Rapscallion Seafood House & Bar

Great mix of lawyers and artists/​punk rockers and the Reno establishment in the Mid-​town area. Décor is High American with beautiful stained glass and rich looking wood everywhere– the bar area should be the envy of every other restaurant in Reno. Bartenders are always friendly too! (Todd rocks:) The restaurant has lots of quiet enclosed booths for privacy. I imagine many fat envelopes of cash have passed under those tables– no, no, I’m kidding, ha ha!
We eat here about once a week, lunch or late afternoon. It is always good, I have never had a bad meal. Happy hour menu is delicious and priced well. I have a particular love for the fish tacos. Also the blackened chicken quesadilla is amazing. And the coconut shrimp w mango chutney! Mmm…
Fresh squeezed grapefruit or orange juice alcoholic drinks are delicious, always. Yum.

Great food and great service. The crab legs were amazing. My husband had the halibut and it was a little over cooked but it was still really tasty. The Irish coffee was delicious for an after dinner treat.

6 of us went for dinner before going to the theater. There were one, maybe two waitresses on a busy Friday night for the bar and patio. Our waitress was extremely nice but either inexperienced or over worked. Just getting enough place settings and water was difficult. We all would have ordered 3 instead of 1 drink with dinner if we had been asked. It took so longer for dinner to arrive we were almost late for the theater. The drinks were very good. My kale salad wasn’t fresh looking. Hamburger was fabulous. Tacos excellent as was the clam linguini. After hunting down the waitress for our check, we noticed the $ 4 wine was charged at $ 12. Yikes. No separate checks available. Such a shame. 6 new customers and none of us would return. Very disappointing.

We have to Rapscallions many times in the past for happy hour and have always enjoyed it. Unfortunately last night we missed happy hour but decided to just sit in the bar and order from the regular menu.
The place was packed but our server was good and seemed on top of things. The food left something to be desired. Crab cakes were awful, thin and overcooked. The clam chowder was delicious. What we were most surprised at was how expensive the regular menu is. Would recommend for happy hour only.

Rapscallion Seafood House and Bar: April 16, 2016, 6:50 PM
«Wow», that’s how I’m spelling disappointed this morning.
My wife and I were conducting our own little walking tour of Reno waiting for a reservation at a different restaurant when we decided to have a drink and some oysters. Rapscallion has always been pretty good, we love the feel of the room, have had some great meals there, and we love the greyhounds, but our visit yesterday made it clear that we’ll need to be rethinking some of those assumptions.
To be clear, the bartender and our servers were excellent, we chose to sit on the patio and three different servers took care of us, our problem was the oysters. Just the day before we had purchased some oysters at a different restaurant and they were big, fresh, and inviting, but on this occasion they seemed inferior. The other restaurant shucked the oysters so that they slid right out of the shell with no additional stress. Getting the oyster out of the shell at Rapscallion was like fighting a small child for a skittle. The picture I posted looks great, and I was stoked when I took it… but at $ 28 a dozen, they left a bad taste in my mouth.
The staff we dealt with was great, but the oysters just didn’t measure up, and it may be a while before we’re back. There are so many places doing it better… I’m bummed.

So maybe it’s because it was lunch, but they missed the mark on this occasion. It was my first time here, and the location was picked by some people from out of town only here because a family member just had surgery. The group wanted a nice lunch since they had just received good news. We arrive to a mostly empty bar area around 2ish. We head back to the hostess area, where we wait for a solid five minutes, observed by multiple employees from the back of what turns out was the closed main dining room. Eventually, we are greeted and walked back to the bar area, there is some confusion about how to sit a group of five. I take a deep breath because I’m working and have to contain my usual sarcasm, so I smile and apologize to the group for the poor service so far.
It doesn’t get much better after we order. Four appetizers come out. The coconut shrimp was good, the calamari was bland and soggy. Then came the meals. My jambalaya was a tomato purée full of veggies with some shrimp and sausage, topped with a scoop of rice. Absolutely no spice. The sandwich ordered by the head of the table was a pile of over cooked grey meat on entirely too much bread to be a dip. She barely picked at her meal but finished the shrimp app instead. The one highlight of the food was someone had the salmon and loved it. Everyone else not so much. The drinks were left empty most of the meal and when I caught the waiter to pay so he wouldn’t bring the table the bill, I return to find he left it on the table announcing I had paid. This is supposed to be an upscale restaurant that I’m sure stuff like that happens all the time, how he could leave that there so then I had to fight over the bill and the tip, ugh.
So let me hit on a couple key points… the matriarch of the group wants to enjoy a really nice lunch because her husband is the one in the hospital, she found this place on Unilocal,was SUPER excited to eat there, and was so disappointed in the experience she apologized to me the next day when I visited them at the hospital. Service will always compensate for mediocre food but they didn’t even try on either front. I hope this was an off day for them but not in a rush to come back.

