Margaritaville Restaurant — Restaurant in Hollywood

I came here while staying at Margaritaville for an early birthday vacation for my daughter, and let me tell you, it was a blast! 🎉 We checked in quickly, and the first thing you notice when entering the restaurant is the attention to detail—how spacious and clean it is, plus the wonderful ambient lighting.

We were seated immediately in the middle of the restaurant. It wasn’t super busy, but the vibe was spot-on. There’s a downstairs and an upstairs, which I thought was really cool, and outdoor seating with a ship sitting in water outside—how awesome is that? You also get a great view of the pools (check out the pics!). Inside, they have a stage with a live band that plays several nights a week. We caught what I think was hip-hop and R&B night, and it was such a fun atmosphere.

Now, onto the food—our server, Rufus (I believe), was quick, attentive, personable, and friendly. Everything you could want from a server. My daughter ordered the Cheeseburger in Paradise. After doing her foodie research, she found out it’s their staple burger. It came with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, Picanha steak, caramelized onions, pickles, and paradise island dressing for $20.00. She got the sweet potato waffle fries per our server’s recommendation, and she said it was amazing—perfectly cooked at medium temperature. I took a small bite, and it was indeed very good.

I had their Wagyu steak, which was Picanha steak, caramelized onions, pickles, paradise island dressing, arugula, Havarti cheese, and chimichurri sauce on ciabatta bread for $22.00. It was so good—warm, filling, perfectly cooked, and seasoned. I could’ve used a bit more chimichurri sauce, but no complaints; this sandwich was delicious. It came with French fries, which were amazing—crispy, potato-forward, and perfectly salted.

I also mentioned to our server that this dinner was for my daughter’s birthday, and he brought out a slice of chocolate fudge cake with a candle in it and two spoons. It was a spectacular night—the ambiance, the service, the food. This is something my daughter had been wanting to do for a long time, and everything was perfect.

I will most definitely be back, and I highly recommend you stop in even if you’re not staying at the Margaritaville hotel like we did.

Some things I want to try next time I’m there: Cajun Pasta with chicken Coconut Tres Leches Garlic Sautéed Spinach Island Rice Key West Quesadilla Chicken Wings Cajun Chicken Cobb Salad Cheeseburger in Paradise (even though I had a bite of my daughter’s, I want my own)

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I hate to write this review, I thought about it long and hard, but at the end of the day, it helps other people make an informed decision. This review is for the Thanksgiving Buffet at the Jimmy Buffet restaurant, and I'll start with the bottom line: The food was sub par, uninspired, and showed minimal effort. At any given point multiple items were out, and there was no rush to fill it or make sure it looked good. Specifics: the salad bar was basic and dull with only one choice a basic lettuce salad with tomatoes etc. It pretty much says it all with one salad choice, especially if it looks like a side salad from a fast food chain. The sides were bland and mushy: the mashed potatoes were tasteless at best, weird tasting at times. The sweet potatoes were ok, sweet and smooth, like baby food, and the chopped grilled veggies looked wilted and sad, I did not want to try them. The meat and fish were dry, and they were stingy with the servings. Once the beef ran out, which was very quickly, it took 40 minutes for the next piece to come out from the kitchen, which was way longer than it would have taken if they started working on it immediately when it ran out, leading me to the conclusion that it was delayed intentionally. Once it came out, it ran out again after 8 people. The beef had a burned flavor, but was medium rare on the inside, so that was ok. The Turkey was dry and they cut it into small pieces for you. The ham was dry and salty, the fish was terrible, dry and hard, I couldn't tell you what fish it was I barely took one bite. The shrimp came out in batches that barely covered a 1/4 of the bucket it was laid on, and the oysters were room temp. The dessert: Small bites of pastry dough with sweet filling, nuts etc. No cake, no pudding, no fruit, nothing else. On the other hand, the service was good, nice people. Now, management or whomever will read this will probably reply that they are sorry I had this experience, they try to make it the best experience they can, etc, but I don't believe for a second that they are unaware of what kind of experience they delivered. Nothing was generous, everything was bare minimum in sense of taste and presentation, and the cadence of food coming out and how it was served was stingy. I don't believe this is how they would like the brand represented, but unfortunately, it spoke volumes on how they value their guest's experience. I would not be proud of this...

Had an awful experience here. Service was absolutely terrible. Staff was very unprofessional. Many were standing around playing with beach balls and hula hoops while customers tried to get their attention. Had to wait half an hour for a server to come to the table despite the place being nearly empty. After about an hour and half of being inside the restaurant, we were served and the food was ok. Pretty overpriced if you ask me, but whatever, we had been excited to go try the place out. We asked for our checks and this is when all hell broke loose. It took over half an hour to get the checks, and another 15 for the server to come take the money. When he came back, he had totally screwed up and ran 3 separate charges on our 2 checks. We had given him a card and some cash, and when he came back he gave us some elaborate story about why it was so odd and assured us everything was fine. Turns out it wasn't. We confronted him about it to which he seemed to question us. At this point I asked for a manager and he denied the request. I immediately asked the hostess to call out the manager and she quickly obliged, but she had to look around for a while to find him. Manager came out and I explained everything to him. He then proceeded to go to the back with the waiter for another half hour, after which he came out, told me I had been correct and that everything would be fixed. He offered us free drinks, but we were already too agitated to stay there any longer...probably would have been nice to have offered that BEFORE disappearing for 30 minutes. Our same waiter came out to finally close everything out, informed us that we still owed $6. I gave him my card and he actually laughed at me. As if running the card was too difficult. We spent 3 hours there...2 of which were completely unwanted. I'm convinced the server was trying to pocket our cash on top of adding gratuity...