Billy's Oyster Bar — Restaurant in Florida

My family vacation began on June 12th and my birthday was on June 14th. Before all of the family members arrived, a smaller group of us (6 people) decided to try out Billy’s and took it as a great sign that so many cars were in the parking lot on a Sunday night. We put our name in and we’re delighted to be called to be seated within 10 minutes! A young man came over and took our drink orders. We waited for another 10 minutes to receive them and one person in our party did not receive hers at all. The waiter kindly went back to get her drink. He then took our dinner orders, so we sipped on our drinks until they were pretty much water. The waiter came back and refilled a few drinks then we waited until they were water. When we had been there for an hour, we finally were able to beckon our waiter over to our table to ask about our food. He said they were having problems in the kitchen, but our order was up next. What a relief, huh? After another 10 minutes of waiting and watching several parties who came in after us leaving, another young man came to our table. We told him that we would like to speak to the manager. He said the manager was out of town. We inquired about our food again - he said he would go and check. We decided to leave some money on the table for our drinks and leave. The n both waiters came out with a basket of some sort and and asked who’d ordered the Billy’s Special. None of us had. When we told them that none of us ordered that entree, one of them argued with me, stating that I had ordered it when each person at the table said none of us ordered anything with Billy’s name in it! They turned and went back to the kitchen; we got up and left. I was so upset since I was the person who decided that we should go there. It was late when we got back to our beach house, around 9:30. We had been at the restaurant from 7:15, and we had some hungry, grumpy people. We wound up buying some food at Publix and ate dinner at 10:30! No...

The atmosphere and service was great but the food, at least the oysters not so much , once I finally got my chargrilled oysters they had been sitting so long that they were cold and the cheese on them was now one big flappy piece of plastic,

the oysters were shucked terribly, big flakes of shell that I bit into in over 80% of the dozen oysters only 4 were actually shell free below the cheese ,

Not the greatest experience and I know this place at one point in time was booming with good food because of how many people were there after I showed up and how many dollar bills they had hanging from their ceiling and more

I talked to a bunch of locals at other bars and they said that 5 years ago that Billy's was the place to go , but now people really only go there for the blue crab besides that it's a bust

They also didn't have Michelob on draft (like most bars in PCB for some reason that is beyond me)

It sucks because the staff was really nice and the place was cool , but it was literally like I was watching an episode of Gordon Ramsey's restaurant turnaround before it was revamped ,

there was a guy in a full FedEx uniform bringing drinks to people at the the tables (which I'm not downing the man by any means , he's got his grind on doing his thing, and I respect him 100% for that and it's probably a family or friends business and he works there after his work shift which is awesome for him it just threw me off and this is an honest review)

Anyway I was planning on ordering crab legs and more for the wife and kiddos but after the debacle with oysters and waiting so long I just asked for my check and left and we ate spaghetti instead

this is the thing that sucks about doing reviews that I hate but it's the truth.

Over all 2/5 definitely room for improvement especially whoever is shucking them oysters...

MAJOR disappointment. Called to ask about wait time and call ahead. Said 30 mins wait, no call ahead. Called back less than a minute later to ask about when they stop serving food. (We won't go places and within an hour of kitchen closing as a courtesy.) The 2nd person said 9:30p kitchen closes but now an hour wait? Arrived and was seated within 15 mins (around 8:15p). When no one came to our table after 20/25 mins, I asked the bartender if we even had a server. She agreed to serve us, said the hostess didn't tell anyone they had been sat. This was after being passed by several staff multiple times and the table was directly in front of the bar. To be fair, we had ordered drinks at the bar and had them when sat, so we tried to overlook the mishap and start over. Then food took 40 mins to come out. About average for a busy Friday (maybe) but then ALL COLD except for husband's platter, which means the rest sat in the window until his was ready. At this point the night and meal was blown, as the bartender/server had already forgotten the raw oysters my husband ordered as well. We were VERY patient, but then, we were served cold food after being forgotten, then forgetting food altogether was final and unacceptable. The bartender/server tried to make excuses saying they pull all the food out at the same time. Seriously...could see the food in the food window from our table. Not eating cold seafood. We left without eating and paying, except for a beverage. Even the table next to us that we were chatting with warned us that some of their food came out cold. After reading reviews, that apparently...