Maddie’s Sail Loft of Marblehead

A great little gem and best drinks in town by far. The food is excellent but the restaurant upstairs needs overhaul design and décor-​wise and less cramped. Staff is friendly. Great local spot. A must stop.

The full restaurant is on the second floor, the steps are outside. Jack Daniel’s steak tips were delicious, but the portion was small. The 2^nd time I went to Maddies, I could not taste the garlic in the garlic mashed potatoes. If you want rolls, ask for more than two, they only bring two at a time to the table. Here is their Facebook page:
— I do not think they have gift certificates to buy, I wish they did.

Excellent lobster BLT. Great locals bar with fantastic bartender. Swordfish blt great too. Get the onion rings.

Love taking friends and family who expect normal pub food here for lunch and dinner. Upstairs is super cozy in the winter and the dinner entrees are delish. If the lobster corn chowder is the soup of the day, get it. Best fish sandwich and amazing swordfish. Only wish is that they had a better sav blanc on their wine list.

Best drinks in Marblehead! Steaktips Are great, the servers and bartenders are dolls. #1 local spot

Pleasant, but nothing outstanding. Good service, and well-​priced (my swordfish dinner was less than $ 25, including tip).

Not bad for a nice lunch on the water. Nothing to rave about as far as the strength or quality of the food, but overall a nice place for a scenic bite.

Wow! Really impressed with the quality of the food and the service. The calamari was delicious and the fish dinner was very good. The only thing they can improve on is to tighten the toilet seat so that you don’t almost fall off when visiting the restroom.

Wow, I totally would have walked place this place if you Unilocalers didn’t mention it. I initially started to walk into the divey looking downstairs but remembered someone mentioned the top floor. Found it! (stairs to left of first floor door. FYI not handicap accessible)
Came here for dinner and since I came early (6) on a Thursday it was pretty quiet at first. The dining area is nice and the candles on the tables make it feel cozy.
I ordered chowder and mussels. The chowder was the thin kind and I think it had some kind of wine of sherry in it. It was a little on the cool side but since I had to track someone down for a spoon after it was delivered I didn’t feel like sending it back. The chowder was fantastic, one of the best I’ve had. The Mussels were cooked well and had a tasty white wine broth. They were served with yummy garlic bread.
I liked the chowder so much I came back for lunch two days later. (FYI chowder has bacon in it but they don’t tell you– it’s a bacon surprise) So good! Definitely come here.

Found this place on Unilocal.Had a fabulous dinner! Service was professional, friendly, and efficient. Best of all, the prices were reasonable, if not cheap.

FYI. Your service was excellent. Your food was fantastic and Tammy goes out of her way to great everyone who walks in the door, wether she is bartending or checking tables making sure everyone is happy. She also knows how to handle an angry customer and keeping calm. She adds a touch of class to the restraunt and her smile an personality keeps us coming back. THANK YOU. Tammy

¹⁰⁄₁₀ lobster roll and inexpensive! Ordered a hot coffee and it came in a beer glass but whatever, it was still good.

Best bar in New England. I love this place. Filled with locals who are friendly as they come! Drinks are strong and the food is hearty! The bartenders make everyone feel welcome. And the curtains on the windows keep it safe to sneak in for an afternoon beer!

I have a weirdly emotional relationship with Maddie’s that you will never understand.
Eat topside, downstairs is for the kids.

December 19, 2014 Upstairs; undoubtedly the rudest, nastiest bartender on the planet. Until we went downstairs… Is it affiliated with Durgin Park?

This is a locals place.
We came here because my mom used to come here back in the day with her friends. Downstairs it’s a bit of a rowdy happy beerfest, upstairs is more family friendly but still hyper-​local. Half the people who walked in were greeted by other groups of people going «oh hey john!» «It’s been so long Kim!» — and these were people who didn’t know they’d run into one another.
The food was great — drinks were strong, and my Shirley Temple sucked.
Out waitress was great — friendly, attentive and fast.

When you walk into Maddies top dining area, you enter a place where the locals eat. The dark stained wood and nautical themed décor are the epitome of a New England eatery that has seen some good times and shows no sign of stopping. There is also a lower level which is where you get smashed after dinner. Definitely looks like it gets rowdy down there, in a good way.
We started with mussels for the table and I got the soup du jour which was a lobster corn chowder.
The mussels were tossed in your typical, but delicious, garlic wine sauce served with toasted bread points. They were extremely fresh, extra saucy, and built to share. (Pro-​tip: order extra dinner rolls with these to soak up the all the sauce).
The lobster corn chowder was AMAZING. It was deliciously complex, creamy, and the corn gave it a slight sweetness that kept me going back for more. If this is on special. Get it. Trust me.
For an entrée, I opted for the scallops. They were served over a lobster risotto and grilled asparagus. I really enjoyed this dish. The scallops had nice grill marks on them and were fresh and sweet. The risotto was creamy and had chunks of lobster in it, you really can’t go wrong with a good risotto.
Maddies has something for everyone.
The Food: Fresh, delicious, and expertly prepared.
The Drinks: Strong and the draft beers large.
The Staff: Friendly and homegrown.
The Atmosphere: Local and fun.
Check this place out of you are in Marblehead, you won’t be disappointed.

Sat downstairs for a late lunch on a recent visit to M’head while catching up with a friend. She had suggested this place for good fried clams and tasty lobster rolls. Sure, why not?
The upstairs was closed as it was an off-​peak time, but we found plenty of space at one of the tables in the lower portion of the restaurant. As other reviews state, it does have a bit of a «divey» feel to it. By the end of our late lunch, a few other locals had come in for a pint or two, and a conversation amongst all patrons and staff had commenced. Turns out a bunch of us in the bar had attended a university in Ohio, and yes that was one of the random conversations had during my visit. Randomly awesome.
The fried clams and lobster roll were simple but definitely tasty. On a nice day, I can see how sitting out on the upstairs deck may be the definition of awesome.

Great local bar in a wildly charming, yet obviously pricey town. This is the type of picture-​perfect New England town that you would assume could only exist in some celluloid fantasy, so it should come as no surprise that it has served as the setting for a number of Hollywood productions taking advantage of the occasional MA tax incentives.
The barroom is comfortable and instantly inviting. Its full of obvious regulars and the bartenders have been uniformly on point on every occasion I have visited. The beer selection is decent and the food quite good. The Lobster BLT is pretty much perfect and could go toe-​to-​toe with the version at Boston’s great B&G Oyster Bar. The fries here however, are decidedly ordinarily. Also of note were the tasty. medium bodied clam chowder, and the delicious fresh raw oysters offered at the not unreasonable price of 2 bucks a pop.

This is a place of mixed emotions and reactions. When you first walk in you think «dive» and you would be right. We almost walked out. Then you are greeted by very very friendly folk. The waitress, was engaging and pleasant and wanted us to be happy so any request were immediately answered with «sure»!
We both enjoyed the pan-​seared Haddock. tasty and well made with sides that were just good home cooking.
This is a local’s kinda of place and could use some serious updating but the very pleasant staff makes up for any lack of décor.