Phil's Marina Cafe — Restaurant in Eden Isle

Last night, my fiancé and I took our dear friends from Oregon to Phil's Marina cafe. I was so excited to share some hometown favorites with them. Unfortunately, I was unable to do so. I've been to Phil's many many times over the last twenty years, and I have NEVER received such poor service. The restaurant was not overcrowded as it can sometimes get. There were over 15 empty tables when we arrived at 7 for dinner. After we were immediately seated, we waited over 15 minutes for the waiter to come to our table to get our drink order. instead, when he showed up, he stated he'd be right back because he had to go get another tables order. When he did return after quite some time, I asked for a drink menu, to which he rolled his eyes and walked away. He did bring the drink menu over and walked away. After waiting another 10 minutes, I got up and went to the host and requested someone to please come take our drink order as our waiter never returned. Someone other than our water comes to the table, and we give her our order for drinks and appetizers. It was quite apparent that doing this was an imposition. After another 15ish minutes, I asked for some water because I was so thirsty after nearly 25 minutes without drinks. I was the only one who was served water, which I thought was strange but ok. So now it's well over 30 minutes when our drinks finally arrive. I ordered a lemon drop martini, which had olive juice in it. I immediately spit it out, and the waitress looks at me with frustration, and I explained that olive juice doesn't go into a lemon drop martini. I never raised my voice or insulted anyone. However, this young lady felt the need to state,"I know what's in a lemondrop martini!" With a snare. There is no apology for the mix-up, nothing but an attitude. We were so hungry at this point that I asked for a new waiter as our original waiter was apparently not coming back. By this time, we had been there well over 35 minutes and still no appetizers in site. I went to the bar again and asked to speak to the manager who was stoic and felt the need to explain that they were so unexpectedly busy. Now, mind you, while we waited to order and get our drinks and appetizers (which never came) I witnessed 2 bartenders behind the bar not waiting on customers but instead laughing and chatting with one another as well as the fellow who had been our waiter walk around and literally pick up a plate here and there very non challantly. There was no sense of urgency with regard to being overwhelmed with too many tables or customers. The restaurant was barely over half full. No one ever showed up to take our dinner order. Our appetizers were never presented, so after 45 minutes and a horrific martini experience, we paid for our drinks and left. I was so mortified as I was so excited to share this place with my dear friends. I can not express enough how disappointed I am with this place. I'll never go back, and I'll never recommend this place to anyone! It's absolutely normal to make mistakes, but in this experience, there were multiple mistakes that this staff made, and when I had the nerve to advocate for us it was met with a hostile attitude and...

I can see why a lot of people like this place. Unfortunately, my experiences have been that when a place has a nice setting, they don't try as hard elsewhere. Phil's is no exception.

Tried to get the bartender to sell a drink. Like an actual cocktail, not a Cuba libre. They're on the water. What do you mean you don't have a cocktail menu? Ok, I guess I'll just make something up. Something you should be doing, if you know how to tend bar. Bar patrons were friendly, and were senior citizens. Waitress was very good. She was well versed in her menu, polite, and I liked her personality overall. She will be fine in this industry, and clearly has been for some time.

Food prices seem right. Not cheap, but 20 bucks for a fish with a shrimp sauce or crab stuffing. Ok. Makes sense if the sauce is really good and portions are filling. Well, the shrimp were big, portions large enough. I guess I felt like... Things needed to be seasoned. And that the sauce was very thin. I know it's a butter sauce. But looking at the picture it appeared thickened. So I was thinking more creole or Italian. Similar to a cheesecake factory, the menu is the same ingredients over and over with slight changes. The complimentary salad that comes with the fish sets the stage. It is an older style, right down to the cocktail olives. That's not a bad thing. But the choices in the salad tell you about the choices to come. That probably ingredients haven't been thought about in a long time, that maybe this place is a hold out of sorts from 35 years ago.

The style of the cuisine is probably very good if you're over 50 and a traditional Louisiana type not looking for spicy. That's not a dig. That's just who I think is best suited to this food. Younger people tend to seek more flavor for less money, and people like myself expect something impressive for 20 bucks. Maybe that's unfair. People who have been elsewhere, not counting bland parts of the country, and are more open to less traditional, or authentic creole would not be impressed. Particularly at this price. So, with that in mind, it's a decent place to take my aging parents.

However. And this is the one where I will not be back. It's not up to me to tell you what your bathroom looks like. The vomit between the toilet seat and rim was at least 12 hours dry. There's no excuse for dry nasty. That takes a dedication to not caring that I won't...

Wow! What a horrible experience to say the least. First let me say ; the experience for my family started with our waitress , who could not even bring our Appetizers or ask if we needed a refill. The entire time we are waiting on our cold appetizers and no refills, we have a 3 year old. When we finally get the boiled shrimp, crawfish and fried crab claws all cold! So the boiled seafood could have been brought right away. Our waitress was 100% percent more worried about her very large table with a lot of people , which would allow her a very large tip🤔🤭 our waitress proceeds to tell us that she didn’t put our Entrée order’s in right away , that might not have been a problem if she had done so in a timely manner. So when we still didn’t get our Entrées after well over an hour and I’m talking more like an hour & a half. They were cold as well but the quality of the food was not bad. So we finally asked for refills , to go boxes and to speak to a manager. We were sent a bartender who WAS NOT A MANAGER. When she came to our table my 3 year old was over his time limit for sitting still and grabbed the one to go box from her and she was very rude to him🤔 and to our whole family. She came to the table with an I don’t care attitude .so as we are leaving I ask if the bartender is the manager to another employee and was told no. So I finally get to the real manager/owner and get the same so what by this time we were tired having drove over an hour & half from St. Charles parish which is Quite a drive and you know what the owner did not even have the Decency to listen to his customer’s either. No I’m sorry or it’s not usually like this. NOTHING ! There is no Manager that would treat his Valuable paying customers this way, we are very disappointed as we heard good things about this restaurant from someone whom my husband works with. We’ll never go there again. Now it’s my 15 year old son’s turn to leave a review about his experience eating at...