Sandbar Amelia Island — Restaurant in Fernandina Beach

Terrible.

That's the short comment. See the pics for the disgusting food they served.

The good reviews, especially about Thanksgiving, are 100% coming from friends or employees of the corporate schiesters that own this place (especially the nonsense reviews from an account who has never left a review. This is them trying to bury the true reviews).

If you're interested, here's the long version...

We had 6pm reservations for Thanksgiving. The restaurant chose the seating time offerings, so they have zero excuse for what they did.

At 6 p.m., they had guests wait in a line like cattle outside of the restaurant for about 25 minutes. They proceeded to let everyone in pretty much at the same time (and they had no system of where to seat people even though they asked you to choose where to sit when you called for the reservation), and then everyone had to wait in a line of about 80 people to get through to the food tables.

They had one line. Apparently, in the past, they had multiple lines. Perhaps they did this because they were out of food?

They were out of potatoes, gravy, butter, soup, 2 of the 3 pies, and a number of other things. They served dry and old turkey shreds (clearly the last bit that was left over) and an unrecognizable piece of shoe leather they dared to call "prime rib."

I could understand if you just walked in at the end of the night, but the restaurant set up the seating times, and many people barely got one plate of old food.

Sadly, the management seems to think it was not their fault. The manager had excuse after excuse of why they "got slammed" and how they had "too many pies" last year.

Several employees seemed to think it was actually funny that they ran out of so much. One of the servers on the food table area said, "I don't know, it's ridiculous they didn't plan for this." Another said,"I'd be pissed too." A third explained that "corporate" came in in the morning and basically said "here's how this is going to work today" and set the the staff up for failure and screwed over the guests.

The sad part about this is that we didn't even eat. When the manager came over, he initially offered to "adjust the check" where he took only 1 dinner off. We literally didn't eat anything because there was nothing edible. Eventually, we paid for our drinks, left our server (who was very sweet), a good tip, and left.

But this was atrocious. The manager asked us not to "trash them" on social media. Here's the thing, it's completely unacceptable that they did this to everyone who came in, per their reservation, at 6 pm.

The fact that they didn't apologize to people and then stuck it to all of the guests for $65 per person is criminal. People should be calling and asking for their money back.

It isn't about trashing them. It's just being honest and truthful about the experience and how what they did was flat out wrong.

I'd never come back here for Thanksgiving or any other time. Any restaurant that rips people off like this this doesn't deserve patronage. Their effort was completely pathetic.

They should have apologized, said they screwed up, and started making other food to put out (pizza, fries, whatever, some sort of effort to make up for the fact that they had no food to offer and essentially resulted in a total sham of false/misleading advertisement).

There are better places around the town that don't treat people like this, I'd encourage anyone to support...

The morning started at 3 a.m., long before the sun even thought about rising. I woke up with a pounding headache—one of those that makes you immediately regret the couple of drinks you had the night before. Sleep had been restless, my body stiff, and it felt like the day was set on a rough track. Still, we got up, got ready, and headed down for breakfast at Seaside Amelia Inn. That’s when I noticed the first problem. My custom-made sunglass clip—the one I need to see comfortably in the sun—was missing. My mind instantly flashed back to the night before at the Sand Bar restaurant next door. Maybe I’d left it there. But when I walked down, I saw they weren’t opening until 11. It was just past 8 a.m., and I really wanted to get on the beach before the sun grew brutal. Now it seemed like I’d be squinting through the morning. To make things worse, I realized my vape juice had gone missing too. Maybe it was also left at the Sand Bar. Maybe not. Either way, it felt like the day was slipping from under me before it had even begun. We decided to go to the beach anyway. The waves were calming, but between the sun glaring in my eyes and suntan lotion stinging them, I wasn’t at ease. And then came another blow: my vape fell into the sand, filling it completely. I had to trudge back to the room, disassemble it, and swap out the coil. Sitting there in the room, cleaning out sand and still feeling the throb in my head, I had a moment of choice. Was I going to let this day spiral? Or was I going to decide that it didn’t have to end the way it started? Right then, I decided to salvage it. The sunglasses could be replaced. The vape was fixable. The day wasn’t over yet. Back out at the beach, we made the call to leave for a bit—partly because the sand wasn’t so comfortable to lie in. A Walmart trip later, we had new lounge chairs and even managed to find some temporary sunglasses. Later, we came across an even better set of chairs at another shop, laughing at the idea of returning the Walmart ones. Things were looking up. Then came the moment that flipped the entire day around. As we walked out toward the beach again, the manager from the Sand Bar spotted us. With a big smile, he said he’d found my sunglasses clip. He explained that it had somehow slid under the register and was almost invisible—he only noticed it while pulling open the drawer. He was as excited as I was, and when he handed it to me, I couldn’t help but hug him in gratitude. By then, I had also found my vape juice. The rain that drifted in during the afternoon felt minor compared to the sunshine I was carrying inside. What started as a rough morning—headache, lost things, sandy mishaps—turned into a day of small wins, kindness from strangers, and a renewed reminder: sometimes the best days are the ones you fight to turn around. And most of all, I want to express my deepest gratitude and a heartfelt thank you to the Sand Bar Restaurant & Bar. Their patience and persistence in looking out for my sunglasses piece meant the world to me. That little act of kindness turned my whole day around, and I greatly...

Your website says "whiskey and people are our favorite things," and we have "the largest selection of whiskey in Florida."

On a recommendation from a trusted fellow whiskey lover, I drove two good friends from St. Augustine up for some whiskey tasting and a bite to eat on a recent Friday evening. Let's just say if you love whiskey and you love people, please make sure you're hiring at least one bartender or manager who actually knows something about whiskey and how to manage/locate items in your inventory. I simply wanted to taste a few higher end bottles to see if they are worth purchasing. The first four could not be located (Bomberger's, George T. Stagg, Thomas Handy, Old Forester Birthday) and it took over an hour to finally get a pour of something.

I can understand not having one or two bottles on the list. But here are the real issues:

1. Neither the bartenders nor the managers knew what they were looking for (we had four people trying to figure out the whiskey collection). They even had to google what the bottles looked like. They still brought the wrong bottles over multiple times.
2. They indicated they just had inventory completed and were told everything on the whiskey list was in stock. However, there doesn't seem to be any way to figure out how and where the 1200 bottles are organized, especially if you don't know what you're looking for.
3. I found bottles of Thomas Handy on display in storage on our way out (I briefly looked for about 2 minutes) so I'm sure the others were there somewhere...

You may have the largest selection of whiskey in Florida but you cannot tell me you actually love whiskey and people if you don't care enough to hire bartenders who know at least something about whiskey.

After closing (at 10pm which is weird for a place with so many whiskey selections) we went to the Decantery across town and enjoyed some George T. Stagg, Willet Small Batch, smoked old fashioned cocktails, and even bought a couple store pick bottles. They may not have the largest selection in Florida (although they had the good stuff that Sandbar didn't including all the Pappy products) but the bartenders there certainly knew their stuff! We had a blast and spent double the money before the night was over...

My suggestion... if you can't afford to hire the right people, stick to beachfront food and drinks and leave the whiskey to the...