiming to be BBQ. I ordered prime rib, figuring how bad could it be and my husband under the heading of chicken & pastas, chicken parm, the 1 pasta dish. I didn’t try his meal but I can say that prime rib is NOT supposed to be grilled! Even after ordering it medium rare, it was hard as a rock. It must have taken me 5 minutes to chew each ridiculously tough piece and I’m pretty sure I consumed an entire bottle of A1 just to get it down. Mashed potatoes as well were horrible, even with an extra pad of butter added to it.
Basically, the service wasn’t good, atmosphere certainly didn’t help much, they don’t have anything here that any normal person couldn’t easily prepare at home, and the food in a word is BLAND. we were never even asked if we wanted more bread (the only good thing I ate), drinks refilled, or desert. I will never go again. To add insult to injury, it did not sit well with me at all and I have a very angry stomach.

We stopped in for lunch before going out on a whale watch trip. We each ordered a bowl of house made soup; New England clam chowder for Ann and Italian wedding soup for me. Both were served piping hot in only a matter of minutes.

I’ve ate here twice and both times, I was not disappointed. The recent dining experience came about after an afternoon of whale-​watching. I was craving seafood (specifically crabs) but decided to stop by this place because my husband wanted to come back.
Since there were no crab entrees, I decided to go with the good ol’ surf and turf: a 10 oz rib-​eye and a baked stuff lobster tail. My husband ordered the baked haddock with shrimp and scallops.
The clam chowder side wasn’t bad as it had a cheesy taste to it; not something I’m used to. I didnt think that was the New England style. My salad was alright, although I had to cut up the lettuce into smaller pieces. It was as if they just tore the leaves right off the cabbage. I felt rather awkward eating salad with a knife and fork.
At last the entrees came. The rib-​eye was very good and cooked to the degree that I wanted: medium. I wanted A-​1 sauce with it but had a hard time flagging down our server. The lobster tail wasn’t bad, although it was more stuffing than the actual lobster. I would’ve preferred it the other way around, more lobster and less stuffing.
I was too busy eating my food to sample the haddock although my hubby said it was good.
We were both too full to order dessert but there were about six types of pies/​cakes.
The parking lot is small but we found a space. It’s a shared lot between the restaurant and a neighboring bar.
Side note: my husband appeared to develop a mild case of food poisoning that night as he complained of nausea. Not exactly sure if it could be attributed to the dinner.

The good:
–Super cheap, I paid less than $ 20 for 2 people at lunch
–Atmosphere, laid back and comfortable
The bad:
–Where’s the BBQ? The «BBQ» in the name is what drew me in and I went to this place expecting smoked ribs, pulled pork and brisket smothered in sauce. They had none of that, it’s just standard american/​seafood faire here.
–Bland food. I decided to be adventurous and order the salisbury steak, while the meat was cooked fine the taste was bland, and by bland I mean non-​existent. I never knew you could take meat and slather it with gravy and still have it coming out tasting like nothing. My girlfriend got an open face turkey dinner sandwich which tasted like it came from the frozen food section of the supermarket.
–Service was «meh» Our server screwed up drinks, totally spaced when we asked for something simple (like napkins) and apparently put our order through as cash (when we were using a card) which created a fiasco that the manager had to get involved in.
This is a two-​star place. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s not particularly good either. For one it’s definitely not a BBQ place. The food, while cheap, is so bland that when we left I found myself craving anything just to get some taste in my mouth. If you just want to eat for cheap and don’t care too much about taste, this place is for you.
(NOTE: I hate seafood, and this places menu was seafood-​heavy so it may be right up some people’s alley)

I just need to point out that no one I know ever refers to the Pilot House as a BBQ restaurant. They sell maybe 3 bbq items. If you’re looking for bbq, this is not the restaurant for you!
I used to like the Pilot House. The food is good, the prices are decent, and the drinks are reasonable. It’s the service that really stinks, and it’s why they’re losing a lot of business these days.
Here’s an example: my boyfriend (who has long hair) and I went there for an early dinner. The waitress referred to us as «ladies». We laughed it off, kind of cringed. She came back, and despite looking right at my boyfriend (who would make a really ugly lady), continued to call us «ladies». After three times, we pointed out that we weren’t both «ladies» and she laughed and said ‘Okay, girls!’ … Seriously? We gave up after we overheard her telling another customer that he could look at the fishtank and pretend he was on a tropical island. Umm.
The next time I went with a group of friends. The service was SO slow. There was 1 other table, and our waitress only had our table. She never came back to refill the water. She never picked up the bread plates. She seemed put out when we told her we wanted to take some food home. And, cardinal sin of all restaurants, she didn’t even ask if we wanted dessert.
I can get much better food and much better service not two minutes away. Pilot House needs to hire better staff before the tourist season really starts or they’ll be hurting with all of the options right around the corner!

