The Conch House Restaurant — Restaurant in Florida

To management and/or owner,

This past Saturday 3/16/2024 , an unnecessary incident occurred at the Conch House bar. A friend and I, after returning from a fishing charter, went up the gangway into the outdoor/dock bar to grab five drinks (no signage observed of no outside drinks or food). When getting to the bar to order, a server said to my friend that had a drink from outside/fishing that he would have to put it in a cup, pour it out or leave. He said he was not going to put it in a cup. I asked him to go back down, and I would order. He left and while I was leaning on the flip-up portion of the counter trying to order, she forcefully said get out of my way and flipped the counter up, banging my arm (if you have video, you will clearly see it). Then she proceeded toward him where he was mostly down the gangway yelling exactly what I cannot say as I was trailing and a bit hard of hearing. He then gave her a middle finger. That was that, as we both and others were on the dock awaiting our catch to be cleaned by the charter personnel, a male bar employee came out yelling at my friend (way later, and he had not returned to the bar) get out of here in an aggressive manner with profanity. I am trespassing you and that you will leave one way or another (please be mindful my friend was on the lower boat dock). I will call the police. My friend then gave him the middle finger. The male bar employee yelled a bit more, and then went back into the bar. We all stayed on the lower dock waiting for the captain and crew to finish cleaning and bagging our catch. When done, we proceeded down the lower docks and up the gangway near the parking lot to be met by the same male bar employee yelling and coming toward our entire group in the police’s presence that is him trespass him and again yelling get out of here. The officer told the bar employee to go away and asked us all to go out to the parking lot. The officer did what he was obligated to by trespassing my friend as a personal business employee had requested. Now, as the officer returned my friend’s ID, he stated that after he first met the bar employee, he knew he was an aggressive, angry person but had to do his job by trespassing my friend as requested.

That being said, my family and friends have celebrated birthday dinners and personally have had dinner with my immediate family many-many times without incident. However, there are many other establishments to visit and with the behaviours of these two employees and a bruised arm, I will never step foot in this restaurant or bar and would suggest to anyone reading to do the same.

Our fun-filled day turned into an unpleasant experience for these two employees that will surely be experienced by...

Came here and was so thoroughly disappointed by the food and general operations of the place I have to write this review.

The Food: My family ordered 6 different dishes. Every single one of them was bland or not properly cooked in some way. The chicken had no flavor. The lobster had a funny taste and was chewy and overcooked. The grilled cheese bread was too hard and the cheese wasn't even melted. Every single plate came out "hot" which pretty much tells me they're microwaving the food. None of the food looked fresh, it all seemed frozen and unappealing. It just was not good!

The Prices: Way way way too high for the quality of food we received. Was anything hand-breaded? I doubt it. Was anything made in-house? Again, highly doubt it. It's fine-dining prices for, in my estimation, worse than Applebee's quality food.

They automatically applied gratuity on the check for a party of 6 (3 kids, 3 adults), and charged $0.50 extra for marinara sauce I didn't order. I was so annoyed I didn't bother to say anything, but this is not okay. I always leave good tips, but if there was ever a time to tip closer to 10% rather than 20%, this was it.

The Service: Our server was nice, but was generally slow. Getting the food was quick, because there's little preparation in making likely microwaved food, but refills were almost non-existent, and it took too long to place our order and get our check to finally leave.

The Atmosphere: The only saving grace. If not for the location there's no way a restaurant can get away with the quality of food, price, and service we received.

I really hope they improve, but the place just felt like there was a lack of care put into it as of now. They need to bring back fresh food. Streamline the menu, put some effort into your operations, and figure it out. Because I feel ripped off on...

Easy to get to. Parking lot on site well maintained.

Wait system is designed based on seat choice with phone alerts when your table is ready. We choose the tiki hut seating which took 1.5 hours on a Saturday around 7pm.

Appetizers were top notch, had the cracked conch and the shrimp with artichoke dip, just well done.

Entrees went a little less than savory aside from the shrimp tacos and lobster macaroni. The 3 shrimp tacos provided a unique taste of everything with the lime freshly squeezed on top, really made the dish complete. Crab cakes were poor with a rather uninspired taste, the mashed potatoes was the savior of the plate with a nice rich and creamy flavor. The Shrimp Anastasia had overcooked rubbery shrimp and runny sauce leaving you wanting a thicker sauce to eat the noodles with. The lobster macaroni had a nice flavor that was not too fatty, the lobster bits were not very chunky and cooked well avoiding the typical rubber taste.

Dessert fell flat on its face. The coconut cake was a little dry but the coconut was fresh and shaved small to bring it to edible. The pound rum cake was so dry that even the iced cream couldn't save it, as a member of the table stated "it's as dense as a cannonball". The key lime pie has been "made here for 35 years" according to our server, apparently they never learned the proper texture since it tasted like gelatin pudding rather than pie, it was worse than most store bought pie.

Overall the place wasn't bad, atmosphere was great, staff was friendly and knowledgeable, food presentation looked professional, just come here to drink and eat appetizers or you might end up dissatisfied with the rest...