Barbara Jean's On The Water — Restaurant in Florida

My husband and I took both mothers out to dinner on a Sunday evening. Much to our surprise, the restaurant was extremely slow when we walked in. It took a good 3-4 minutes before the hostess noticed we were waiting for a seat. Several employees walked past us during that 3-4 minutes without saying a word to us! Because of this, we almost turned and walked out without dinner.

As we were deciding, our server, Isabella, came to the rescue. We were seated directly behind the server station and Isabella was a rockstar! It’s not easy to put up with so many different personalities at the same table. She didn’t miss a beat!

Our food came out fairly quickly after ordering. It all came out exactly as ordered! The sugar was flavored with a little tea (intended to be written that way!) 3 of the 4 of us had to take a ‘doggie bag’ home! I don’t think the moms left a morsel of the pumpkin bread on the table! 🤣🤣

Highly highly highly recommend Barbara Jeans on the water!!

UPDATE:

I Really hate to have to write an entirely different review but my most recent visit to Barbara Jeans was far less than desirable. My husband and I took my son's family and my Mom out to dinner to celebrate a BIG event for us. We sat out on the patio so the kids could feed the fish.

It took a good while to be seated as we have 7 in our party and most of the larger tables were being used. We ended up putting two tables together to make it accessable for us. Our order was taken fairly quickly after being seated. It did, however, take forever for the food to be brought to the table. We were all famished when the meals got to the table and jumped right in.

3 of us had shrimp/coconut shrimp on our plates and they were absolutely disgusting. They were rock hard like they were cooked the previous day and then reheated to put on our plates or had been freezer burned and still used to serve customers. I informed our waiter, Griffin, of our displeasure with our meals and he just said "oh, sorry."

Good customer service will bring return customers. Blatant disregard will cause your customers to find another place to purchase their dinner. Sadly, what has been a long time family staple has now become a thing of the...

Came in for lunch on a weekday, getting there around 12:30PM it wasn’t busy at all. I asked about sitting on the deck and she said it would be a 25 min wait (but there were only a few tables sat out there and so many more available), so we opted to sit inside, where more than ¾ of the dining room was vacant. She said it would be a 5 min wait. OK, so we waited, assuming we needed to wait for a table to get up, as they didn’t have enough servers to manage another table being sat. That wasn’t it at all, she just went back to standing at the host stand and we all stood around. No one left and then about 10 mins later she took us to the table she previously said we were going to get. This delay made no sense at all.

Once sat, we waited several minutes for our server to come and the first question we asked was what the fish of the day was. She said as of the morning they hadn’t announced one yet. Well, it’s now afternoon, so we asked if that’s been updated. She said she didn’t know. We asked her if she could ask. She rolled her eyes and walked away. She came back saying it was red snapper, so we each ordered. My colleague also ordered an unsweeted tea but asked for sweetener. She dropped off the tea and never came back. I noticed this and went looking for sweetener, finding a busboy I asked him if he had any. He said he wasn’t sure and had to go check. He came back with a few packs of Sweet n Low. (Not sure why service has been such a challenge thus far!)

Once the food came, it was all very good. The crab cake was decent, but odd that they flatten it out so much when grilling it on the flat top. I’m from the DC area and we simply make them into a patty, sauté and that’s it. The buffalo shrimp was really nicely done. The best was the blackened red snapper – fresh and perfectly spiced and cooked. It wasn’t dry, it was moist and very tasty. Their broccoli rice casserole was excellent too. And those red beans and rice, though not the thick, traditional NOLA style, were spiced nicely and tasty as well.

This could have easily been a 5 star meal, as the food was really good… but it’s a 2 star total visit when taking into account the...

My family and I love Barbara Jeans from the food, to the service, and atmosphere.

I’ve been coming here with my family since I was a little girl (talking early 2000s shortly after they first opened) and now I have the privilege to bring my own children.

I’m a sucker for their Coconut Shrimp, She Crab soup, and of course the infamous bread basket with pumpkin bread, jalepeno corn bread, and other assorted rolls. Oh and their BJ salad is sooo good!

Kids enjoy the kids cheese burger, turkey and gravy, and chicken tenders. Rest of my family always get the catfish, crabcakes, loaded fries, and the country fried steak. Honestly, everything on the menu is to die for especially all their side options!

The staff is also always friendly, and accommodating from the moment we walk in, to when we leave as well!

Side note: If you haven’t been, you must know that they will not seat your table until your whole party is present. To most, this seems like an inconvenience but as someone who’s been in the hospitality industry and with this being such a desired restaurant to dine, having an entire party sit at the same time causes less disruption and timing issues than with guests arriving at their own pace.

Ex. A server comes to take a partial tables drink order, returns with the drinks and the rest of party decides to show up and order their drinks. That server has to now return to the drink station a second time interrupting their time to check in on their other tables. I’m not saying this is why they do it, I’ve actually never asked what the reasoning is I just always respected their decisions. But, to me it makes sense and shows respect to have your entire party sit and dine at the same time so that everything can all flow together cohesively. Regardless, they’re quick at accommodating your party and I’d wait however long I’d need to just to get a table. Again, their food is amazing and...