The Waterfront Restaurant — Restaurant in Edisto Beach

Home of the $62 "market price" filet and the $1.50 glass of water.

We live off of the beach at Edisto and hadn't been to Waterfront for a few years now. We had grown tired of the long waits at dinner, and when you called to check on the wait time before leaving the house, it was always double what you were told on the phone when you arrived 5 minutes later. So when a few of our neighbors said that Waterfront no longer had long wait times we decided to give it another shot. We arrived about 6:30 and the restaurant was half empty. Here's why:

When you walk in there's a sign that says they're short staffed - implying that you should expect poor service. Why are you telling us this? Why not also put up a sign that says "we're sorry, our fish isn't as fresh today as we would have hoped"?

I ordered the filet, which the menu said was "market price". Usually a market price at a reputable restaurant is also a responsible one. But when the check came I was charged $62. That's not a market price, it's a management price, and it's irresponsible and disgusting. Please either print that price on the menu or tell your wait staff to disclose it to the guest when they order so that they can make an alternate choice. This is a vinyl floored, cinderblock walled restaurant in Edisto Beach, not a New York City steak house. Ruth's Chris in Washington charges less for a larger and better filet than what you're serving. Look it up.

They charged us $1.50 for a glass of tap water. Even worse, when I asked the waitress to remove it from the bill, she said they only do that if you order an alcoholic drink. Ummm..... Pro tip - order a free glass of ice and fill it up in the bathroom with the same water that the kitchen uses. Haha.

We thought wine prices were more reasonable, but then the $14 glass of wine was served in a plastic glass. That ruins the whole experience.

Chocolate cake was $13. The cake was actually quite nice, but it was smothered not in a chocolate glaze, but in canned Hershey's syrup. We sent it back and the waitress did remove it from the bill.

When the check came, the waitress said the printer would only print one copy. I asked her to take a picture of it with her phone because I needed to take the receipt with me, and somehow she instantly produced a second receipt. Please provide two copies of the receipt without asking. If someone doesn't need it, then they won't take it. A 3% fee was also added at the end for using a credit card. There are other restaurants on Edisto that are also doing this, but at Waterfront it's part of the whole nickel-and-diming experience.

We will let our neighbors know why there is no longer a long wait to eat at the Waterfront. Drive the extra distance to eat off the island at Roxbury, where the service is friendly, the food is fantastic, they don't charge for water, and all entrees (including a steak)...

If I could leave ZERO stars, I would. I don’t even know where to start. The dining experience was horrible from the minute we sat down. We had a party of seven and we all arrived separately, but still within minutes of each other. The server was asked to come back to get our drink order when all seven of us were there. We waited long enough, we had to ask the hostess, who was hanging out at the bar behind us to get our server for us. (I’ll get to the hostess in a minute). After ordering our drinks (three mixed drinks, two teas, a coke, and a beer). It took about 15 minutes to get the soft drinks and another ten minutes for the mixed drinks and the beer. We all finished our drinks before she even came back to take our order. It took another 15 minutes to get more drinks. After about another 20 minutes we finally got our entrees....we had to ask for our salads and appetizers at that point. The food was decent, at best. The presentation of the food looked like a child plated the entrees. The food was “ok”, but at this point we would have eaten anything, it had taken so long. We had to ask the hostess for refills on our tea. She didn’t seem happy and only filled my tea up half way. Once we finished eating we waited for our bill with a table full of dirty dishes. Once again, we asked the hostess to get our waitress to clear the table and get our bills. The hostess left and came back and started talking to the guitarist AGAIN. She never said anything to us. Earlier we had called several times, after opening, to see if we needed reservations....nobody ever answered. Once we got there we realized the phone is at the hostess station and she was too busy learning how to play the guitar than answering the phone. We kept waiting....another ten minutes went by. We grabbed a server walking by to get our bills and to see about getting our dishes cleared. The hostess came to our table and started grabbing dishes while making sure to tell us that it wasn’t her job. We never saw our waitress again. Several other employees literally asked us “what are y’all waiting for?” We told all those who asked we just wanted to pay so we could leave. Another 15 minutes went by we actually contemplated just leaving without paying, as they would never had known. Finally another server came over and asked us all what we got so she could ring up our bills. She said our server was overwhelmed and that she was helping her. We proceeded to tell her what we all got, she came back with the bills with a 10% discount. We should have gotten more than that off our bills. AND they added an 18% tip. The server we saw twice received a total of $41 for her tip!! This place was a joke. Literally the worst service any of us have ever had. The whole experience was awful. We will never go back! Oh, and please consider another form of...

In fairness, there was a sign when we walked in that noted a "short on staff" issue so I was prepared to give a bit of grace but.... First we ordered glasses of water and were told there would be a 1.50 per glass charge to "pay for the water filters", I had thought to ask for a glass of ice to go fill in the restroom sink but then tossed that thought. I've never experience that kind of charge before...anywhere! We started with an order of hush puppies for the table and to say they were cold is an understatement. I mean it was like they had been sitting out all day. Not even lukewarm and not so enjoyable as a result.

After some waiting we placed our order. The '12oz New York Strip' was listed as 'Market Price' and I had intended to ask, but completely forgot by the time the server finally took our order. I remember thinking "Oh well..a 12oz strip is about 20 bucks at Texas Roadhouse so how bad can it be?" Bad!!! Stay tuned. I ordered it medium rare and it arrived medium well. I think 12oz was a stretch as it was quite small and thin. Deciding to grin and bear it, I asked the server for some A1. She returned with an almost empty A1 bottle, saying it was nearly empty so she had brought Heinz 57 instead. So there was only one A1 bottle in the entire restaurant and it was empty?

The rest of the meal was uneventful and everyone thought their food was passable other than the cold hushpuppies. They brought "butter" to dip them in but it was actually some kind of spread with a long list of toxic sounding ingredients and seed oils so I took a pass. Fortunately they did manage to provide 'real butter" or at least they said it was for our baked potatoes. These like the hushpuppies...were just about room temperature. Probably sitting out with those hushpuppies for awhile.

The final shocker was the price of that tiny overcooked NY Strip. As I mentioned earlier, it was my bad for not remembering to ask what "Market Price" was but was thinking it would be something a bit higher than what would be found at Outback, Longhorn or Texas Roadhouse. This however, is when I decided that I will likely never go back. That little maybe 9-10oz NY Strip came in at 46.00. 46.00??? Again my bad for not asking but talk about price gouging. Good grief.

Sooooo...perhaps things are better when they are not "short staffed" but I will be hesitant to find out. Just not a good experience or good food for me. Glad I only come to Edisto...