III Forks Steakhouse — Restaurant in Jacksonville

I have heard amazing things about III Forks. My boyfriend and I went for dinner Saturday night with a reservation at 6:15. We arrived and were sat within 5 minutes. It took a few minutes for the server to arrive at the table, but we were offered water immediately. Once the server arrived, she looked very disheveled, which is not what I expected from a restaurant that has $100+ pp noted on their site. She took our bar drink order as we looked over the menu.

We ordered spinach and artichoke dip for the app. The entrees were the 16oz Ribeye Oscar Style and the 8oz filet with Kings butter. We were not aware that the sides were sharable sizes, and the server did not inform us, so unfortunately, we ordered the mashed potatoes and the six cheese potatoes. We did not see anywhere on the menu that the sides were sharable sizes. Maybe I missed it?

The app came out pretty quickly. It was nice and hot. It could have used salt, but that was easily fixable. Shortly after, the first bar drink came out, and it was great. The server checked on us and said the food would be out soon, and it was.

My boyfriend's ribeye was cooked perfectly. My filet, unfortunately, was room temp and a little tough. The Kings Butter was devine, as well as the potatoes and his Oscar Style crown.

Our server checked on us right after the food was brought, but not again until she brought the check, which I had to flag down another server to get. We watched her throughout the night, and she did have a table of 8 that she was also serving and seemed quite frazzled with them.

Our normal response to poor service and/or food is just not to go back to that restaurant. She was tipped the customary 20%, but honestly, she didn't deserve it. She apparently needed help. There were multiple other servers that were very attentive and engaging with their tables, which was what I expected. There were runners and other staff that seemingly could have helped her.

My daughter is in the service industry, and I have been in customer service for over 25 years. I typically never complain, but over the last 2 days I have really thought about the fact that a restaurant like this is just as much about the experience as it is the food, and this restaurant did not deliver. I definitely regret the $315 that we spent there - I would have spent it at many other restaurants happily, as their service is...

Tl;dr... awesome, expensive, great corporate credit card style place

Ok, this is gonna be the most comprehensive review I've ever written, as it should be since the bill was 470 bucks for 3 people.

To begin this place is so far out of my personal budget it isn't funny. But I've had some good steaks, expensive ones, from all over the world and I've also had steak fresh as fresh can get (thank you corporate credit cards).

I had the wagyu strip, cooked mid rare. The good: flavor, presentation, speed, seasoning. The bad: rare tips, tougher than I would have expected from wagyu. Overall, 4.5 out of 5.

Lobster: 3 out of 5. Guys, you're in Florida. Get spiny lobster. Let Maine keep theirs. Our lobster is better. It was tough, very rubbery, and not well cooked. I grew up lobster hunting and cooking, I know every conceivable way of doing lobster. It was far better than anything Red Lobster or a run of the mill restaurant would do, but for a dish of that price, I expect the best. The good: presentation, speed, seasoning. The bad: cook quality, lobster style, lack of understanding of what lobster should be (granted that's subjective, but this is my review).

Key like pie: 5 out of 5. 10 out of 10. 100 out of 100. Legitimately the second best key lime I've ever had (only behind my grandmas). I've never..... NEVER.... had a properly good key like pie at a restaurant before. This BY FAR outclassed any key lime. Ever. Seriously the best... absolutely awesome. Cannot be improved upon because Jesus himself blessed this pie. The good: everything. The bad: literally nothing.

Wine selection: I don't drink wine, so I'm gonna assume it was good.

Beer: didn't have what I wanted (not their fault, they ran out... it happens, no worries) but good list to be expected from a place like this.

Service 4.5 out of 5. It was great riiiiiiiiight up to the end. They were like bumble bees... all around us the whole time. Awesome! But when it came time to pay everyone disappeared. Idk why, but it approached annoying because we needed to get out of there and we stood around like idiots waiting to get a check lol Other than that very, very small annoyance... superb service.

Verdict: 4 out of 5 stars. Swap that lobster for Florida lobster and it'll be a 5 outta 5 stars for me. Will most certainly be back with clients in the future, very glad this was...

Made a reservation for New Years Eve for 4. We arrived at 8:45 p.m. for that same time reservation slot. This restaurant has many different dining rooms so it didn't look that busy. Bar was not full. Took about 10 minutes to get seated at our table...this should have been the first red flag. Once seated it took another 15 minutes to get an old fashion, two glasses of house wine and a Diet Coke. Server dropped off our drinks and went to assist another table. She did not share that she would be back to take our order...just left. Another 5 minutes and our waitress shares the specials...walks away again without asking if we are ready to order. After an additional 10 minutes she shows back up on the floor so I could flag her down to place our order. So we are 40 minutes into our evening and have not ordered. 15 minutes go by and we get bread and a salad and require more cocktails. 5 more minutes to wait for drinks. In the mean time a table of 6 sat down right beside us and got drinks right away, starters that looked like Lobster, and a second round of drinks. The ladies at the table got up from their table and were gone somewhere and their food showed up and they were not even at the table. So after we had been there an hour and a half we got concerned. We asked out waitress to check and she said she would. Never came back. My wife goes to complain to manager and they say we'll check on it. 15 minutes later and now almost two hours at this $100 per person plate dinner we received luke warm food? Manager came over literally seconds after they sat the food down on the table and asks' "how does everything taste"? Poor timing Mr. Manager haven't had time to taste yet. He left and never came back. No apology, just said I don't know what they are doing back there. Well if you don't we sure didn't. By now we are starving and are just to get out of this place before midnight. All in all food was decent tasting and flavorful, service was horrific and the total lack of caring was awful from everyone. Never again do I spend money at this place. I would eat at Longhorn with more respect than 3 Forks. Great way to bring in a Covid New Year....