El Pescador Marisqueria & Bar — Restaurant in Isla Cozumel

We stopped at this restaurant a few weeks ago while we were on a tour of the island. The four of us are Whole-Food Plant-Based Vegans who follow a low fat diet. Plus I am gluten-free, so we have a very hard time finding restaurants that can cater to our needs. We had packed our own lunches so we knew that we had healthy, safe food to eat. When we stopped at this bar-restaurant we asked if we could eat our own food there if we ordered beer. They agreed. We enjoyed the atmosphere and service. We especially appreciated that they understood our dietary needs. We tipped well for the “rental” of the table. Today we stopped there again. It was busy, but at the end of their tour bus time and tables were emptying. We sat at a table for 20 minutes, being completely ignored while waiting for the table and chairs to be cleared and cleaned for us. We finally had a waiter come to us, and we ordered beer. We made the mistake of presuming that we could again eat our own healthy food. As soon as the waiter saw us start opening our lunches, he only had attention for us (no longer too busy to ignore us) and insisted that we could not eat our own food, despite nothing on the menu being suitable for our diets. So we paid for our beers and left. We will not return. If a restaurant cannot accommodate special diets, but we are willing to pay for the drinks and the “rental” of the table in our tips, should they not be happy to accommodate us? We could have just sat there and ordered beer and drunk beer. They would have allowed that. We were NOT taking away from other customers, as there were now many empty tables. If the management reads this, I hope they will consider that their menu is not suitable for everybody. Just as there are people with physical disabilities, there are also people with dietary disabilities. It would be nice to either make your menu all-inclusive, or at least be welcoming to people who are not disrupting your service to other customers, but simply asking to be treated with...

This place is CASH ONLY and it's definitely priced to get overseas tourists' dollars. The menu prices are slightly cheaper if you have Mexican pesos vs USD.

They charge $4 for a 16 oz bottle of water from Sam's Club or for a standard can of soda.

Prices for ceviche are all $20+ USD.

I ordered the $4 USD pico de gallo and chips. Despite ordering tortillas instead of chips, I had to flag someone down to bring me some corn tortillas as their chips are made in a shared fryer and aren't gluten-free. This matters to me as someone with celiac disease. I didn't like the corn tortillas as they had zero flavor.

I also had the $24 USD shrimp ceviche, which I liked but could have used some more lime juice, and my husband had a $13 USD margarita that he said was watered down.

I generally liked my food but 1 margarita, 1 bottle of water, 1 ceviche and 1 pico de gallo was $48 USD. I don't know who still carries cash but them not getting Starlink or something is severely limiting the amount of business they do.

You will be approached by people trying to sell you stuff while you eat which is always obnoxious.

Your table is in the sand and the waiters are barefoot, but I suggest keeping your shoes on as there were many rusty, metal bottles caps in the sand. You don't want to step on those barefoot.

I ordered in Spanish but they do speak English for taking orders.

There is zero cell signal out here and they do have restrooms.

Visited...

Nice little beach restaurant on the relatively quiet south side of the island. We arrived about 11am in a hire car for the view and a drink and the place was very quiet. Staff were friendly and although they asked if we were eating they weren't pushy. 4 cans of coke was only 2usd a can which is pretty good considering the location. Then the coaches arrived. Boom..! They piled in. The place was full in 10 minutes flat. They have a guitarist who asked if we wanted him to play and made no fuss when we said no. They had a liitle band who sounded quite good from where we were sitting and the food (although we didn't eat) looked well presented. But oh, the toilets. They were spotless. Just go for the toilets. They have to be the cleanest beach bar toilets I have ever visited. They put anything in the uk to shame. I swear they were cleaner than most restaurant kitchens. A can of cola on a plastic table is a repeatable experience, but a clean beach bar bog, that's special. Anyway, nice beach, friendly staff, good looks OK, fair prices and clean toilets, recommended, but avoid the coach time off the...