Tiki Lee’s Dock Bar — Restaurant in Essex

Beautiful scenery and landscaping, but that’s all that is great about this place. First time visiting this restaurant and had high hopes. Went for lunch and there was no wait, great. Sat down and the waitress came over to take our order. I asked about the specials for the day and was told there was a Chesapeake burger, crab cake sandwich, soft crab sandwich and shrimp salad sandwich. I asked what came on the Chesapeake burger (crab cake or crab dip) since different restaurants do these burgers differently. I was told a crab cake came on the burger okay cool. I ordered the burger rare. My husband ordered the soft crab sandwich (since it was on special). I also asked about their mixed drinks and the waitress didn’t really know the drinks, okay whatever. The food came and my Chesapeake burger that I ordered came as a chicken sandwhich with horseradish and some kind of cream sauce.. I said to the waitress um I ordered a burger. She was like oh.. hmm.. let me go check on the special, cause I think this is what you ordered.. no it’s not. So she came back about 5 minutes later after she went and sat another table and said oh yeah the order must have came out wrong. My husband asked for them to remake his soft crab sandwich because it would be cold by the time I ate. Meanwhile the manager came by and asked how things were. We explained the issues and his response was oh sorry um we have new specials today and the waitress is young, she must not understand and put your order in wrong. Okay, I get they are new specials but don’t your staff get trained or told about the specials before the restaurant opens? And what does her age have to do with it? I mean if she is too young to understand my order than maybe she shouldn’t be working as a waitress and delivering alcohol to tables? Anyhow my burger finally came out and I had asked for it to be rare.. nope.. it was well done and two smash burger type patties with so called crab dip, again where is the crab cake that I was told was on the burger? The crab dip tasted like it was straight up cream cheese and cheddar cheese. My husband’s soft crab sandwich was so greasy you could hold it up and see the grease running off the soft crab.. yuck 🤢. The manager came back around and saw I didn’t eat the burger and asked how things were. We explained again that it wasn’t right. Again he said he apologized for as the waitress was young and didn’t know how to input the order.. ugh 😑. He offered to buy me another drink, my husband explained I can’t drink more because I have to drive home and so he told offered a free beer to my husband, okay cool but how does that make up for the bad service and my food not being correct? So he offered a discount off my food and eventually took off my burger of the check. Okay, thanks. The waitress comes back and says you owe____. I asked to see the receipt and got a dirty look. Like I wanted to see what I was charged for. She brings the receipt and they charged an 18% gratuity. I said to her, oh why did they charge this. She was like oh they charge everyone a 18% gratuity charge. I said where is the sign or transparency that this is charged? Oh it’s on a sign somewhere around the restaurant… so great another 12 dollars added to my bill for some nasty food. And then the manager had the nerve to say, oh I hope you guys return and give us a second chance. Um yeah no, never again. It was very disappointing and disgusting why would I waste my money again?

My suggestions to the restaurant are: higher experienced waitresses/ waiters or atleast brief them on your menus before they are allowed to wait on tables have a better system in place should you mess up someone’s order rather than offering alcohol, that is irresponsible knowing that someone has to drive home. if you are going to charge gratuities for every table, place a sign on the table or at the front gate so guests are aware before receiving...

This place used to be fantastic! 2022 seems more of a cash grab when it's hard enough paying for everyday items. Food is more expensive, drinks cost way more than food as well?? 18% gratuity automatically added (insane)... Hours are all over the place last minute, cover charges?! (Seacrets, is that you?). I was hoping when I found out about Tiki Lees a few years ago it would be a great family restaurant (in which it was successful but the small location was not ample space for the massive ego this place commands). Don't get me wrong... the place is a gold mine and the atmosphere is untouchable for any restaurant in the area but it's slowly becoming the jurassic park of restaurants and will eventually only "cater to the super rich". But it's only a matter of time before the place eats itself. I actually enjoyed the order walk up windows Tiki Lees started with but gone are the good days, now are the days of the $1,000 minimum order cabana reservations and recycled shipping container pool. I'm sure pretty soon there will be other over the top additions to keep feeding the ego of this place. I understand there's all walks of life that visit and they need to have something to appeal to everyone but when it comes to adding entertainment to a "restaurant" and sacrificing the quality of your food, having employees who are not good at communicating with customers and just personally noticing the downward spiral over years of visiting one place it's kind of a turn off for me. I will try Tiki Lees a few more times as I am looking for a gleam of hope but after visiting in 2021 then just visiting today, 2021 was "ok" and so far my 2022 visit was nothing short of depressing. If your pockets aren't lined with gold be prepared for that second mortgage you dont need for a few pieces of chicken, fries and a beer. Oh! I can't say it enough but if your looking for a break the appetizers are closely priced to the actual entrees and the drink prices are enough to make you drunk from sticker shock. No hard feelings but I really got my hopes up for this place and now visiting feels like I'm on vacation in Ocean City paying 3x the price for something I can get somewhere else and before anyone says it I will definitely be spending my money at the other place more than what I will give away...

Upon arriving, we were told it was a 15 minute wait to enter and a 45 minute to get a table. A couple minutes passed by and another group of people entered immediately. We asked for clarity regarding what we were told when we first got there about wait times. The hostesses seemed extremely confused and didn’t remember who we were after standing around for maybe 5 minutes at most. We asked if we could just go to the bar and were told “good luck getting a drink”. So we headed inside and found a bar, waited about 10 minutes to get service, without anyone in front of us and no one else ordering drinks. Watched the bartender have to read from the menu on how to make a particular drink. While 2 other bartenders were actively groping each other. Got our drinks ( they were basically ice cubes and vodka in a bucket). Found a little spot to sit down and enjoy our drinks, while we watched the waitresses stand around the bus area. Since we never got a “call” about our table. We went up to the waitress and asked about a table and she had told us that “all of these tables are open and I can take your order”. She took our order and we got our food which was pretty average but nonetheless our service from our waitress was decent but she had only been working there a month when we asked her. All of the staff told us before we paid the bill that there is an 18 percent gratuity charge added to your bill with the implication that we did not need to tip, which I’m glad the staff made us aware of, but a little awkward since it seemed like they were uncomfortable with the fact that the tip was already included regardless of how we felt as paying customers. The bathrooms are absolutely atrocious. They smell awful and are poorly taken care of although I guess that says more of the general public than the establishment itself. All this place really has going for it is the location, which is meh at best. If you want good seafood and good service go anywhere else. There were plenty of belligerent regulars to keep us...