Sebastian's Restaurant Bar & Lounge — Restaurant in Bonaire

Amazing experience but not for the right reasons Unfortunately , my business partner and I chose sebastien's for our dinner last night . Having checked out their website, nothing indicated that this night was to be a special event dinner As we had no reservations, we went as soon as the restaurant opened taking a chance their would be available tables which there were As we walked up to the front entry, no sign indicated that this was to be s special dinner. The occasion , American thanksgiving. Being Canadians , we were unaware of American holiday dates as our thanksgiving is in October. As we were greeted by the hostess, she, nor any of the dozen or so waitresses ever bothered to mention that tonight was going to be a turkey and stuffing dinner. Now, you would think, that when a restaurant has a special event they would at least post it on a small sign at the front entry of the restaurant its the least that a restaurant owner would want to do in case some patrons would not like to eat a turkey dinner that night Anyways, in we went and we were seated a waitress came to us relatively quickly and took our drink order. Some time went by and we started to think that a menu should be brought to us at the same time as our drinks but no ... instead , we tried to make direct eye contact with any of the dozen waitresses to no avail. You could feel an under current of panic amongst the generation z employees that had all locked their gaze approximately two inches above the top of the head of the tallest patron in order to avoid any such eye contact and god forbid have to take on any type of responsive action which they did not seem prepared or equipped to handle. As we watched these employees enter a catatonic zombie like phase , our hopes of seeing a menu brutally came to a halt as after 20 minutes we were presented with a luke warm pumpkin soup. By now, we were in too deep to escape as we were hungry and it was too late to change restaurant's so we accepted the fate that was imposed upon us. We took heart in the fact that the table of 6 sitting next to us and who had arrived long before us finally got their turkey. Unfortunately for one of the six, the waitresses could only seem to be able to count to five so the sixth member of the group had to wait an additional 15 minutes before her turkey arrived. Im sure she enjoyed watching her friends eat and took solace that one day it would be her turn. After a while i decided to take a smoke break and i passed by the kitchen. It was total pandemonium , a half dozen kitchen employees moved about like intoxicated squirrels seemingly with no sense of what to do but panic. They were accompanied by an additional 5 waitresses standing there clueless as to what was going on adding to the overall traffic jam. We did eventually get the turkey and for sure we will never go back. The only redeeming quality that i can add is that the staff forgot to charge us our drinks. I can just imagine this place if they were serving their regular full menu. How hard is it to organize 200 plates of just turkey soup and dessert for everybody. Owner beware, train your employees so that they actually care about your business. You wouldn't want your beach front restaurant to turn into a Starbucks ...though your staff would...

I try to reserve my current reviews to places I recommend and avoid writing long negative reviews, but sometimes we have an experience that is so disappointing that I feel the need to let others know what to possibly expect. Sebastian’s is in such establishment. My wife and I spent a full week in Bonaire and tried a wide variety of restaurants and, although the food is generally overpriced on the island, we had many good meals. For dinner one night, we decided to try Sebastian’s as a mid-upper range seafood meal. We made reservations and showed up on time. We were seated immediately, but that was when the disappointment started. We were among the first seating of the evening, so the servers seemed to just be showing up to work their sections. It took well over 15 minutes for anyone to even come great us, and that person was a young woman server who told us about the specials. When I tried to get her attention to order drinks (because she had not asked us if we wanted any) she walked to another table and didn’t even look back. We waited several more minutes and watched as the servers milled about – still not having given our drink orders. I got up and walked to the server that told us about the specials and asked her if she was our server, and she responded, “no, the other girl over there is your server – she should be with you in a minute.” She didn’t even offer to help us with anything. When our server did finally make it to our table, it was clear she was fairly new and didn’t know the menu well. She took our drink order and since we were already aware of what we wanted to order for dinner, we told her we would just place our orders at that time. Then, after about 10-15 minutes, the food arrived – and we still did not have our drinks. (Side note – we ordered what would be traditionally considered pre-dinner cocktails, so we expected to have a drink and then receive the food and possibly order a more appropriate dinner drink such as a glass of wine). As they were placing our dinner plates on the table, I turned and saw the young woman server with our cocktails bringing them to the table. The food was mediocre at best (I had a pasta dish and my wife had the fish trio), so we quickly finished our food and promptly left. We were in and out in about an hour, and my main regret was not walking out when we never received service in the first place. Finally, as soon as the food was brought to us, we were swarmed with large flies (we were seated on the balcony area outside, but not the pier). Honestly – I am sure they have their target customers and some of the positive reviews demonstrate that, but if you are looking for a good dining experience for even a reasonable mid-level establishment on the island, I would look elsewhere. We loved the service and food at the Cantina (but that is a completely different vibe) and even though It Rains Fishes wasn’t really our kind of establishment, our hotel recommended it the first night we arrived and at least there, the service was excellent and the food was good with some dishes being well above average. Our favorite dinner on the island was the final night when we ate at Flora – that is more of a fine dining experience, but not in a pretentious way and the food was...

I and my husband went there for Christmas dinner. We ordered beef carpaccio with arugula (at least this is what the menu says) and grilled calamari for our appetizer. For main course I ordered red snapper served with lobster sauce, baby shrimps, leak, carrots and my husband ordered fish trio with mashed potato, broccoli pure and some other pure. What we got was: Beef carpaccio, as on the photo, barely had arugula... The size of calamari was really small Fish trio included three very small pieces of fish but there was not broccoli pure. The green pure was just mashed potato with some color added not even mixed with broccoli. I suspect that the orange pure was also mashed potato. The real issue was with red snapper that I ordered. What I got was just a pice of fish with a sauces and bowl of rice! I said that I didn't order rice, that maybe it is for my husband dinner but the server said that it comes with my dinner. I said that in the menu there is nothing about rice but instead the menu says that it comes with baby shrimps, leak and carrots. The server said that this is the sauce that is made of those... Well, no, the menu says "lobster sauce, baby shrimps, leaks, carrots." It does not says sauce. Actually I cannot imagine that they make sauce from the shrimps. The server didn't know what to say and went to ask, I think, a manager. After a while the manager came with the small bowl of carrots. She didn't say anything but almost threw those carrots on the table with angry face like she wanted to say "here are your f* carrots..." No apologies, no explanation, nothing just angry face... I even didn't ask about baby shrimps... I cannot imagine that customers tolerate this kind of service because for me it is like the staff thinks they are doing customers a favor for allowing them to eat at this restaurant and that customers have to eat whatever is served regarding what the manu says. Also, I suspect that the menu is written this way purposely so it looks fancy and nice. Definitely I do not...