We arrived at the restaurant around 5:30pm on Saturday, July 20, 2024 and were surprised to see that the restaurant was fairly empty. After a brief wait at the entrance we were seated in a booth not far from the entrance, and told that our server would be with us shortly. We waited almost 20 minutes before our server showed up. He took our drink orders, and we waited another 30 minutes to receive waters and margaritas. He took our food order without writing anything down, and we waited another 30 minutes to receive our food.

My friend’s sweet potato fries were cold, and they got my order wrong. I ordered the coconut shrimp dinner with a side Caesar salad. They brought me a plate that had three coconut shrimp, 2 pieces of fried fish, and some little regular fried shrimp. They also forgot my salad, and when I reminded the waiter, they brought me a house salad instead of a Caesar like I ordered. Given how long we had to wait to receive our food, I decided not to bother complaining that they gave me food I didn’t order. I didn’t want to have to wait ANOTHER 30 minutes to receive the right food. When we were finished eating, the waiter brought our checks without asking if we wanted anything else. I told him that we actually wanted to order dessert, and asked for a slice of the key lime pie to share. We waited 20 minutes before he finally let us know that they were out of the pie. So we told him he could just bring our checks again, and we waited ANOTHER 20 minutes for him to do that.

Honestly, even though they got my order wrong, the food wasn’t bad. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was okay. Definitely not worth 58 dollars though (and that was just for my food and drink alone since we got separate checks). The real problem with our experience was the service. Our waiter didn’t even greet us or introduce himself when he finally came to our table for the first time. His whole demeanor was very cold and bored, and every time he left to bring us something, it took FOREVER! I don’t know if he was really tired, or just didn’t want to be there. My friend and I even discussed that he seemed strung out, like he had been smoking dope, or was on some other drug. When we were waiting 20 minutes for a piece of pie, I don’t know if he would have ever even finally come over to tell us that they were out. It seemed like he only finally told us that because I was able to catch his eye. And like I said in the beginning, the restaurant was not even that busy!

It ended up being a very disappointing experience overall. I was especially disappointed because this is the first time I have ever been to a Margaritaville, and I had been looking forward to it. Needless to say, we will not be back. And I hope the waiter got the message with his 10% tip. I usually ALWAYS give a 20% tip, because most wait staff are friendly, attentive, and work their tails off, but with this guy, I just couldn’t. He was one of the worst waiters I have ever had in my life.

As far as atmosphere, I appreciated the tropical theme that the restaurant is known for, but that’s about it. The seat of the booth where I was seated was split open, so it wasn’t very comfortable, and the seat and table top felt sticky. When I went to the bathroom, I noticed that the restaurant floor was sticky as well. The stalls in the bathroom don’t close all the way. I think the stall walls might be slanted, because it seems like the doors of each stall are too wide to close. And the band that was playing was annoying and way too loud. I’m just grateful that we weren’t in the same room, because it was too loud even from where we were seated. I actually felt relief each time they paused between songs, and wished that they would just put a sock in it. Also, there were no silverware or napkins on our table when we were seated. When the waiter finally brought our food, we pointed out that we didn’t have any napkins. He brought us napkins (thankfully that didn’t take 20-30 minutes for once), but I had to steal a fork from a neighboring table.