Islanders Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Dauphin Island

My family and I called and made a reservation to eat here. There are few options on the island but while on vacation, we saw quite a few videos recommending this location. When we first arrived, we were greeted with a sign that said wait to be seated. All servers including the owner made eye contact with me but I waited 15 minutes before we stopped a busy waitress. She informed us there is no hostess and they have to handle it. All the table outside and most of the tables in the front (including chairs at the bar) had a Reserved Sign with the parties name. I helped our find our reservation in the book. However, even though all other individuals in the book had their tables marked- we didn't. She said having no hostess they had to pickup the lack. It really didn't make sense why we were the only ones that didn't have a table. I wish I took a picture before I'm not exaggerating in the least. So we ended up at a table in the back patio, the last table off on it's on. The chairs were covered in bird droppings and the table was rusted. An individual came over to wipe it down at our request but he couldn't do much. The table was rusted and peeling up. Nevertheless we decided to make the best of the moment. However, we waited...and waited..and waited. Again eye contact from servers coming out but no one came over, including the server that sat us. No drinks, nothing. Other tables near us got seated, got their drinks and actually got refills and nothing. It was bizarre. My father went inside to check with someone and the bartender was completely confused why no one was helping us. Nothing changed and my mother (btw I'm a 35 lady- family vacation with 6 of us) decided we would leave. We had been there 45-50 minutes andwas having a horrible experience. The owner was sitting at the bar the whole time, when my mom let my dad know we were leaving (he went back up to the bar) the owner said (really loudly) Oh Well and took a drink. To say this experience ruined our night is an understatement. There are very limited options on the island and the locals don't seem the very friendly to visiting individuals. The only places I would recommend going is the The Bakery and The Pirates Bar & Grill (the restaurant-not the pizza). The food was almost delicious and the staff and everyone...

If I could give this 0.5 I would. It started by walking in and seeing a couple of tables for smaller groups or families. We were told it would be a wait for a table. That’s fine. Sometimes it happens with it being the weekend. We get told our table is ready, we sit down. About 10 minutes pass by and finally the server comes by and gets our drinks. We get two alcoholic beverages and two regular sodas. It takes forever to get the alcoholic drinks due to the bartender talking and talking to customers at the bar. I know they have to get served as well, but standing there talking and not doing anything is not good customer service. I ended up actually having to send my drink back cause it was watered down and had a weird after taste. And mind you, this is with us still waiting for our food too. Our server comes back to inform us after about 5 minutes of after taking our order that something we ordered they were out of. Seems common cause she listed things they were out of before we ordered as well. Well it took about 40 minutes to get our food. We finally see our food coming and it comes out in increments with our child sitting there waiting on their food. My child and I both ordered soup. One soup had a flour taste and they couldn’t stomach it, nor could I. My soup wasn’t a soup but a goup. My husband’s food was so salty it was almost inedible and his green beans weren’t even cleaned. During all this, the host or manager or whatever she was sat down at the bar to what we could only guess is a local and sat there probably 20 minutes talking while there were guests sitting outside getting rained. There were tables dirty that she had to clean for these guests. The guests I noticed that came in from the rain were trying to clean their table before sitting there due to the tables being dirty. Overall it was a bad experience. Also, always check your bill. At the end it has the subtotal, tax, amount fee with a total, then the total of the bill. I have never seen a check at a restaurant with that. Be weary of the service and hopefully the next guests are...

Overall, a very disappointing, very poor experience. We had a 7pm reservation for 8 people on a Thurs evening. We arrived, on time, but because a few rain drops fell from the sky, 20 minutes earlier, they moved their patio guests inside and used what should've been our table. We waited 40 minutes to be seated. During our wait, my brother in law and I went inside, to the bar, to grab drinks for us and our wives. It took 10 minutes for him to be acknowledged and served and another 5 - 10 minutes for myself to be acknowledged and served. About the same time I received my drinks, our tables were finally ready. We were 4 adults, 4 early teens. 3/4 adults have extensive restaurant experience, myself having 20 years. I've never experienced such slow, thoughtless, poor service. A second drink took over 15 minutes, from a bartender who had no sense of urgency, we had no silverware & it took at least 25 minutes after being seated to even order our food. The owner or manager was present but never bothered to explain the poor service, the poor management or lack of concern for our experience. It seems this place is ran by people who ate out a lot, but knew nothing of actually running a restaurant.

I get "island time" being a concept, but if you're a business, especially a small business, you have to have and set a standard. This place doesn't seem to understand that. They want your money, but couldn't care less about providing a wonderful experience.

I would like to add that my wife and sister-in-law both had the crab cake dinners and they were some of the best crab cakes we’d ever tasted. Their house ranch is great and the Yukon potato chips are tasty, especially when fresh & hot. We were just really let down by the Dauphin Island restaurants and expected Islanders to be a redeeming experience in my brother-in-laws last night. We didn’t expect or want to spend 2.5 hrs at dinner, but that’s...