Tampa Joe's Restaurant and Sports Bar — Restaurant in Citrus Park

Long story short: the manager Mel needs to go, the servers especially JD are all angels and dont deserve the managers abuse.

I have been to TJs several times, the food is usually decent and the service is fantastic. Unfortunately tonight was a different story. I went there with a friend and our server JD was soooo nice, he's been my server before and is always a sweetheart. Well tonight I watched some guys come in and give him a hard time, they were rude right off the bat, but JD was as nice as ever. I don't know what the whole issue was but a few minutes later the guy is throwing a tantrum because his food to go is going to take time (the place was super packed for a Sunday night) and somehow that is the servers fault? I guess he didn't know that the chefs cook the food and not the servers. But he ends up leaving eventually, then like 15 minutes later I can literally hear the manager (Melvin or Melwin?) shouting at JD to clock out. Normally I don't write reviews but this was ridiculous to watch and hear. First of all Mel was way too loud and second the server did nothing wrong. I've been here a few times and this particular manager has been drunk every time I've seen him before so maybe he was too drunk or not drunk enough and taking it out on the servers.

This place has really gone down in the last 6 months or so, the service is always great but the food is hit and miss now and it really seems like whoever is running the show has no idea what they're doing. The last time I went for lunch there were like 6 servers and only 4 tables, then tonight it was packed but there was only 3 servers I counted. Whoever owns this place needs to fire Melvin or Melwin like asap. All the customers know he's rude and has creep vibes, literally all of us sitting in that area could hear him yelling at the server. Maybe he needs anger management... And JD if you read this, I hope you know you were great and that you and the other servers do not deserve to be talked to like that. Keep that big smile and just know your...

Being in the service industry myself, I understand the complexities and intricacies that are involved in a busy Friday night service. With that being said however, the subpar experience me and my party received was beyond disappointing. Our waitress was essentially absent the majority of our visit, only appearing to take orders drinks and food as well to present checks in a restaurant that was reasonably vacant on a Friday evening. I hardly even remember her name. We were greeted about 20 minutes after being sat, waited ages for our drinks and for our orders to be taken, admittedly during the beginning of our visit we were waiting for 2 others to join, but once they arrived it was still a while before any attention was provided. Once our meals arrived my food personally was mediocre, nothing to write home about, but 2 other members of my party had ordered flatbreads and they were especially unimpressive. The leather straps of steak on one’s flatbread were especially bland. One other party member had his order bought out incorrectly, and due to our waitress absence the issue was unable to be resolved until the checks were ready, but by then we had already been in the restaurant for almost 2 hours so he wasn’t too keen on potentially waiting even longer for his replacement. Soon after I regretted not paying my bill in cash because it took yet another lengthy amount of time for us to receive our payments back. The only thing I really enjoyed about our experience were the drinks (the only reason why this isn’t 1 star) we had ordered, after they eventually came out. Suffice to say our waitress’s lack of presence severely hindered our experience tonight. At the end of it all, I understand to an extent, but this experience was full of errors I can’t excuse. I cannot see myself recommending this eatery to anyone else...

This is an update to my previous review:

Have gone to Tampa Joe's with my family a few more times since our last visit and the service has been average. We were really turned off by our visit this past Sunday. We travel about 25 minutes to get there and when we arrived we were not allowed entry due to an Eagles fans event. We were treated rudely by the person at the door. We requested outdoor seating as our dog was with us and there was not one table taken in the outdoor dining area. This is how you treat regular customers in order to cater to out of town customers to make a few extra dollars? We had to search for another place to dine. This was not easy as we had our dog with us. We were able to find another place and we loved it. It will now replace Tampa (Philly) Joe's on our family restaurant rotation. I'm sure other regulars were turned away as well that night. BTW so happy that the Bucs stomped the Eagles 32-9 in the WC Playoff game the following night. 10/3/2023 review: Went to Tampa Joe's with the family this past Saturday. We had been there a few months ago and our server was not very good so we were a little turned off. Chalked it up to a bad hire and gave the place another chance. This time our server was very attentive and the manager stopped by a couple of times to make sure everything was going well. Everyone enjoyed their meal including our pup. The outdoor dining ambiance was excellent. Love the palm tree lighting and torches. We...