I went here with my husband last Friday for a date night… it had been about a year since we had one so I was very excited to take him to Rapscallion’s. He had never been. I went to the Unilocal Elite event with a friend about a year beforehand and was thoroughly impressed. He loves seafood and I’m starting to really like it. We had reservations at 7pm, but got there a bit early. The hostess was able to seat us quickly. Bread and wine came quick too… We ordered the «Diablos on Horseback» for an appetizer and it was phenomenal…5 stars! Then our entries came. My husband got the West Coast Cioppino and he said it was really good. I ordered the Rapscallion Trio (since I’m very indecisive). The breaded cod was amazing. but that’s all that was good… :(The shrimp were really overcooked and extremely rubbery (maybe sat in the warmer too long). I suck at cooking shrimp but I cook them 100x’s better than the three that were on my plate. The grilled salmon (which is my favorite fish) was super dry too. I ran out of the lobster bisque sauce on the plate to dip it in to help remedy the dryness. I was very disappointed. I’m sad that I spent $ 28 on a plate that was very mediocre. Service was great though…

Went out for date night. Both ordered the seared tuna. It was delicious! ! I can’t stress it enough! The atmosphere was inviting and perfect for a night out without the kids. The service was impeccable. Staff was very friendly. What an awesome experience and even better food. Can’t wait to try it again!

This is the third bad meal in about 6 months I have had here. I ordered the steamed mussels and the were actually uneatable. I think they may have been previously cooked and rewarmed, in the broth. The broth had a nice flavor but none of that was apparent in the mussels that were dried out and tasted like mud, plus the broth was filled with broken shells adding to my suspicion that the mussels were scooped up from a pre steamed bag. The garlic bread that came with this dish was nicely toasted and flavorful, but after trying a few of the mussels my appetite had vanished. The coffee was more like weak tea and the service was also off point on this visit.
I hate to post a bad review on one of Reno’s long time places where so many great lunch and dinners have transpired. But having gone back several times and having less then even decent food makes me think I will not bother again.

I was really excited to try this place but it just didn’t deliver. The service was great I will say that much. Now the food was just no where near good enough for the price. Their are many other higher restaurants restaurants in Reno with a smaller price tag and a LOT better food. I was quite depressed with just how tasteless everything was. I had to salt everything on my plate because it was SOO bland.
My filet was cooked ok, BUT half of my sautéed vegetables were still raw and tasted just like frozen bag veggies, on top of that, the cauliflower had random bock mold on it. Then the rice pilaf, if you can’t be better then crappy boxed rice, go home…
Well to out it very bluntly, my fiancé and I will not be returning. :($ 130 for 2 bland meals is sad.

Date night dinner. Woohoo! Wife and I are in the mood for Asian, and have been wanting to try Crawfish, so we pull into the parking lot. Dark. Doh! Closed Tuesdays. Grrr. Let’s drive down the road to 2-​D Wok, another one wanting to try. Dark. Doh! Closed Tuesday nights. GRRR again!!! Backup plan, quick! What’s nearby? Hmmm, Rapscallion, haven’t been there in years. Sure, let’s give it a go!
I forgot how neat the interior of this place is. If you’re looking for a cozy restaurant feel, this place has it, with all the mature dark wood, private booths, etc. Tuesday night they have their 2 for $ 38 menu, which we didn’t know about ahead of time. There’s a choice between 4 or 5 entrees, and none of them really appealed to us, but it really is a phenomenal deal if you like the entrees!
We started with the ahi poke, which I expected to have more of an Asian flair. Don’t expect Ahi Poke like you’d get in Hawaii– it was mostly just ahi and avocado. Though, it was all very fresh, tasty, and a pretty large portion for the $. Wife ordered the sole topped with a HUGE crab cake. I got the cracker crusted sand dabs. Both were tasty! Hers was quite rich between the crab cake and lemon butter sauce. Really yummy though! Would have liked the crab cake a bit more cooked for a crunch on the outside, instead of soggy all the way through. Great flavor though. Mine was lighter, and tasty, but not mindblowing.
We’ll definitely put this place back in the rotation, instead of once every decade. :-)

