Portside Tavern — Restaurant in Florida

The place smells terrible. They need some kind of exhaust to get the cigarette smoke out. How do you serve food when the places smells worse then a bingo hall? The food has to have the smell adsorbed in it all.

Service at night is absolutely terrible, always. Waited about 20 minutes to get a beer 2-3 times… why are the bartenders not going around the main bar checking on customers? I’ve been to bars 3x busier on a Saturday night in this area and I can get a beer sitting at the bar in 0-3 minutes. on my 5th beer asked how much my tab is and she said she was making it a bucket so it’ll be a 3-4 dollars cheaper. Went outside for a while maybe 30 ish minutes & came back in to have 1 more beer (6 beers total) I get handed a bill for 56$ after I said that there isn’t no way my bill doubled. They added a bucket and 8 beers to the tab. So they removed the bucket, I never got the bucket price and then had to argue with the older bartender for 20 minutes about me not having 8 beers, she walked over to the trash 2 times and said there is 6 coronas in the trash… “it’s been emptied 3 times tonight” well unless it was emptied when I was outside… it was not emptied since I got there. Eventually she gave me the bill for my 6 beers and tried to make me feel bad saying “we are gonna have to pay for it now” pay for your mess up? Or did you give another person a corona and put it on my tab? “I’ve been doing this for 11 years we just don’t add drinks to your tab” so why was there a bucket and 8 beers if you don’t do that? Make it make sense.

Will not be back with the bad attitude from the older bartender and the “he’s drunk so I’m gonna over charge him for a bigger tip” logic.

They did this a few weeks ago to one of my buddies too 1 bucket and 2 shots of house liquor...

I came in to have a few drinks and there was a few people and the owner Joe. I sat at one side of the bar and Joe asked me what I wanted to drink. I told him and he gave me my drink and went and sat at the opposite side of the bar. He got up a few times to check the level of people’s drinks and went back to sit down. At times he didn’t even get up but would sit in the chair and look around at peoples drinks. He wasn’t much for conversation. I felt pressured into drinking the way he would look around or the times he did get up. I was here to relax and have a few drinks but seemed I should have had more the way he was looking around. I’ve been here other nights when Sherry and Jerimiah are working and never felt like that. Always feel welcomed and comfortable. I will continue to come here on certain nights. Joe was very polite but not as welcoming as most bartenders. He would be better behind the scenes because he doesn’t have the personality as a bartender...

Oh, the "Booo" bird Yankees have no idea... They don't have a clue and wouldn't understand it if explained to them. This place is a landmark, a county treasure of sorts... This is probably (along with the Brown Cow) the oldest, continually operated business (definitely bar) in Charlotte County. This place was here before I first walked into it in 1973 and has been open all day everyday since with maaaaaybe the exception of Hurricane Charlie in 2004. For the Yankees who bad mouth: "THIS IS NOT AN EATERY"!!! They NOW offer small finger food but by no means is this nor has it ever been a place to come and actually eat a meal. If you were served food at all, consider yourself lucky... Now, shut up, drink your drink and get out... Oldtime Floridans only... Over 5 decades of continual service? BRAVO!!! AND HERE'S TO 5 MORE!!! Thank you...