TLDR: Sunday brunch buffet has a decent selection including peel and eat shrimp and mussels. Hiccups in service made for a mediocre overall experience.
Vibe: 4/5. Located right on the Sue Creek in Essex, Charly's Sue's is a small bar/restaurant with both inside and outdoor dining. It appears the restaurant has recently undergone a large refresh, as both the interior and exterior of the building and it's finishes seem to be new. The outside has a large gravel patio looking out to the creek, complete with hammocks, an outdoor fireplace and lawn games. There are also several umbrella covered wrought iron patio sets that make up the outside dining room. The inside dining room area is mostly made up of the large 10+ seater bar, a handful of high-top tables and regular height tables for larger groups. The restaurant has large sliding garage panel doors that can be rolled up during nice weather that open up to the creek/patio. The entire restaurant embraces the boater/nautical theme, which can't be more obvious than the maritime blue color that the entire exterior is painted in. One note of caution, the unmarked gravel parking lot is shared by a neighboring marina, so be careful not to park too close to any of the equipment or blocking the boat launch.
Service: 2/5. During our Sunday brunch at Charly's Sue Creek, we experienced a very frantic and inconsistent wait staff. We made brunch reservations for 11:45am for our party of 5 a week beforehand, which they had no problem honoring and having us seated on time. Once at our table, it took over 10 minutes for our server to come get our drink order and explain the buffet. The restaurant, at best, was 50% occupied and with multiple servers, so it did not seem overwhelmingly busy. Also, this was a brunch buffet, so the only responsibilities for the waitstaff would be to fill drink orders and clear dirty plates. After our server finally took our drink order, we walked up to the buffet line and to our surprise, there were zero clean plates available. We let the waitstaff know and they said it would be 10 minutes until the kitchen could bring out clean plates. So we sat waiting at our table until the kitchen reloaded the plates and finally could start serving ourselves. By this point in the meal, it had been over 20 minutes since we placed our initial drink order and had yet to receive it. We opted for the bottomless mimosa/bloody mary/bellinis for the table, so we were paying a flat fee for the drinks. The bottomless deal ends at 1PM, so we were trying to get a few drinks in to justify the cost. After reminding the waitress we were still waiting on drinks, she finally brought them to our table and apologized, claiming it was the bar's mistake. I would normally be cool with letting situations like this go unnoticed, but over the course of the next 60 minutes, we had to go through the same drink ordeal 2 more times. We would request a refill, the waitress would take the order and run off, and then we would never get the drink until we mentioned it again. This was not limited to just alcoholic drinks, but also water and iced tea refills. Dirty dishes were also a noticeable miss. Our party, as well as neighboring groups, constantly had stacks of dirty dishes on the ends of tables waiting to be bussed. This definitely explained the clean plate shortage we encountered in the beginning :)
Food: 3/5. The brunch buffet offerings at Charly's Sue Creek had some hits, but predominately misses. During our visit, the brunch buffet included peel and eat shrimp, steamed mussels, a deep dish style breakfast pizza, caesar salad, bacon and sausage, french toast and pancakes, hash browns, fresh fruit and pastries. In addition to what was served on the buffet line, you could order fresh made eggs and scrapple to your table at no extra cost. I was able to sample everything, and honestly nothing stood out. The peel and eat shrimp were nicely sized and cooked well. The mussels were by and large small in size, with many shells being empty. The breakfast pizza was very doughy and not cooked properly. The thickness of the pizza prevented the interior of the pie to be fully cooked, while the bottom was burnt to the point that you could not eat it. The pancakes and French toast were passable, as well as the bacon and sausage. The made to order eggs were slightly overcooked and had an odd taste to them, reminiscent of old oil or a frying pan not being thoroughly cleaned out prior to use. The wins of the meal were the made to order scrapple and the cinnamon buns. The scrapple was cooked perfectly, with a nice crispy exterior and soft interior. The cinnamon buns had been sitting out for awhile so they were no longer warm, however they maintained a soft texture and had the nice not overly sweet flavor that we all expect from a solid cinnamon bun. Overall for $30, unless you gorge yourself on shrimp and scrapple, it's not worth the price of admission. read more