Pirate Republic Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale

My experience was maybe a bit different. Maybe I came on an off time. When we arrived we were greeted promptly and though the place was empty, they would not sit us on the dock (issue 1). After a little while the waiter came over with three glasses of ice water. Myself and the other two people I'm sitting with do not drink ice water. So we ask them kindly to please replace the ice water with non-ice water. He seemed a little perturbed and came back a little while later with three glasses of water. This is not really an issue. We wanted to look at menus but apparently they don't have menus or saving money. We had to use our phones as menus which I did not like at all. It is very difficult to navigate through the menu (issue 2). Not in any particular order but you have to pay for parking now which is not the restaurant's fault apparently because of all the signs they placed telling us that it's the landlord's fault. (Issue 3). My wife ordered a mixed drink. I did not because I was driving. The drink came and it was a mojito. It literally tasted like lemon liquor with mint. The drink did not taste. Very good to me at all and it's $14 but my wife not knowing just drank it anyways without sending it back. After again a little while later the waiter came to take our orders. After we refused all of his advice for upsells because he was constantly trying to upsell we tried to order. This part was a little difficult because his accent is very strong and it's very hard to understand him. (Issue 4). The food took a really long time to come out at least 30 minutes or more. We had to order dinner at 3:00 in the afternoon even though we wanted to eat lunch and apparently they must not serve lunch but we wouldn't know because the only menu was on our phone and since it's their website it must be the only menu they have. $35 for a small seafood gumbo I'm assuming is what it is because I can't explain it. It's full of water. The good thing about it is that it did have quite a bit of seafood, clams oysters squid shrimp. The taste was okay but I do not like soup at all and this was basically full of water like a seafood gumbo but not nearly as thick. Though the dish seems small when we received it, I was full when I was done eating. After we were finished we had to wait a long time to find our waiter and to explain to him that our parking meter was running out and we needed it to go so we didn't get a parking ticket. He was asking how long we paid for. We told him 1 hour and that the meter's running out and he said don't worry about it. I'm not exactly sure what that means. Maybe the language barrier was the issue but we were trying to rush him to get our bills so we could get out of there. Lunch or dinner or linner or whatever you want to call. It ended up being $140. The other issue that we had while dining is that we did ask for ketchup and they brought us ketchup packets like this was a hot dog or something. We wondered it for our french fries. If we are paying $140, we expect a little bit higher level of service. A little bit higher level of cleanliness because the restaurant's extremely dirty. A little bit higher level of food as well. This was our first and last time. We will be coming here. The restaurant before this one was a casual dining and fun restaurant with an active bar and nice food. I don't think this restaurant's going to last much longer, especially now that they charge...

Look I don't write reviews much, but for the cost and lack of service and having to pay to park $10, don't go here unless you like pirate themed restaurants so much you don't care about the other details important to a good solid restaurant experience. I thought this place would be a great outdoor spot on the Riverwalk in Los Olas after seeing it across the river when walking. After getting in the car and driving over, we get there to find out anyone parking at there restaurant has to pay $10 or more to park in the parking lot bc a different landlord owns it and decided to charge. They do put a sign walking into restaurant apologizing. Either way, whatever you pay $10 to walk ten feet and move on just like valet somewhere. What really chapped me was the pricing of the food, the lack of flavor and quality of the food including five different people's meals in our party. The food was bland and not worth $30 to $50/meal minimum. $33 for four blue shrimp as an appetizer is fine at a five star restaurant where everyone pays five start pricing bc the whole menu is five star quality. The whole theme of the place is a pirate themed Jamaican Jerk carribean flavor palette. I'm unaware of carribean jersey places who make mashed potatoes with zero salt. I mean none. Corvina was pretty good but no seasoning. Sweet potato fries were a huge bowl of nothing. We all ate one fry and left the entire bowl untouched. The kids did like the chicken strips and pasta. They would eat almost anything so take that for what it is.

Lastly you are charging to park. Ok not your fault you don't own the land. Your prices are high for quality lacking food. Okay we are in Los olas whatever. At least make sure your staff are friendly and provide great service to match your location and pricing. Our hostess looked like he was annoyed to even seat us. The server the entire night did not smile or joke or say anything that would make someone think man we are getting great service here! It was uncomfortable to the point when we were trying to order he scoffed at one of our food choices for a side item request of replacing a salad with the mustard greens. I've never seen a waiter look like that when asked a question. Either way he was unpleasant the whole time. Take this for what you want, but we will never eat here again. Most overpriced, overrated, poor experience, but cool nice environment and location restaurant I've been...

Bland, overpriced, bad service, but romantic ambience. I was recommended this restaurant from our hotel. I asked for the best local food. This was not it but I completely understand why it was recommended. It's a tacky tourist trap. The spot is difficult to locate within the labyrinth of neighborhoods. The entrance is only noticable with a low sign. The parking lot gets full during prime eating hours & is littered with trash, cigarette buds, & broken glass. The restaurant is behind a house you have to walk next to. I'm thinking it might be the same property since the walkways are attached & the pool is in the restaurant's entrance. There are so many rotting tacky statues & stuffed animals. They had a live unattended parrot above people's heads. No one was at the front stand for nearly 5 minutes & no sign notified us of what to do. The hostess was actually very sweet when she arrived & sat us at the corner of the dock. Definitely the best spot because we had water all around us. Unfortunately this is where all the good bits end. The dock was so small & too many people were seated on it. The water was obviously dark because it was night time, so it was difficult to see & we were inches from the water all around. There is no barrier, my daughter was terrified. In order to move your chair to go to the bathroom for example, you had to each shuffle the table & wiggle your way through. Our waiter ignored us the entire time. I'm a classic scardy cat millennial who doesn't want to hurt people's feelings, but even I had to ask for assistance from other staff multiple times. The waiter gladly spoke to other tables right by us. Not sure what that was about. The only difference was that we ordered in English (we also speak Spanish but didn't notice everyone was primarily speaking Spanish until later). The food was beyond expensive for what you get. The portions are small, flavorless, & greasy. We ordered an expensive market priced fish & it was all bones & some greasy bits. I got the curry & it had no flavor, just watered down soup practically. There didn't seem to be an item they were known for. We also ordered specialty cocktails & sadly they weren't balanced. Just a club mix. This place has so much potential because of the location, but it needs to settle on a direction & make that hostess the manager because she kept that restaurant running...