The Island Fish Co. Restaurant & Tiki Bar — Restaurant in Marathon

The Island Fish Company is a beautiful restaurant in the heart of the Florida Keys. It is located on Marathon Island situated directly on the gulf. Ocean breezes blowing off the water throughout the meal, the Island decorations, and the live tropical plants enhance the entire dining experience.

This pet friendly eatery offers amazing views, boat and jet ski piers, and it is handicap accessible. You can feed the wild pirate fish directly from the pier; a treat for young and old. There is also an iguana for your viewing pleasure.

My family ordered a variety of menu items. The New England Lobster Roll, California Chicken Sandwich, The Caribbean Special, The Surf and Turf, a children's Hotdog plate, and the Captain's platter with fried Mahi and Florida Lobster.

The service was great. Ken is an outstanding waitress and she was able to professionally handle a mixed table of children and indecisive adults.

The varying quality of food and drinks contribute to the restaurant's rating. The initial negative assessment came from soured tea. As our drinks were served several hours after the IFC opened, the general manager assured me that it was clearly not their fault. She avoided taking responsibility for her staff and her products. She was argumentative and attempted to refute the table's taste buds by informing us that they washed the nozzles twice a day. She never returned to check on our table. She was absent the qualities one would expect from a fast food or quick service restaurant manager much less one in charge of fine dining.

The good.

I highly recommend the Lobster and the Conch Fritters. Their adult beverages were amazing as was the Key Lime pie. The best dish was the Caribbean Special grilled grouper. Again, the alcohilic drinks were delicious.

The bad.

The steak from the Surf and Turf dish was bland, as were the veggies. In my opinion, it was not worth the $55 price tag, though I may be a biased steak eater from Texas raised on beef.

The Okay.

The Crab cakes were tasty, but seemed underdcooked.

Overall, this is a lovely place to stop and eat. The environment is quite beautiful. Although, it is difficult for me to whole-heartedly recommend the Island Fish Company as a personal favorite based on my experience here; I would recommend it as a part of your Florida Keys adventure.

I write this review with the hope that the owners take pride in their products and upgrade their staff's training in order to achieve excellence.

4 of 5 stars stars. Next time I am in the Keys I will update...

As a former server, I have never written a bad restaurant review and I have not eaten my entree maybe one other time in my entire life. I know how hard people work, but last night (6/8/2024) was possibly the worst restaurant experience of my life. Our party of five arrived around 8:45pm. We were told by one of the 3 or 4 employees at the host stand it would be about a 30-40 minute wait. Several other groups arrived and also put their names on the wait list. After about 20 minutes we notice larger groups arriving after us be seated. We ask another person at the host stand what's going on and they tell us "about 10 more minutes." Eventually they call a name that is not the name for our group, but one host tells us it's for us, but another tells us it's going to be a few more minutes. We are starting to get annoyed and thinking about leaving but one of the hosts then tells us our table HAS been ready. No one knew what was going on at the host stand. We are seated and it takes a good ten minutes for our server to come greet us and take our drink orders. It was a busy night, and she was working her butt off, so I'm not going to make a big deal of that. In fact, our server Tara was probably the only saving grace of this dining experience. A place in the Florida Keys called Island Fish Company, you would expect to be proficient at preparing fish. I ordered a grilled grouper "catch of the day." We ordered our food around 9:30 and it didn't come out until about 10:15. My Husband ordered an appetizer as his entree and the kitchen forgot it came out first and it delayed the entire meal for all at the table. The grouper was rubbery, tasteless, had obviously sat under a heat lamp for a long time, and really seemed like it had been previously frozen. If you're charging that kind of money for "catches of the day" (between $30-$45 a dish), it better be delicious. It was inedible. Once again Tara saved the day, and removed the order from our bill. We won't be back. They need a major front and back of the...

I was in the service industry for over 30 years So when I get a server like this it really makes me want to leave a review. The minute we sat down the gentleman did not seem very happy to have us as a table. It was myself my husband and my two kids. I felt rushed to order and then even after I did his immediate response of "that's it" was quite offensive. It was my husband's 40th birthday and we wanted to have some drinks and some appetizers and both my kids ordered a meal. We ordered the fish dip first and then ordered two more appetizers afterwards one which never came. We were then going to order a fourth appetizer of peeling each room but we sat there waiting for the conch fritters for quite a long time. Then I was asked if I was ready for the check in which I was not, I never received my third appetizer, I reminded him that the conch fritters never came but to forget about it that would rather the peel any shrimp at this point since it's going to be quicker. The shrimp came out decently quickly. Never did he come check on us just asked us again if we were ready for the check. I then asked him if we could order a key lime pie with a candle. I asked him not to sing that I just wanted a candle inside the pie so the boys can sing happy birthday to him. The key lime pie came before my boys came back from the bathroom, and of course without a candle. At that point I just wanted the check to leave. I'm not sure if he was having a bad day so I never leave less than a 20% tip because I know I've had bad days myself and always appreciated when somebody recognized that. However I always made sure to attend tables that had kids because the stress of those parents was usually higher than others. I know the check average is usually lower but hey everyone has to eat too correct! I did not get the server's name nor did he say it to us, however I just wanted to bring it to the restaurants attention that an evening out that was supposed to be happy and eventful turned out to be...