Ole Red — Restaurant in Dr. Phillips

My wife and I are huge Blake Shelton fans. We had high hopes for this place. But we had a few issues with it. Our expectations were set pretty high as we have been to Toby Keith's I love this bar in Las Vegas several times before it was closed due to covid-19. Anyways, we visited on the evening of the 25th of July 2023. This was my birthday and our 1st anniversary dinner. We saw that they had live music and wanted to see the live band, get a drink and dinner to celebrate.

I'm going to start with the bad.

When we arrived we ordered "some beach" drinks. As that is our favorite song of his. They were $19 a drink and you get a soviner Mason jar with ole red logo on it to take home. When we got the drinks, they had literally no alcohol in them. It was 95% percent mix me and my wife are not big drinkers. Didn't even catch a buzz. I know most chain restaurants pour short & make week drinks. They have liquor laws they have to follow. I would expect that from Bahama Breeze or Longhorn. But when your paying $40 for two drinks. You expect to be just about stumbling out of the place. Especially coming from a County Icons restaurant. So that was one of the stars I removed.

I also want to say the server we had was trying to hard. We told her we wanted to drink first, watch the band, and then eat. She kept hovering over us and must have asked 30 times if we wanted another drink. In the hour and half we were there watching the band. We didn't order a second drink. That was the second star I removed.

The good

We ordered the hillbilly nachos as an appetizer. They were delicious. I highly recommend them.

My wife was pretty full after the nachos as they were huge. So she ordered the briscut and Mac and cheese as her meal. She loved it and said it was amazing. She was kind enough to let me have a bite and I 100% agree with her. It was better than my go to back home City BBQ.

I ordered the Briscut sandwich and frys. I don't like chorizo sasuage on anything. Just not my thing. So I ordered the sandwich without it. And it was amazing. The frys were great too.

I had the banana pudding for dessert, and it was amazing better than my mother could have ever made it.

The band that was playing that evening was good. The one guy played the fiddle and his brother played guitar and did a loop to make it sound like more instruments going on. But you could tell the singer was not a true country singer. He didn't have the natural drawl in the tone of his voice. For me that's what makes a country singer have conviction. He should have been singing in a creed or Linkin park cover band. Not covering Morgan Wallen. But what he lacked in vocal quality he made up for it in his fiddle ability. He was the best fiddle player I have ever seen.

So to wrap this up for this visit. I give 3 out of 5 stars. I hope someone from the resturant reads this and makes the needed changes. So that they can get better at...

Absolutely the worst experience ever in a restaurant.

Once seated it took about 15 minutes just to get in a drink order. That took another 10 minutes, at least. At this point, I had just ordered a water vs a bar drink or tea. We asked for a printed menu like most other tables were offered. Yes, the app on your phone is useful to many but not everyone. If a customer tells the waiter they need a printed app, like everyone else, due to vision issues, never tell the customer we don't have any for you to review and "What would you like to eat tonight?" in the same breath.

Went with an appetizer, ordered two dinners and one was just a guess for the other party. We were hungry and just ordered whatever we could at the time after this.

The fried pickles and onions came out soft and soggy. Not crispy fried like you would expect. I tried not to say anything but hopefully the main orders would be better. I asked three separate times for smaller plates since the two of us were going to share the appetizer and two plates. We received one plate, only from 3 different people. No extra napkins as requested either.

By the time our food order came out which was the gator wings and the platter we were disgusted. The food was overcooked to the point of the meats being just dry. Coleslaw was small but ok and the potato salad had literally no taste. I asked for salt and pepper for the table to help season the plates, never received it.

Had to ask twice for a water refill and never got it until my bill was brought out.

I asked twice to speak to management, once at the table and once headed out. Never spoke with any manager. Instead one turned and went into the kitchen. I told a very nice bartender that I had a terrible experience and needed a manager in which after seeing the first manager walk away she ran to get me. I told her since the bar manager was too busy at the time that I would just review this on Google and social media. My bill was $62 and would have been better off giving that to someone on the street and ordering fries from a McDonald's than to go through this.

Never again will I go to any location of theirs nor recommend the place, food or service.

The band that was playing was great even though there was a dinner crowd there trying to hear and eat. Maybe just a little less volume until later on the evening. I'm good with loud music but you could tell everyone trying to get service to eat, orders taken etc were having issues. Fortunately for me, I HAD TO WALK OVER TO MY WAITER AND ORDER AT THE STATION SINCE...

This restaurant is located within the icon park complex. This was our first visit and we will be back. We are from further northwest in Central Florida so it's about a 45 minute ride for us but we were in the area and had always wanted to try it. We were there for lunch so it wasn't crowded on a weekday. I'm sure on evenings and weekends it's probably more crowded and has more of a vibe. It was at least nice that the large screen where the band would be replaying country videos, a lot of which were of Blake of course along with many other artists.

Our server was very nice. We ordered the honey butter skillet cornbread which we actually did as an appetizer and it was awesome. I'm not a huge cornbread fan but this was really good. We should have only eaten half but we gobbled up the whole thing between the two of us.

The food took a moderate amount of time to come to the table but it was worth the wait. I think because things are freshly made is why it might have taken a little longer than I might have expected, but not too long to where you felt that there was an issue.

I ordered a blue tick burger which was very good and added bacon to it. Bacon was also very good. I had considered the fresh made fries but opted for the tater tots. That being said, I'm kind of particular and I'm not a huge tater tot person because they're usually the frozen type. These were awesome and I'm so glad I ordered them. They are fresh. They're like a cross between a potato cake and a tater tot. They had a nice crisp outer crust to them and nice and soft and tender and almost a creaminess to the inside. I would go back just for those.

Husband ordered the shrimp and grits which was not your typical southern style shrimp and grits but he said it was really awesome. This one had tomatoes on it and some lettuce too. But a thoroughly enjoyable meal.

The only negative is parking. There's virtually no parking along the street. You'd have to park in the icon park garage or if the valet parking is available. It's right near the restaurant. Not sure how far the garage is from...