The Franklin Café — Restaurant in Apalachicola

As a fine dining waitress it takes a lot for me to have a bad experience with a restaurant and their staff, as a matter of fact I’ve never had a bad experience with a restaurant until we dined here last night. There is obviously no management here whatsoever. We called asking how long the wait time was since we had 3 toddlers in tow, and whoever answered the phone said there wasn’t a wait. Walked in 5 minutes later and waited 45 minutes for a table, even though there was an abundance of tables open outside, which we voiced that we would be happy to sit out there. The host looked like she was lost the entire time, but she was nice enough to grab us water and our order since the waitress outside ignored our table and another table of 7 elderly people, who ended up leaving after 25 minutes. I guess she was too busy talking with her friends to want to make a good tip off of our table. Another waitress was sent outside to finalize our order, and during that time an even bigger party was sat next to us and the original outside waitress was very quick to get their drinks and order taken, meanwhile we’re still waiting for our drinks to arrive, and they even ate before we were close to getting our food, at this point we had been here for 90 minutes. There’s no communication between the BOH and FOH because after placing our order the waitress came back 5 minutes before the food came out to let us know that XYZ was out and we had to pick different substitutions. The fish of the day was barely warm, the lemon thyme basmati rice was plain minute made rice from the microwave with no flavor, and the Brussels sprouts were tiny and hard, I counted 5 halves on my plate, the broccoli wasn’t even close to cooked. The only dish at our table of 7 that had any flavor or season were the French fries. The entire restaurant needs to close and have a retraining class on how to function. This was a waste of money and time. The service at McDonalds was better...

I wouldn't wish this dining experience on anyone. Getting drinks at the bar took forever. Once seated they took even longer. Three draft beers, two glasses of wine, and two specialty drinks. Ten minutes after ordering drinks we ordered food. The food came before the drinks did. Most of the beers were only about 3/4 full as the head had gone down on them from setting for so long. As the food arrived there were no side or condiments at the table so as our food sat there we had to wait for them to be brought out. Dozen raw oysters had to wait on crackers and sauces to be brought out. Chicken and waffles showed up but with no butter or syrup so had to wait for that to be brought out. Asked for ketchup and mustard for burgers and fries. One small dish of ketchup was brought out for three to share. For mustard we were given 5 mustard packets like you would get at a fair. Did that really just happen??? Yes it did. According to the menu the burgers come with LTOP which is assume meant lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle. What we got was arugula, tomato, and pickles. No onions. Also burgers were to come with bacon and cheese. Missing that too. The last breakfast dish was supposed to have grits, but had potatoes instead. Server was new "she said her first day" and didn't correct any of the mistakes. It took her three tries to get the bill correct. No management helping her or shadowing her or assisting with getting her drinks made. Just thrown to the sharks. Bloody Mary's were out of stock at 130pm on a sunday when it's their brunch menu drink special. I thought they were overpriced at $10 for the small of glass that they were served in but some wanted them anyways. Brunch menu is very minimal. Overall a major disappointment although not surprised. Had not heard many good things about the place but friends driving in from Port St. Joe wanted to give it a try. ...

Two times I give them 5 stars solely based on our server (Devin I think) who served us both times. We were staying at the Inn for the Labor Day weekend, which was beautiful. We arrived Friday evening and decided to grab some food before heading to our room. The first interaction with anyone was a staff member telling us the restaurant closes at 9pm as we walked in at 830pm…. Brushed it off and we were seated outside. We ordered raw oysters, stuffed flounder, and the chicken entree. The oysters were good, the rest not at all. Chicken was dry with no flavor and the flounder the same. Definitely could tell it was rushed out. When we asked about dessert, we were told the kitchen was closed…… umm? Server came back to tell us they would do it for us..We ordered tiramisu and cheesecake. The tiramisu was awkwardly large, like 3 normal sizes large…. Again, little flavor and poorly prepared. I assume this is something they make onsite. The cheesecake was just ok.

Decided to try again on Sunday. As we stood in line for about 30 min to even be spoken to, all we heard were the staff members apologizing that they are extremely understaffed. This screams poor management, but the couple servers they had were hustling. We were finally sat and ordered. Seafood dip, NY strip, and the catch of the day. Good lord what a disaster… the seafood dip was crab cake mix heated up in a bowl with burnt flatbread, gross. The steak was ordered medium rare, came out well done. Not even a half inch thick, so you can’t blame the cook, again a management problem. My wife said the Cobia wasn’t bad just needed some more seasoning. We decided to get the bread pudding which was pretty good. The restaurant has good bones, but is screaming for help, the potential is there. Management needs to revise the menu, update decor, and do some basic training...