Andy Tullis / The BulletinServer Bree Walder delivers beers to patrons Jackie Lawson and her husband, David Lawson, on the patio at Anthonys in the Old Mill District last week.

When the Anthony’s HomePort group opened a restaurant beside the Deschutes River in 2004, it was something of a novel concept: a seafood establishment, married to the Puget Sound area, reappearing on an inland river.

At about the same time as the Bend restaurant, riverside Anthony’s locations were also opening in Washington — in Richland (the Tri-Cities) and Spokane. They set a new course for the Gould family, which built its first restaurant in Bellevue in 1969 and launched the Anthony’s concept in Kirkland in 1976 on Lake Washington.

The Goulds are still owners. They now have 29 restaurants, most of them dinner houses in marinas from Olympia to Bellingham. The group has its own wholesale seafood company on Pier 91 in Seattle, assuring fresh fish in every season.

In some ways, I feel the Bend restaurant — now known as Anthony’s at the Old Mill District — is a neglected cousin. Certainly, the location is hard to top; enormous picture windows seem to beckon the Deschutes to flow through the restaurant itself, a mood that’s enhanced by theme lighting. A spacious patio extends the establishment even closer to the river.

Service issues

As I am familiar with several Anthony’s on Puget Sound, I have higher expectations for the team in my own city. It’s not just about the oysters; the raw-bar selection I welcome at many seaside Anthony’s is absent here. It’s more about uninspired food preparation in general. My meals here haven’t been bad, but they are a far cry from fine dining.

Most of all, the service staff just doesn’t seem to be on top of its game. As often as not, I find the hostess stand unmanned, sometimes for minutes at a time, when I arrive for a meal. I have had long waits for a table in times that have not been busy, and long waits to have my order taken when beverage delivery has been slow. I have had to plead to have my water glass refilled. I have even had a wrong bill presented to my table.

There was a time when Anthony’s charged extra for warm bread with dinner.

That gaffe was corrected years ago. But diners still must pay $5 to $7 extra for a cup of soup or a small salad with their meals. To me, that seems untenable. It certainly makes me question value.

At a recent dinner, my companion decided she wanted a bleu cheese salad with shrimp. She got about a tablespoon of bay shrimp and a single chunk of cheese on a bed of romaine hearts, with shaved fennel and cherry tomatoes. It certainly wasn’t what she had hoped for. But as she ate, she did find additional crumbles beneath the lettuce.

My seasonal greens — as it was only baby spinach, I suppose I might have been alerted that it would be a spinach salad — came with lots of bleu cheese crumbles, which I was pleased to share. The salad was topped with crushed hazelnuts and lots of sliced strawberries, along with which I believe was a rhubarb vinaigrette.

Seafood courses

But Anthony’s is all about its seafood-heavy menu, and in two separate visits, a dinner and a lunch, we had an opportunity to try several dishes.

My favorite, not surprisingly, was a filet of alder-planked Copper River sockeye salmon, the most richly flavored of any Alaskan salmon and a seasonal special. As I hadn’t specified how I wanted it prepared, I was satisfied to have it cooked medium.

At a separate meal I chose petrale sole, a flounder species native to the Sound. Instead of a single plate-size filet, I was served three small, panko-crusted, pan-fried filets, which were presented with a wedge of lemon and a dill-rich tartar sauce. It was just OK.

Both the salmon and sole were served with crispy snap peas and basmati rice, tossed with diced onions, slivered almonds and golden raisins.

My companion, on one visit, had seafood fettucine with prawns, bay shrimp, manila clams and weather-vane scallops in a garlic cream sauce that was remarkably similar to an alfredo sauce. She had the kitchen hold the mussels that normally are included. The dish also included vegetables in the form of chopped zucchini and cremini mushrooms. It was fine, but at $24.95 was overpriced.

When she had Dungeness crab toast at a subsequent meal, she commented that the three open-face slices of toasted sourdough made it seem more like an appetizer. In fact, the spread of crab, shrimp and artichoke appears as a dip elsewhere on the menu. The only difference here was that it had been baked. Its most appealing aspect was a side of Asian coleslaw, made with Napa cabbage and sliced ginger.

A hamburger, which we took away for a guest visiting from out of town, was proof positive that Anthony’s offers quality beef as well as seafood. But it clearly wasn’t intended to be the No. 1 attraction here, as the presentation and accompanying fries were only average. Such is the lot of a neglected cousin.

— janderson@bendbulletin.com.