Brutus Land and Sea — Restaurant in Marathon

I really wanted this place to be good but honestly we were pretty disappointed by our recent experience at Brutus’. They were visibly understaffed and the service reflected. Although our server was friendly, he was the only person working the entire outdoor patio and the bar—running food, taking orders, making drinks—and there were far too many tables and patrons for him to do his job successfully.

We had a party of four and every one of us had an issue with our meal; one of us ordered a Brutus fish sandwich and paid a $6 up-charge for the grouper—they gave us Mahi Mahi; another one of us ordered the coconut shrimp—it came with no coconut (shrimp was just deep fried with what seemed like a cornmeal breading) and no condiments/dipping sauce (we asked for sauce—they said they ran out of the coconut shrimp dipping sauce but then never brought us out any other dipping sauce like cocktail or tar tar—we had to physically get up and go ask the kitchen); we ordered black bean salad as our entree side—we got fries; we asked for napkins—no one brought them—had to physically get up and get them ourself; we asked for refills—and our drinks were never refilled throughout our entire meal. We asked for our check—but after waiting on our server for what seemed like forever, I finally got up and just paid at the bar.

The server apologized for the wait and explained that he was alone that shift, and we understand that, but it didn’t make up for the errors made with all of our orders and no refills or even napkins.

The biggest slap in the face was that the bill was almost $200–for 4 people, no alcohol, just for lunch. Pretty ridiculous. Sorry, Brutus, but you’ve got some major work to do...

First time trying this place and overall, I personally loved it. We came around 2pm on Tuesday and it wasn't busy and we were seated immediately. Our server was very attentive and helped us in our options in what to order.

Tuna Tacos - were AMAZING! Tuna was cooked perfectly and served on flour tortillas with sliced avacados, wasabi sauce, lettuce and tomatoes. The spice of the wasabi sauce was perfectly balanced with the cool taste of the avocado. As I'm writing this my mouth is starting to crave these 🤤. My only complaint, is there was way too much lettuce on the tacos (as you can see from the picture). The tacos came with a side and the coleslaw was good.

Cuban Burger - great flavor combination but it would be amazing if it was a fresh patty. Other than that, we loved it.

Brutus Platter - great portion of food consisting of grilled lobster, mahi mahi, and scallops - all cooked perfectly!

Lobster bisque - was the soup of the day. It was lacking something but not sure what. It was good but wasn't the best I've ever had.

Sombrero Salad - Huge salad with great flavor. The grilled pineapple on this salad is a nice sweet flavor to balance out the rest of the flavor in the salad. It had a ton of asiago cheese on it, so that was a bit overpowering, but overall a great salad. Next time, we would definately add shrimp to the salad.

We did not try the key lime pie, as they get their pie from Sweet Savannah's down the street and we have had it from them before, which is a good pie, but we just like to try the local restaurants key lime pie.

Overall, the food is fresh and tastes great. Definately a must try while in the Keys and we will definately...

I would give this place a -1 if it was possible. Stop by for a late lunch with my wife and wasn’t sure at first by the empty parking lot but my wife said that the reviews online looked pretty good so we decided to give it a try. I ordered catch of the day but when we asked if the fish that we ordered was one of the fish on display and were told “no it’s in the back”. We should have asked to see the fillets before ordering bc when the meal came out, it was thinly filleted and over cooked. My wife ordered a bowl of “soup of the day” which turned out to be too salty for her to eat so we switched. However, the food quality is not why I am writing this review. As we were finishing our ordering process, I asked the waitress if I can order a drink from the bar, she told us that the bar is closed bc it is her who run it and that she was too busy to keep it open, keep in mind there were only two tables (including our) in the whole place. So I asked if I can get a draft beer since she was too busy to make a cocktail and she told us that the CO2 was empty so she couldn’t even do that. At which point I asked if she can maybe can get me a bottle of beer but changed my mind when I realized that I was begging this person for something that I was going to pay for. And the kicker was that half way through our lunch, another table came and here came the same waitress serving the new table with cocktails and another man brought and you guessed it …a draft beer to the new table ??? WHAT the bar apparently only opened for select customers??? They even added 18% gratuities on the check and no she didn’t get a tip. I am wondering how did this business get a 4+...