Kenny D's — Restaurant in Miramar Beach

As a local who has never written a negative review, especially about a place my fiancé and I frequent very often, I feel like this just needed to be shared. My fiancé and I LOVE the crawfish from Kenny D’s, it’s some of the best we’ve ever had (we look forward to it every year), but the service quickly made us get up and leave. She tried to get us an outside seat (we had our dog with us), and the hostess said to seat yourself, and go to the bar and get your drinks, etc. The outside was completely full, and since we were waiting until 5 to get crawfish, we just wanted our name on the list to get seated. Finally someone gets up, and since my fiancé was standing inside, the hostess sat her since we were planning on getting food while we waited. After sitting at the table for a bit, my fiancé decided to go to the bar and order us some beer and an appetizer (we thought that is what they wanted us to do). A server came over while she was inside, and I told him we were ok at the moment. He got really aggravated, and stormed off to the hostess. A little while later my fiancé wanted another appetizer while we were waiting for 5 o’clock, so she flagged the server down. He asked “do you have a server yet?, which she replied “no we do not, I was confused on where we were supposed to order at the moment”. He said in the absolute pissed off and annoyed voice “well, it looks like you’ve already ordered a lot from the bar, so why don’t you just go take care of yourself, ok.” And walked off before she or I could even get a word in. We literally ordered a pitcher of beer, and some calimari. We were trying to order another appetizer with him, and then we were going to order our food and more beer with him. After that, neither of us wanted to stay any longer. We had been there almost an hour, and literally got up and left at 4:57, feeling embarrassed and disrespected. We have never had him as a server, and honestly he makes us never want to go back. We always go to the hostess and just get sat wherever is available. I honestly feel that the whole “seat yourself, unless you are eating right now” doesn’t make much sense, especially since it’s crowded with spring breakers. You are literally taking up the same amount of space. Mind you, you can sit wherever is available, so it’s not like we took up room in “their section”. We were just so disappointed, and literally recommend this place to EVERYONE, but I don’t see this being our go to place anymore. Maybe we were in the wrong, but we just wanted to enjoy our Friday evening after a...

A family of 4 and a 7 month old baby. We are visiting for the week from New Orleans and our first set of plans for dinner didn’t work out. After driving around for over an hour and either places were too busy or closed we came across Kenny D’s, which is right next door to our condo. For it being a Friday night they were appropriately busy . I thought we would have hit our third strike and would have been going back to our room to order pizza. But we were seating within 5 minutes, drinks take. And served in less than 10 minutes. Placed out order of chargrilled oysters for an appetizer. Timing wasn’t horrible but they weren’t the best oyster I have eaten. It was too much cheese in my opinion but I mean I’m from New Orleans so I guess my oyster expectations are higher. Entrees arrived just in time my mother in law got the fried soft shell crab , my father in law and fiancé got the blackened shrimp tacos, and I ordered the blackened shrimp Alfredo. All of our food was absolutely delicious!! Our waitress was very pleasant, checked on us and was very attentive!

But my absolute favorite part was when we first walked in and we met Ellie the hostess. She seemed fairly young and seemed a bit on her toes and stressed. But that may be because I’ve been a hostess on a Friday night in a high demand seafood restaurant myself. Although she was crazy busy and came across a few unpleasant customers she never skipped a beat. She greeted us with a smile and was quick to clear tables, seating the party of 11 in front of us and then us. I made small talk with her to hopefully lighten that stress telling her to take her time and take a breath . Even after seating us and still being busy she noticed she didn’t give us enough utensils.. before we even noticed she was already bribing it to us. Thank you Ellie because without a great hostess like you a restaurant like Kenny D’s wouldn’t run as smoothly as it does!

All around the atmosphere, food, service, and people made this dining experience one of the best. I felt like I was back at home eating at one of our favorite spots right in the city! I can’t wait...

My family and I were just trying to have a pleasant meal near Miramar beach at sunset and the waitress was impersonable, rude, and called us "difficult" when we inquired as to the whereabouts of our ordered meals. Mind you, this was after 50+ minutes of waiting without anyone even checking on us for refills of our drinks.

When we requested to speak to the waitress we were ignored and went to speak directly to the manager, who also ignored us, stating he was "busy". Two tables near us were served their meals by different waitresses in the time we were waiting on our meals. When the food finally did arrive, it was very cold (clearly forgotten in the kitchen) and served by a different waiter than our original waitress.

We walked out of the restaurant at this point chastised by the original waitress who came out to tell us that we were "difficult" even though we patiently waited without saying anything for an unacceptable length of time (one of the family is a waitress and the other is a restaurant manager himself and he went to speak directly with the Kenny D's manager about our situation only to be ignored). When we asked the waitress for her name, she continued to chastise us and refused to tell us. The waiter who served us actually apologized for her behavior/incompetence.

For reference, this is my first ever one star review on Google, and maybe our situation was unique in that it was all due to one incompetent, rude employee who maybe was having a bad day (to give her the benefit of the doubt). However, the way management dealt with this employee and us does not instill any confidence in me whatsoever to recommend this restaurant to any paying customer in good faith. Hopefully there are some changes in management in the near future as to how this business is run. It is truly a shame to waste such prime real estate in Destin on a restaurant with such...