Waterside Festival Marketplace - (757) 627-3300

The Waterside Marketplace was once the Downtown Center of Attraction. Excellent 'privately' owned restaurants offering a wide variety of great food choices, tons of specialty stores displaying unique gifts and clothing. It was clean, orderly and alive with people, excitment and entertainment. Folks would flock from both sides of the water via cars and ferries and privately owned yachts from all over the Eastern Seaboard. Then the city decided that they needed to raise the "rents" to pay for "whatever". The result of their greed forced all the great restaurants and shops to leave. What has replaced them is boring 'corporate' style restaurants that you see on the outskirts of every Mall across the country, a bar that stays open half the night feeding cheap liquer to 2o year olds. An excellent choice for a city that does NOT cater to DUI. Thanks to the city's management, the Waterside Marketplace in essence, has become a dump. A hangout for scumbags. It's a crying shame what she has become. My family and friends had always looked forward to the weekends there checking out the transient yachts, eating great Italian, Seafood or Caribbean and browsing through the various shops. It was always an enjoyable visit. However, now, I wouldn't set foot on the property. So if you're looking for greasy foods and loud restaurants, the Waterside will be your Mecca.

We stopped at the Waterside to visit the food court and have lunch. They had a nice selection of vendors in the food court with reasonable prices. On detraction was the loud piano player playing bad music loudly on an electric piano. It made it hard to sit there and relax and eat my food. He did not add to the charm!