Rikki Tiki Tavern — Restaurant in Cocoa Beach

It pains me to do this but I'm giving a 1 star. PLEASE NOTE: I have been coming here for just over 20 years and remember when it was a real charmer of a place. It was much smaller and seated maybe 12-15 people at the bar and had one bartender in a cozy nook of a service area. Dollar bills were stapled all over the bar with messages and names of people who stopped by over the years and left their memories. The drinks were reasonably priced and wow they were good too! The bartender had that 'friendly local charm and hospitality' and it really was a let-your-hair-down type of oasis. People were fishing off the sides of the pier and the vibe was something that kept me coming back year after year. Then corporate greed arrived. In the recent past, there have been successive expansions with each update making it more and more of a typical corporate owned venue. Drinks more than doubled in price right after the first update.

With my most recent visit, the place seemed like a cookie cutter beach style restaurant. Nice but typical and honestly forgettable. The bartenders barely would give you the time of day and service was clearly not a priority. The drinks were overpriced and tasted watered down. This place has devolved into a corporate money grab and is just another tourist trap. So sad.

The service being lacking and rude is apparently a recent problem too. If you go to the reviews here and filter by lowest star rating, it's interesting how there is a staggering number of bad reviews from just the passed few months. I see the responses from the "social media support" and supposedly the owner all saying "they understand and take these concerns so seriously" but it's clear it's lip service because the problem clearly doesn't get corrected. Words are cheap. Actions aren't. The star rating has dropped to a 4.3 as of this date and will undoubtedly continue to erode. It's so sad but I no longer feel compelled to return. The Tiki Bar on the pier at Coca Beach has long since passed away and a greedy corporately owned tourist trap has...

I've never been more turned off by service, or lack thereof. It was a beautiful, sunny, breezy Sunday afternoon around 3pm. We sat at a table right away because it didn't seem too busy. The views were spectacular. We were all in happy vacation mode. There were probably 3 servers around and it took 20 minutes for anyone to even give us eye contact. When a gal finally came over to greet us, she gave us menus and didnt even take our drink orders or get us water. When she returned 10 minutes later, she made it sound like she only wanted to take our drink order, but we wanted to order right away because who knew when she would be back next. She was perturbed that we ordered food and the first item we ordered she said "I think we're out of that" and abruptly walked away to check. She disappeared for several minutes, delivered checks and drinks to other guests and finally came back to break the bad news that they were out. She was incredibly unapologetic. If we had had good service from the beginning, that wouldn't have been a deal breaker. We weren't in a hurry at all. It was just too many strikes so we left.

We understand that things can get hectic at a tourist destination restaurant. But we should have been greeted right away or at least with a friendly smile letting us know they'd be right with us. Hand us menus and satisfy our thirst with water and it'd be as simple as that. If a server feels slammed communicate that to us!! It feels a lot better to get some honesty than being quite obviously avoided. How you treat people has a ripple effect. People save up a lot of money for vacations like this! It would be a shame for an experience like this to ruin their perception of Cocoa Beach. Please consider training your staff a little better so the good vibes and energy can spread faster than negativity and...

Local native here. I Visited cocoa pier for the first time and was not too thrilled. Parking was outrageous at 15 bucks. I decided to check out the rikki tiki tavern and was not thrilled. I ordered the gator burger and was greeted with disaster. The burger I order did not come the way I asked. I asked for the so called "dragon sauce" on the side (due to the fact that I have the tolerance to spicy foods like a toddler) and was given the said sauce on the actual burger. For a so called "dragon sauce" it looks like they found a alpha male dragon. During rut season and milked it. The burger was supposed to come with a choice of cheese and my burger came with cheddar on it that I never requested and the food was old like it was sitting in a heater for quite sometime. I inquired to the server about the novelty cups and the only one they had left was the shark one the lady brought that I noticed was clearly rewashed. When the lady asked how my food was I informed her and let her know the food was old and she became argumentative. The lady who was serving me could've worn better attire far as shorts as she was in gray booty shorts. Besides having to clean up after the pervious patron the long wait time and the terrible service and food the view was ok nothing to oooo and aaahhh. There's better places to visit here folks save your money and avoide this god awful overly priced place. As a native who has lived here since I was a child been here since '97 and I see why I was told to stay away from cocoa pier it's nothing special and its overly priced for no reason and you also can't fish and as a fisherman that leaves me sailing on flat seas with no wind in my sails. The gator burger is just a ground crab patty folks. People stay away from this...