Flanigan's Seafood Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale

I visited this Flanagan's location last night, and had a horrible experience. It started well, but progressively got worse.

The first thing is there was a strange pink smudge on the side of my wife's drink. We didn't complain, but it made us question cleanliness.

Our server was nice, but when our appetizer came out it didn't look the greatest, almost as if it wasn't freshly made. We still made no complaints.

Soon after we began eating the appetizer we noticed a small roach on or table. I killed it with a napkin and covered it and we proceeded to eat. We started to aee more roaches in the table, and that was the last straw. We could no longer eat there. We notify the hostess of the issue and she brings out the manager.

The manager comes out, and stands at the head of table and asks us what is wrong. We tell him there are roaches on the table. He looks around the table, and tells us he has a clean restaurant, and the bugs may have come through the window because of the rain, but insist he has a clean restaurant, and offers to move us to another table.

We decline his offer, and tell him we would just like to leave. He tells us to wait. He comes back with the bill, and I was shocked.

I question being billed for drinks and appetizer that could not be consumed because there were roaches on the table.

The manager gets upset by this. He continues to tell us how he has a clean restaurant and he offered to move us to another table. We try to let him know we understand that but we could no longer eat there, and would not be paying for the food due to roaches on the table.

He goes on to say he doesn't see any roaches, as he has a clean restaurant. I show him the roach I killed with a napkin. He reached over and grabbed the napkin and started to to tell us the roach was not a roach, and we were complaining about a little gnat.

I'm no expert in bugs, but I highly doubt he is either. My wife and I are however capable of identifying a roach versus a gnat, especially when they are crawling on our table.

He finally backed away from the table and allowed us to leave. We left a tip on the table for the waitress.

If the manager would not have been so rude, I would have never written this review, but since he did not want to take accountability for a unclean establishment, and decided to question what we saw, he now has to face the court of public opinion.

I've always like the Flanagan's/Big Daddy's brand, but my wife is no longer a fan because of this incident. You've lost a...

We have always liked the Commercial Blvd location as the food is consistently good and have gone there four times in the last four weeks but today our bartender/server decided to make our lunch an irritating moment of our day; and it was only over a missing condiment that is supposed to be on the plate. Go figure! We hardly ever write reviews and this was unpleasant so we caution anyone sitting at the bar for lunch when “Malibu” is working. Note that we are not problematic and just last week were just fine when the kitchen manager sent word to our dining table that they could only serve one salmon sandwich as they had run out. Today was different: about 1 pm we sat at the bar that had plenty of seats as there was a wait of about 15 minutes for tables. We were waited on right away by Malibu and ordered our usual two of the same things of salmon (blackened) sandwiches (the only one from the regular menu –see photo) with cole slaw. The food arrived quickly and after few bites we realized there wasn't any sauce ramekin on the platter (nor on the fish) and so went to talk to the food runner to ask to bring us the missing chipotle sauce, as we didn’t want to bother the bartender attending to customers at the other end of the bar. Malibu overheard and proceeded to say, “if you want chipotle sauce I need to charge you for it.” What??? We told her we just were here last week for the same dish and have always had some type of sauce with our fish sandwiches, either tartar or chipotle comes in small cup on the plate. She wouldn't budge -- she kept saying “if you want it, I will charge you for it” and said “I don't make the rules and I didn't make the menu.” And all this over a condiment item that is always on the plate there and which neither plate had. Please see attached photo of menu listing which clearly states it comes with it. What a horrible attitude this was, and completely unnecessary, as if we were asking for free food! We simply were asking for a sauce that is supposed to come with the sandwich to make it easier to swallow. Why be antagonistic over nothing? Bizarre 1-star...

So this review is really tough to write. I eat at Flanigans 2-3 times per week. I usually visit the locations in Sunrise & Davie, but today after a work meeting, I decided to stop at the one in commercial.

I walked in expecting my usual Flanigans experience, amazing food, great atmosphere and rockstar service! My experience with the service at this location was anything but that.

Our food took over 35 minutes to get to the table and the restaurant was not busy. Less that 50% capacity if I had to guess. Our server seemed to be busy so we constantly waited on refills for our drinks. It was the hostess who would check in on us and ask if we need anything and was getting our drinks. That young lady is a superstar! I hope Flanigans see's that! Go Jess!

After finally getting our food, we needed some extra crackers and after patiently waiting for the server, I decided to walk to the bar and ask. The bartender, Taylor, greeted me with a "what?", I asked if I could have some more saltine crackers whenever she had the chance and she informed me that I was going to have to wait because she needed to go all the way to the back of the restaurant for that.

I let her know that it wasn't an issue and she turned around and started attending to other guests. I decided to ask another server, and can you guess who came with the crackers? Jess!

The food was great as always but unfortunately the service was not. Other than the hostess, no one else seems to really care about the customers. It's so sad to think that is the closest restaurant to the company headquarters and this is the kind of service being given.

I am a Flanigans boy for life, I always will be, just not at this location unfortunately. It really sucks because it's the closest to my office. This is not first bad experience here and I fear that it won't be my last. I do hope management see's this and makes some kind of adjustment.

Still love...