Let me say I like this restaurant. I believe in supporting local business, and I do. That being said, I find that occasionally something is off with the food, the order, or the service when I dine here. This last visit is making me want to share, just because is was a series of simple mistakes, that never should have happened. To start, I ordered the Tropical Seafood Cakes (which are delicious) for an appetizer to share. Our server brought the plate to the table and set it in the middle of the table, with 2 plastic forks. Mind you, it is served on a triangular shaped plate the size of a small salad plate. Once you set that in the middle of the table, this small dish is away from you. We should have been offered 2 dishes to share the 2 cakes on, instead of cutting it with a fork from the middle of the table and hoping it doesn't crumble apart before it reaches your mouth. Whatever - not a big deal. Meanwhile, I had ordered a cup of hot tea. The server brought a mug of water to the table with a tea bag. I put the tea bag in, and started to stir when I realized the water not only wasn't hot, it was barely luke warm. She must have filled the mug from the faucet. I went up to the bar and the girls were very nice and apologized and said they would take care of it. When she brought my mug back to the table it was hot... but she just put the whole thing - tea bag and all - in the microwave, hence the scum from the tea was now encrusted on the inside of the mug in hard pieces. Yuck. She should have just replaced it with a new mug, hot water and new tea bag. So now it's time to order, and I ask the server (Chloe) about the ranch fries - specifically about the salt. I have to monitor my sodium intake. She said there is salt in the mix - but not much, just a little bit. Based on that I decided to order them. When our meals came, I tried the fries... and they were nothing BUT salt. I had 3 french fries and had to stop because they were so bad... horrible. When she came back to the table later she asked if anyone wanted a box, which I did as I only ate 1/2 my mushroom burger (which was good). I spoke up and said "excuse me, but these fries are nothing but salt, they really are inedible", to which she said she was sorry... and nothing more. Yet - she brought me the bill and charged me for them! When someone tells you the food they served you is inedible and tastes like a salt shaker, she should have offered to replace them. Instead she just threw them out. My guest was sitting there just shaking his head in disbelievemnt at this point. He had to flag her down to ask for a refill on his Sprite, which was empty most of the meal. She replaced it, or so we thought... she filled his glass which had Sprite in it - with water. Not what he asked for. He asked for a refill of Sprite. All the while she had brought us the bill, with out ever asking if we wanted dessert... which we had planned on ordering. By this point we just wanted to leave.
This is a cute restaurant, food is generally good. The staff is young teenagers for the most part, and I attribute a lot of this to just being young and not knowing proper etiquette but this is the end of the season, not the beginning. Hopefully management/ownership will read this and properly inform their young servers how to handle situations a little better... like charging a customer for food that needed replaced. That's how you keep your customers happy and wanting to come back. And how you get patrons to recommend you. I still would recommend give the restaurant a try, however be prepared for possible issues with your order.