Daiquiri Deck Bradenton Beach — Restaurant in Brandenton Beach

We had been looking forward to visiting Daiquiri Deck due to its elevated position on the ever popular Bridge Street. A little later than originally intended, we arrived around 2120hrs looking for a table for 6 (drinks only). The lovely lady at the front desk was very helpful, explained that a 30-45mins wait could be expected and offered us the bar areas to wait until a table became available. We were more than happy to head to the rooftop bar, as the 2nd floor bar was busy and considering that the world is still looking over its shoulder at a Global Pandemic, figured that the outside bar was the better option. So, up to the rooftop bar we headed and found three bar stools at the very end of the bar, essentially 2 stools at the bar and one additional that was outside of the bar footprint and positioned in the area where the serving staff deposited the dirty tableware and glassware.

Now, as one would expect on a busy weekend evening and being situated at the very end of the bar, attempting to attract the bartender’s attention was a struggle, however, with it being as busy as it was we understood the pressure being placed on what appeared to be a single bartender. At least 10mins passed with 6 of us trying to gain the attention of said single bar person, who had 20-30 other patrons they were having to serve.

Finally the bartender approached and immediately snapped at one member of the party ‘no children at my bar, I won’t serve you until they are gone’. Not the best start to our experience of the Daiquiri Deck, however, once again being a busy night and the staff member clearly being overworked, we moved the single child who had been sat on the one stool that was outside of the bars physical footprint, however the bartender had moved on and chose to ignore the 4 remaining adults for a further 10mins.

With the time now 10pm, a gap elsewhere at the bar opened up, so the party relocated to make it easier for the bartender to see that we still hadn’t been served. Finally he engaged and took the order, albeit in a less than polite or friendly way. Once he delivered the first part of the order, it was noticed that two drinks were incorrect. The classic Margarita on the rocks which was ordered, became a Margarita Frozen Daiquiri and another one of the drinks delivered was incorrect. Bringing this to the attention of the bartender, he immediately went on the offensive stating that these are what we had ordered, that he couldn’t of misheard us, etc, etc. He was at this point an angry individual with a clear dislike of anyone that questioned him. It took 3 attempts to explain that a classic margarita on the rocks is not a frozen daiquiri mix.

The experience, now frought with frustration on both sides, reached its pivotal point where the rude and self-important bartender said ‘I’m going to walk away now so that you can work out what drinks you want’. This riled one member of our group who advised the bartender what he could do with his drinks and where he could place them. Bless the bartender, he followed that with ‘I’m going to decline service and ask you to leave’. Ironically, this was the first time he was actually polite and courteous, but he clearly didn’t understand that it was us that had already decided to leave the Daiquiri Deck due to the poor service and his appalling attitude.

As international travellers, we have always enjoyed our visits to the USA as more often than not the customer service is excellent. As you can see, it clearly wasn’t on this occasion. Whilst I may be an international tourist who won’t be visiting the area for quite some time, part of our party are local residents of Anna Maria Island and they’ll be sure to avoid this venue and advise others to do the same.

To the Daiquiri Deck Management.

One of your bartenders is clearly incapable of working a busy bar. May I suggest that you find him some help and arrange for him to attend some customer service training, or better...

My family was in town, & we all visited The Daiquiri Deck for dinner (11) of us. This was AWFUL!! Also, my brother mentioned having a shot as some of us had çocktails. We sat out on deck together. I went inside to the bar to get drinks (shots) of Green Tree. A young lady and young man behind counter so I ordered 3 Green Trees. I pd cash approx just over 30.00+ tip & carried back to table for siblings. I had ordered a daiquiri and requested floater. The drink was like a nice slushie, and I never received the floater. My salad, was okay, although it did not have ANY crab meat on it, as it was supposed to. More than half of everyone had issues w/ food sadly. I, myself had been busy speaking to my granddaughter when our waiter gave my boyfriend the check, & also told him I had ordered the 3 cocktails @ Bar & added over $30. More to expensive check. He never mentioned to me until we had arrived back to our condo. He was very unhappy w/ his order and disliked the food. The only thing he said was good was an ice tea. I called and spoke to the manager Jessica and then she told me to check with him to see if he paid with cash or debit. From the beginning she was very rude and had an attitude, and my opinion she should definitely not be a mgr. You should always listen to your customer and try to resolve it not have an attitude like it's a problem. She made it clear she didn't have time. Although they had 12 of us there, and definitely made & salary's. In the end she refused to reimburse pay gift card. NOTHING!!! AS I SAID TO HER WORD OF MOUTH SPEAKS FOR ITSELF AND I WILL GO FURTHER WITH THIS!! I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE!! SO UNPROFESSIONAL, & FOOD NOT even good, let alone great! Now I understand why they are opening their fifth store because they can afford to do that! With food cut backs, ripping people off & awful MGMT too!!! Unfortunately that night there was not many restaurants open as they were all busy which The daiquiri Deck was NOT, obviously...

Food was good......when it finally arrived. There were 3 people in our party. We were sat right away at 5:30pm when we arrived. There seemed to be plenty of staff and a good amount of open tables. Our waitress had 2 other tables in our section. One was a 2-top and the other was a 4-top that sat down after us. We ordered happy hour special drinks and received them in a timely manner. Then the long wait began. We finished those drinks before we saw our waitress again. Prob a good 20 mins went by. Then we ordered nachos for an appetizer and my husband ordered another drink. He received his drink and we waited about 30mins for the nachos. We received and then finished the nachos and still had not placed our food order. My drink was empty, my husband's drink was empty. The waitress reappeared and asked how we were doing. This seemed odd, as if she didn't remember we hadn't ordered food yet and drinks had been sitting there empty. We asked for the coconut shrimp appetizer for my meal and my husband ordered blackened fish tacos. At this point, my daughter didn't want anything to eat- she just wanted to leave (she's 17yo). 35 mins goes by, and the table that came in after us received their food. Our waitress comes over and says ours shouldn't be much longer and she doesn't know why they all got their food first. I asked the waitress if she could please bring the bill over when the food comes out bc I only paid for 2hrs parking and I've only got 30ish mins left. The food appears moments later and we were able to get out of there with about 7mins to spare. Not sure where the disconnect was, but plain nachos, a coconut shrimp appetizer and blackened fish tacos shouldn't have taken almost 2 hours. Food was good, but be advised- you may be in for a long wait...