Bayou Bill's Crab House — Restaurant in Alys Beach

Fantastic food and terrible service. It hurts my heart that I can't leave a 5 star review because the food was top-notch, exactly what you expect at a seafood restaurant on the beach.

However, our server was mostly non-existent. We didn't get refills until i yelled for him across a few tables. A couple of us were eating without drinks - normal drinks like water and soda. Not cocktails or mixed drinks to clarify. One of us asked for cheese when salads came out, didnt see dude again until we were in the middle of dinner. The server didn't check on the table after we placed our orders. He didn't make sure food was correct after it was brought out.

Typically, this doesn't matter too much, but if you force an 18% gratuity on people, you need to be decent -at least baseline. You fell very, very short. Once I realized we had an 18% automatic gratuity, it felt a lot like he knew that he had his tip and didn't care to provide normal service. I didn't get his name, wasn't that serious to me. But if you find the review about Kari V., it was the same thing. Running 🏃‍♂️ past the table. Dude had the same training, I swear.

The wait sucks, but that's the name of the game on a busy July 4th week. I can't take stars off for that. Also, I'd say that it is worth the wait. We arrived a few minutes before 5, and the wait was an hour and twenty minutes for a party of eight.

The restaurant has a great family essence, with many large groups seated at oversized tables. It has a nice beach vacation, family feel.

It's also nice that you can get in line at the bar to get a drink while you're waiting to be seated. I had a Bloody Mary, and it was good. It came with a couple of large green olives and a celery stick. It was a tad peppery for me, but i drank it and enjoyed it. Made from a premix bottle.

When seated near the restroom, the ground shakes, and your chair rumbles as people walk past. Small detail, but noticeable enough to be one of the distinct sensations from our visit.

Bayou Bill's makes Back Porch look like Long John Silvers. Back Porch charges higher prices for wannabe food that...

I normally would NEVER take this to google reviews- but our experience here was almost comically bad. We had a larger party, expected a wait and had ordered drinks at the bar. We were told 45 minutes but at about an hour and ten minutes wait I politely and apologetically came to check on how much longer it would be. She condescendingly responded that she appreciates our patience but it will be another 20-30 minutes. I said I was only checking (so we could plan to either keep going to the bar or not) Our table was seated at pretty much 10 top, we had more than that- then we had to move because it literally couldn’t fit us. Begrudgingly, the manager (also the hostess, who was obviously stressed) told us to “move now” because she was about to seat that table. Our waitress came out, seemed efficient and we made sure we already knew exactly what we wanted. Ordering was easy, we made sure it was uncomplicated and then we were never checked on for refills or anything. She came back after we asked the hostess for help. She came over and told us the food was coming. After about 45 mins after ordering we finally got our food, most of which was barely warm, mostly cold. And not to mention mediocre. We asked for a few things like two additional drinks and basically were told no at the moment and that she would be back to get those. She came back finally after most of us were over it and got the other orders. The attitude was heavy and condescending, talking to us like we had ruined her life and was basically just being inflammatory on purpose. It was actually wild. None of us at this table would ever dream of tipping less than 20%, but she was fine with having an attitude because she automatically got 18% which totaled out to roughly $160 off of us for checking on us once after having to be...

After reading all the great reviews we had to try Bayou Bills…and they have a gator pond out front (which is really small) which we thought would be cool for the kids. I’ll start with the positives…the kids menu/book (w/ real crayola crayons) is substantial so it can keep little busy longer than the single sheet you see at most restaurants. The kids menu offers a lot of non-seafood options if you need that. My son ordered a hamburger which seemed decent while my daughter ordered popcorn shrimp- which had zero flavor and may have been frozen?! Kids dinners are $8 for a corn dog and $13 for shrimp (no drink included) which is high relative to others. We love Capt Anderson’s, a fine restaurant… the prices are higher at Bayou Bill’s and the food quality is not even close- not good (fried food is bland) or consistent. My husband’s meal (grouper piccata) tasted OK. I ordered the same fish (grouper orleans) which was less than 1/2 a portion than my husband and mine had 3 tiny crawfish in the sauce on top which had dried, congealed where it had likely been sitting under the heat lamp for too long. Baked potato was the highlight of my plate (which is sad- because I don’t come to Florida for potatoes!) - hush puppies are greasy and “spongey” and greenbeans are soaked in oil. A really disappointing and overly expensive meal for what you get. I’m a foodie so I don’t mind paying for good food. Fresh seafood can be found so many places nearby - this is not a place you will find it.

Also, everyone (literally every table near us) seems to order snow crabs (public service announcement: these crabs are from the North Pacific or North Atlantic- aka NOT LOCAL- they literally have to be Frozen) which is just plain weird since this is not Seattle or Maryland- it’s Florida (we have Blue crabs...