The Pool Club — Restaurant in San Pedro Town

On an island of many great dining options, The Pool Club raises the bar on an incredible dining experience. My girlfriend and I had dinner, and the ambiance was magical. Kudos to the owners for creating a lush tropical open-air oasis from the moment you walk beneath the entrance arch.

The cocktail menu shows that this isn’t their first rodeo, with some hand-crafted artisan cocktails. We started with the Hibiscus Martini, and I’d highly recommend it. Drink prices are higher than average, so be prepared. (This is not where you go to watch football on Sunday and knock back a half-dozen cocktails.). But the cocktail and wine lists are spot on, and on par with the rest of the experience.

The food was phenomenal. We started with the wood-smoked eggplant baba ganoush and a Pizza Napolitana. The homemade pita with the baba ganoush was too hot to hold because it was straight out of the wood-burning oven, but when it cooled a bit, it was the best tasting pita (or non-pita) bread I’ve had in years. And the same can be said for the pizza too! The pizza was good size to share as a starter, or plenty large enough to be your entree.

We didn’t try any of their signature steaks on this occasion, but we were told that’s what made them famous at their Tulum, MX location.

For entrees we had the Homemade Linguine with shrimp, calamari, and octopus, as well as the Vegetarian Agnolotti with sweet corn, sage butter & wild mushrooms. Heaven on the palate!! I’m not a vegetarian, but I could go vegetarian for a month straight if I could have the Agnolotti every day! Both pasta dishes were prepared perfectly, and the seafood was spot on for both freshness and preparation.

We didn’t have dessert (this time!), but from start to finish, the cocktails, the food, and the service were 10 out of 10, and this is now a top 3 island favorite for me. And after 18 years on island, and having eaten everywhere multiple times, that’s saying something!

Speaking of service, The Pool Club has brought a level of service and hospitality to San Pedro that’s been sorely lacking. (If you’re a fellow restaurant owner in San Pedro, there’s a lot to learn from The Pool Club experience and the service levels they provide. It’s truly a step above.)

Short version: great food, great service, awesome cocktail menu, all in the best setting anywhere in San Pedro. Is it pricey? Yes. Do you get what you pay for? Yes, and many times over! Besides,…aren’t you...

It’s a shame that I’m having to write this on behalf of the group I was with because we’ve loved San Pedro and everywhere else we’ve gone for food and drinks. We went to the poolclub for a drink after dinner, and could barely get service because the bartenders were sloppy drunk, letting random girls behind the bar to steal drinks. The redeeming quality about the Poolclub is its wonderful atmosphere and the guests which allowed for some fun conversations, so we stayed late.

At the end of the night the manager approached our table as we’d been sitting with a few girls, and without asking said that he was “getting us all shots”. No one from my group had ever approached this manager or his servers about buying shots. So for him to return with drinks that we’d never requested (pouring doubles so that they could charge double) and a receipt of over $100+ USD for 4 people was asinine. This “manager” proceeded to act increasingly hostile when we confronted him about the absurdity of the situation, and we paid the bill only so we could safely leave his threats. It was apparent that this man, had scammed us, and we’d like to spread the word to future guests so that they can avoid the same fate.

Never, ever visit the poolclub at night if you are a tourist in San Pedro. There are far too many other wonderful places to spend your money...

We visited the Pool Club several times during our week stay at Mahogany Bay. If I had written a review after the first visit I would have given five stars but unfortunately the service went downhill with each visit.

On one of our visits we sat by the pool and our original server shift was ended and he didn’t pass us off to anyone. We had to flag someone else down to get a drink and she was extremely rude, acted as if we were bothering her. There were only two other parties in the whole restaurant!

Our last night we had dinner at the Pool Club and it took nearly two hours to get a few pizzas served. Not only did the food take forever the service was terrible again. We constantly had to flag servers down as they weren’t attentive. They forgot things like giving us napkins and missed making one of our entrees.

Nice to have the pool near the restaurant but during dinner our last night a family with several kids were in the pool and let their kids scream the entire time. The family did nothing to keep the kids quiet and nobody at the restaurant said anything to them. I could understand if it was during the day but the restaurant was full and each table full of adults had to try and enjoy their dinner while this rude family and their kids screamed at the top of their lungs.

Could really be a great place if the...