BC
Brittany Cousins
3 days ago
Friday night, my fiancé and I decided to try Bonefish Grill after stopping at Kay Jewelers to pick up my wedding band. This was my first time visiting, while my fiancé had been a couple of times before. Knowing my love of seafood, he assured me this was one of the best restaurants in town. Unfortunately, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
We were seated immediately around 7:30 PM, which was promising. However, we then sat for about 10 minutes without being greeted, while the person I assume was supposed to be our server leaned against the table next to us chatting the entire time. Eventually, she went back to the kitchen and returned with another server who introduced herself and said she would be taking over for whoever was supposed to be waiting on us.
We received water and bread, then waited again before drink orders were taken. We ordered two sweet teas and the Bang Bang Shrimp. When the drinks arrived, the tea was unsweetened. When I brought this to the server’s attention, it was brushed off and I was told she could bring sugar packets—which is not the same.
Once we were nearly finished with our appetizer, our food order was taken. I ordered the fish with crab meat and hollandaise special. My fiancé ordered the lobster tail and sirloin special. I opted to upcharge for the Brussels sprouts after asking what was on them and being told they were fried with balsamic. There was no mention of cashews.
From there, we waited over 45 minutes for our food. The server repeatedly told us it would be out soon and that she would check on it. Eventually, she told us dessert would be comped for our patience. At that point, I was expecting hot, fresh food.
When the food finally arrived, it looked great—but that’s where the positives ended. My mashed potatoes were cold and completely unseasoned. Next, I tried the crab meat and hollandaise. As a chef myself, I had high expectations, only to be met with lukewarm crab meat that tasted like Bang Bang shrimp sauce—completely unappetizing. Lastly, the fish was ice cold, tough, and dried out. After a couple of bites, I pushed my plate aside.
While this was happening, I noticed my fiancé cut into what was supposed to be a medium-rare steak, only to find it well done, extremely tough, and paired with a cold lobster tail. Our drinks were empty, the food was unacceptable, and nothing was being addressed. My fiancé decided to just eat his food to be done with it.
I let the server know I was unhappy, and she said she would get a manager. Fifteen minutes passed before we were told the manager had “disappeared,” and instead she would just remove my entrée from the bill. The lack of management involvement was a huge missed opportunity.
We did accept the comped dessert and received the coconut pie, which had the same dense, spongy texture as coconut cake—yet another disappointment.
Overall, this was an extremely poor experience. As a regional manager for a restaurant chain myself, I can confidently say that proper management involvement could have completely changed the outcome of this visit. Instead, the issues were ignored.
We finally left at 9:40 PM after spending 2 hours and 10 minutes in a poorly run establishment that seriously needs to learn from this experience and do better.