Rusty's Raw Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Cape Coral

The business failed to provide any service to us outside after multiple attempts to get a server and a bartender, with the bartender ignoring us and changing the rules of ordering multiple times and applying different rules to friends and regulars around violating local liquor laws by failing to ID everyone but when it came to us we needed to make four separate trips to the bar/staff to ask what we need to do to get our drinks, with large periods of time waiting for any acknowledgment while they were fully aware of the situation we had. The excuse provided by the waitstaff was that it was “very busy”, understanding that we waited adequate amounts of time but it being the off-season for Cape Coral it reflects on the lack of skill and preparedness of the bartenders at the outside bar. After getting disgruntled and asking why the bartender was doing these things to us and singling our party out specifically, he became confrontational and falsely reported us to his bouncing staff, telling them that we were being physically aggressive. This led to him escalating the whole situation and failing to truly identify what happened. This level of dishonesty and disrespect to customers in the service industry is abysmal and should be taken into consideration by anyone seeking employment here or seeking to make this a fun place for dinner, because it will serve as neither as the quality of management is obviously lacking over these employees. The bartender who escalated the situation should be fired immediately and a training course with how to properly handle a real situation in which bouncers are needed should be given as well, as they escalated the situation further by trying to instigate us with name calling and disrespect till the moment we left.

Go anywhere else within walking distance to avoid these problems and more that I’m sure we didn’t have the pleasure to experience! Good riddance!

Update: The lack of accountability is more than obvious now. As I have been living in Phoenix and I’m in the area celebrating Father’s Day and my sister’s graduation, I find it very hard to believe that I have visited this establishment within the last year, bar one other time that was plenty fine but that was exclusively because we came for volleyball and had little to do with the staff obviously. Your server did greet us but that was the only time they were seen, and when your bartender was asked why he could shove buckets of beer out without needing IDs but needed multiple IDs for less beers makes little to no sense and that if the rule he was stating was the law he was not consistently handling it, and him being called out on it resulted in him threatening another member of our party that he would “jump across the bar and choke him out” if he didn’t “get out of his face” which was what escalated the situation. It was only after a phone was taken out to record the situation in which the bartender shaped up and knew he was in the wrong so he fed you this funny story you’ve responded with. Both bouncers failed to de-escalate either, only creating a bigger situation than it needed to be. Your defense of your employees is honorable, but the people you’re defending are not. I see no reason for a business owner to sacrifice their business for bad employees.

To everyone else, let this be a lesson on bad business owners, if you can’t even properly articulate what happened and were completely unaware of the situation, maybe get the whole story first and calmly talk it out. The last thing I would leave you with is that blatant lying may convince a few people that we were the issue, however I think it’s clear from my very calm and collected demeanor while talking to your violent bouncers/bartender who assaulted my friend, shows my character. Your response is clearly evident of your lack of character and a complete disregarding of the pursuit of the truth and creation of a good hospitable environment. I would very much like to see the video, make sure to release it unedited. I hope it has audio to show the verbal abuse...

We had high expectations of Rusty’s because of reviews (came back bc Monday night they were closed due to their Xmas Party) but were very disappointed mainly bc of the service. No greeting by staff when we arrived and we hung out for a couple of minutes waiting and when greeted it was very abrupt and not friendly. They were not busy besides one large party in the back and several patrons at the bar. They ended up only having high top tables in the non-bar seating area, which both of my elderly parents could not sit at, so we were seated at 2 large tables in the bar area. To help bring our group of 8 together we moved to one table and pushed the other one off. Hillary, the bartender, who may not have been having a good day, seemed to grumble at me about this and I even helped her move the 2nd table so more patrons could use the table. Hillary was very short with us and my Dad when asking about drinks. She just appeared to not want to be bothered and after giving us our drinks never came back to check on us or even look our way, but handled the bar patrons with no problem. Another waitress picked up one of the large tables two down from us, so not sure what the deal was with Rusty’s service organization.

The food (aka appetizers, we decided not to stay for a full meal) was okay….oysters were great but had to ask for plates, cocktail sauce, lemon, etc. Conch fritters were highly breaded and overcooked. On check out, a guy at the bar who actually brought us our food, thankfully took the conch off our tab.

Still looking for a meal that night, we searched around, found Monkey Bar Steak & Seafood, called ahead, they said come on over and they’d take care of us. The place was jumping with music, atmosphere was welcoming and warm, and service by Peyton was top notch! The food was delightful - shrimp scampi, filet mignon, ahi tuna salad, kong kong burger, etc. We had a great end to our night….and they even took care of us in the midst of getting ready to close for the night for their own...

Editing to add that Rusty's did not care at all about my experience. They responded to this post just for clout clearly because I did reach out and nothing happened. :)

My birthday was the 29th of April. I didn’t realize my ID expired yesterday. I went out tonight there for my birthday not realizing my ID was expired. I am 24 years old. The bartender told me she couldn’t serve me, I told her no problem I drank all day on a boat anyways I will just take a water. I ordered THREE ice waters and drank all three cups. The bartender that refused me service kept coming around and STARING me down. I was uncomfortable in so many aspects! Like what??? She at one point looked at me as I was drinking WATER and said “no drinking!!” I was so aggravated, held up my water cup and was just like?????? Around 10 PM, after being there for two hours, I had two men who worked there approach me (as I was eating food) and tell me they can’t have anyone under 21 there after 10 PM and he also had reports from his bartender that I was drinking. I did not take ONE sip of alcohol since I stepped foot on the premises because they wouldn’t serve me? I have never experienced such bad customer service in my life. I didn’t even make a scene. Just left. Me and my whole group of friends will never go back. My friends and I were so baffled. They made me feel like I was underage drinking, like I was in the wrong. My friend even offered to secretly give me a drink and I said no thanks dude it’s not worth getting us all kicked out of here! I still...