Had lunch with my family and everyone loved their meals. We started with Oysters Rockefeller and Escargot for appetizers. The escargot is amazing. Best I have ever had. The oysters were okay; nothing special about them. I had Sand Dabs as my main entrée. They were tender and delicious. My son had Chilean SeaBass and my husband had scallops. I tried both and really enjoyed them. They also serve sourdough bread which is baked fresh. We didn’t order drinks and our bill was exactly $ 100. It’s pricey for lunch for 3 but well worth it.

I decided to give Raps another shot and all I can say is «Yikes». Before I go into the reasons for dropping them down to 2 stars let me say this:
The service was great-​from the hostess to the server to the manager-​everyone was super pleasant and gave the level of service that I expect from a fine dining establishment.
Ok, so here’s the deal. 2 out of the 3 things we ordered were not available. One was an appetizer-​I don’t even remember what it was we ordered. The other was the San Dabs-​the reason I go to Raps. But no biggie I ordered the scallops instead at the server’s recommendation.
Oh jeez were they bad. They tasted like dirty fish. Dirty fish that was a few days paste the expiration date. I tried 2 bites and spit out the second. My companion tried a very small bite (to make sure it wasn’t just me) and the look on his face said everything I needed to know.
The server was apologetic as was the manager. I understand these things happen but someone in the kitchen should have noticed the sorry scallop state and tossed them.
My companions were pretty unenthused about their dishes. The chicken parm looked like something that could have been taken from a freezer nuked (a la Marie Calendars).
I said it before and I’ll say it again-​they made a huge mistake when they let their head chef go. This will be my last venture to Raps for dinner.
The Irish coffee was absolutely perfect as always and the apps were tasty so I will be back for Happy Hour adventures in the bar (and on their great patio!).

We have been wanting to try this place for a while and got the chance last week. It’s in a dicey part of town but with parking close by we didn’t have to walk far to get to the restaurant. When you enter, the interior is dark but a warm fire burns in the bar fireplace. It reminds you of an old school steak house with the dark wood and cozy booths. We were seated promptly and the service was spot on. The food was really good. We started with the coconut encrusted prawns with sweet chili dipping sauce and a half dozen oysters. Both were terrific. Oysters were fresh and briny with no funk about them. I had the main lobster tail with drawn butter for my entrée and it was cooked perfectly. My wife had the crab stuffed sole and it too was delicious. We washed it down with a great Grgich Chardonnay which was a manager special for $ 49/​btl. Nice dining experience if you have a hankering for some good seafood. We will definitely go back again to try some of the other dishes on the menu.

This restaurant came highly recommend from several people. My mother insisted I take my wife for our ten year wedding anniversary. We were excited. We got there around 7:00 and its was busy but we found a parking spot easily. The host was very pleasant and even found us a new table on the patio when we asked. The server was very friendly and did her best even when she was clearly busy. So far so good.
This is about the time that an SUV of wanna be gang bangers pulls up 6 ft from where we are sitting and proceeds to make every cliché about white trash come true. The amount of profanity and lack of vocabulary was actually impressive.
By no means does this reflect on Rapscallions.
We then bare witness to a heated exchange between a customer and the management. Followed up with a visit from two RPD officers to settle the dispute.
Again, out of the restaurants hands.
It took the better part of an hour to get our food. We took this with stride and wrote it off to being a chance to relax and enjoy each other’s company. When we got our food we were initially impressed. The presentation was wonderful and the food looked delicious. As I proceeded to eat my steak, I questioned whether or not I had asked for medium rare because my steak was cooked very well. The crusted layer on my mashed potatoes with the dehydrated vegetables had me believing that my food had spent just a few minutes too many under the food lamp. My wife was also concerned about the amount of leftover shells in her pre-​cracked crab.
As we sat listening to the roar of what is possible the new freeway on wells and the constant complaints from customers leaving the restaurant, I told myself that it must just be Thursday nights that are troubled.
The server was pleasant. The food was mediocre at best. The setting (at least on the patio) was not inviting. The price did not reflect the quality.
I hope that this was a fluke of an experience because my parents enjoy their anniversary with rapscallions every year. I want their time to be what they always remember.
For wife and me we will be finding a different place to make our memories.

