I really wanted to love Snook's, which is exactly why this one is so disappointing…read more
The moment we arrived, I fell in love with the place. The music, cleanliness, design, waterfront atmosphere, and overall vibe were fantastic. It felt current, fun, polished, and honestly looked like it had everything needed to become one of our favorite stops in the Keys.
Unfortunately, the service completely changed the experience.
Our server was very kind, but also extremely forgetful and distracted/his head was somewhere else from
the beginning. Waters came out, we were told the kids special, and my parents advised our water what meals that my niece and nephew would want. My mother and sister were the. asked for adult drink orders, but my father and I were never asked what we wanted. About 13 minutes later two drinks finally arrived and another 15 minutes later both kids' entrées arrived even though the rest of us had not even ordered appetizers or our meals yet. It was just very awkward having the kids eating while the adults were still waiting to place orders, let alone the appetizers.
At that point, with the waters lack of organization and delay, we decided not to order adult entrées. We boxed up the kids' shrimp Alfredo, had two Long Island iced teas and two appetizers, and the bill still came in just shy of $200 with gratuity automatically added for our party of six, which included two children (which would be fine I feel if we spent more than 45 minutes here, without any delay or issues on the restaurants end)
The food we did receive was, okay, standard to say the least, but we never really got the opportunity to experience the restaurant the way we had planned because the service flow was so disconnected.
I genuinely try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was a first day, maybe it was an off day, maybe something personal was going on. We are all human. The server was never rude, and this is not meant as an attack on him.
That is what makes this review more disappointing than angry. The atmosphere was so good that I honestly thought this could become one of our top restaurants after vacationing in the Florida Keys every year for the past 10 years. If the service had matched the ambience, we probably would have added Snook's to our yearly itinerary regardless of the price.
The issues we experienced seem very fixable with better communication, pacing, and attention to the table (we could see the water standing and lounging in-between the 2/3 times he stopped be the table). I really hope they tighten these up because this place has so much potential. Younger staff is great imho, however they are old enough to know better and do better. Especially working at a quality waterfront restaurant.
Maybe we will give it another shot someday, but after this visit, It would have to be a last option for us to do so.