If you want something cheap and fast… and you’re in downtown Gloucester, then the Pilot House will do the trick.
They are known for their steak tips which are decent but I moved on from those to other offerings after a few visits.
For lunch, I tend to go with one of their specials (there are usually 4 or 5 specials that change daily). My current faves are the Fishcakes n’ Beans, Chicken Pot Pie, and Braised Beef. But the Fishcakes are the winner — nice and crusty on the outside, and good hearty fish taste on the inside that’s not too dried out. Great with a little tartar sauce or squeezed lemon. The beans are out of the can (if you expect homemade baked beans on a $ 5 plate, then you are a dummy).
Their burgers are always good, plump and juicy. Easily one of the top 5 burgers you can get on Cape Ann. Make sure to get with sauteed onions and a side of Pilot Fries.
For dinner I always order the Baked Haddock ($ 12) — you get a huge thick slab of haddock baked in butter, bread crumbs and seasoned just right (hint of garlic maybe?), and you get a side veg (canned) and potato with that. I go with mashed or baked.
I also have to mention the iceberg side salad and white dinner rolls. «A» for effort to be sure, but they should be thinking about healthy-​ing that up a little. Sometimes they provide cornbread along with the dinner rolls and that’s a step in the right direction. Then again, there’s something honest about iceberg lettuce and dinner rolls. It is, after all, the type of place where you might see some of the older folks with fork in one hand, and bread for sopping-​up in the other. Blue collar eats for the no collar crowd.
You will always see other folks in there scarfing down various fried fish specials that usually include shrimp and clams as well. Not my thing, but the Pilot House moves a lot of that fried stuff so have at it if you do.
Décor is 70’s basic — spare and brown-​toned and even though Gloucester is not exempt from the smoking ban there is a hint of stale Marlboro Reds in the air — probably infused into the carpeting from previous decades.
The bar area features a handful of loud TVs that blast soaps during the day and sports at night, as well as a few well-​meaning alky regulars. Capable barkeeps can do the mixed drinks and the wine comes in small screw-​top bottles. Buds for $ 2.50 do it for me.
The dining area is basic but does feature a large chinese restaurant-​style aquarium. The fish swim a little and are nice to look at.
The Pilot House has its own parking around back and if you’re lucky, you might see the surly owner sitting in his truck making sure non-​customers don’t park there… quaint.
So as most of the joints in town are going upscale and/​or forgetting their roots, the Pilot House is keeping it real, and keeping it cheap. It is a great place for all you touristas looking to dine with fishermen, truck drivers, smokers and drinkers. If you are a local who hasn’t been (and surprisingly, there a lot of locals who haven’t) do yourself a favor and check it out. Start with the steak tips and ask for them lightly seasoned.
Buona Fiesta

I’m never disappointed with the food at The Pilot House. The menu is affordable (even given current market prices for seafood), they staff is friendly and helpful and I always leave full.
Would I recommend this place as one of THE BEST PLACES to eat in Gloucester? No. But if you’re looking for a place to have dinner with friends in an unpretentious, non-​rushed environment, this is the place to go!

Tourists that wander into The Pilot House — I couldn’t begin to guess what draws them in, perhaps the location? — are sure to be disappointed.
Whereas regulars develop a stomach the chewy steak tips or lukewarm rice pilaf at very agreeable prices (entrees around 10 USD), I have to imagine that out-​of-​towners are horrified with their meals, the surly crowd (more in the bar area than the dining room) and septuagenarian (on average) wait staff.
Two stars: One for value (man *needs* to eat, he doesn’t *need* to enjoy it) and one for outstanding old-​timesy Gloucester photographs.