Had the Mothers Day brunch with family here today ⁵⁄₁₀. Love the fruit with yogurt and the cinnamon muffins.
My sirloin chicken fried steak was just perfect.
Our daughter had the French toast, but it was not cooked inside, so she couldn’t eat much. Would have mentioned it to our waitess, but she never came and checked on us, while we were eating.
I do have one suggestion for the restaurant, it might be nice to offer a small kids menu, on the brunch menu. We had 2 small children with us and had to split an entrée.
I did like that they took reservations with OPEN TABLES, no waiting this way!

We were a mid size group and had just about all on the menu from appetizers to entrees. The food is really good. We started with the Ahi Tuna, sea scallops are really well done. I would pass in the calamari as it was really salty.
I had the rack of lamb with scalloped potatoes and it was great and well prepared. The portions are more than enough.
The only heartache was that they screwed up our reservations and had to move another party out to put us in our requested room. Reservations were made 2 weeks prior. 15 — 20 minute delay in an otherwise uneventfully night …

We had some time to kill in Midtown before we went to have a beer with some new friends of ours at UTR. So where to kill this time and get something to eat? Hmmm. We have killed a lot of time at the Z Bar but no food. And we have killed a lot of time at Chuy’s new place. but new friends means no beans. I’m stumped!
Hey wait! Allie just posted her review of Rapscallions! Great idea Allie! Thanks!
We sat at the bar because the bar is where we like to sit! It’s not a huge bar pretty much only one person would fit behind it, so get there early if you want a spot! It’s got the classic woods and feel of an old style bar.
We ate the Pork Wings, we ate the Fish Tacos, we ate the Heirloom Tomato Salad, we ate the Clams. We drank the Scrimshaw and drank the Pear Martini. We ate our plates clean and drank our glasses dry and were happy.
The bartender seemed like a pro. Getting things and clearing the used stuff up quick! In fact our little meal took less than an hour and gave us ample time to just enjoy each others company and catch up!
I’m sure we will be back soon enough because that Secret Cabin Bar menu is pretty extensive and we need to get a shot at trying it all before it changes again! And with the specials of So if you are thinking of going… save us a seat at the bar. We will be down in just a minute.

I was introduced to Rapscallion via a special Unilocal Elite-​only event where I was quite happy with the high quality of different dishes and drinks offered to guests. Impressed, I decided to return to see what «normal» people would experience. I had a friend fly in from Tucson and after picking her up at the airport, we came here for dinner. Our final tab was $ 79 + $ 16 tip = $ 95.
For appetizers, we chose the Diablo bacon-​wrapped scallops and the fresh oysters. I never got to touch the scallops since my friend devoured hers before asking me if I wanted a taste (harrumpf) but my fresh oysters, though quite small meat wise, were tasty. A complimentary slab of sourdough bread with butter was given to us.
Our mains: shrimp scampi (buttery, garlicky, generous with medium sized shrimp) and grilled salmon on a plank, which came with sautéed veggies and a wild rice pilaf. The salmon was small in size, but delicious and fresh. I don’t think there was a sliver of salmon left. The rice was excellent, but the veggies were a bit bland and too soft.
The crowd was a mix of dressed up couples on date nights, to girlfriends night out get-​togethers, to good olé boys drinking shots of whiskeys and doing lots of toasts. People came in heels and dresses, in shorts and polo shirts, you name it.
Lovely way to splurge on a dinner.

Had a fantastic lunch here! To save time, we sat in the bar area. There are two or three nice private booths in the bar so don’t hesitate (unless I’m there first).
First we started with a half order of escargo. Two words — duh-​lish!!! It is my favorite escargo on the west coast and I get it every time I come here. So tender and loaded with butter and garlic for dipping bread… Love it!
I had the Catfish and sweet potato lunch special and my friend had a grilled salmon that was the special. My catfish was sauteed in a lemon butter sauce with capers and (I think) and was crazy delish. The sweet potatoes were the perfect consistency.
The salmon was fresh and cooked well — absolutely no complaints.
I love the food, the service wasn’t awesome, but wasn’t horrible either. Would be five stars except for the location. Hey — it works on St. Patrick’s Day, but sucks every other day. Keep up the good food and service!