Café de Marco — Restaurant in Marco Island

I went to Cafe De Marco in late August for a birthday, and needless to say - we will not be returning.

What we all predicted to be a wonderful night with delicious seafood, turned out to be quite the opposite, with decisions being made on our behalf, and no consideration from the staff.

Let me start out by saying my family and I have been vacationing to Marco Island since early 2000's, for 10/12 consecutive years. It has been a few years since we have been back, and every single time, we ate at Cafe De Marco, as a luxurious last meal.

Fast forward to August 2021 - we made a reservation at our favorite restaurant in town and arrived with high hopes. Table of 4 adults and 2 children, we proceeded to look at the menu and place our order.

My brother in law orders first and orders the Lobster special, my sister ordered a chicken dish, my mother ordered the Prawns special, and I attempted to first order a seafood platter of some sort, however the waiter informed they we already out for that evening. Being that it is MY birthday - I decided to have the Lobster special as well.

Twenty, thirty minutes pass and we no longer notice the manager walking throughout the restaurant. Next thing you know, the waiter is rushing out from the kitchen to inform ME that I will not be having the Lobster special, as they only had 1 left (which they decided to give it to my brother in law), and that I was getting the Prawns special.. EXCUSE ME?!

The waiter is now nonchalantly filling water glasses at the table, and I turn to my mother in complete shock, as we start talking amongst ourselves - I say "hmm maybe I can do the snapper...", the waiter pipes in and states "oh no, we can't change it now... you're getting the prawns.. they're basically little lobsters.. and it comes with the melted butter..".

At this point I am besides myself. How can you go out to eat and select a meal, to then have the restaurant staff decide what you are eating?!

Had the waiter informed that there was only 1 Lobster special, my brother in law easily would have given it to me, or vise versa and then the other person could simply pick something else from the menu ON THEIR OWN... opposed to restaurant staff DECIDING WHAT YOU'RE HAVING FOR DINNER...

Ten minutes pass, we finally get our food and the prawns that I DID NOT ORDER tasted horrible. The waiter again shows no remorse for the fact that he made a decision on my behalf.

The waiter then says "we have a mango sorbet that we can give you on the house" .then walks away. what if I was allergic to mango, or didn't like sorbet. Not sure why I couldn't pick from the dessert menu... but seems to be a trend at this place. Mentioning again that it was my birthday when this occurred.

Disappointed to say the least, and will advise...

AWFUL SERVICE AND FOOD!

Go to Joeys, Ciao Bella, or Snook Inn instead!

REASONS TO NOT GO HERE (from a few locals of Marco):

~Took OVER 2 hours to get our main meal

~Never got my glass of wine that I ordered and the waitress kept saying it was coming. Don’t even get me started on how long it took for the beers to arrive.

~My table was charged for 10 beers but only 6 were ordered. Luckily, they fixed this when we showed it to them.

~Hardly saw our waitress.

~Waitress asked each of us what salads we wanted with our meals, however, when my group received the bill- the salads weren’t included with the meals and we were charged for each of them. So I’m not sure why she even asked us what kind of salad we wanted when we placed the order for our main entrée.

~When our waitress wasn’t anywhere to be found- we asked one of the waiters to help us find out what was going on with our order and he REFUSED! We had to wait for the waitress.

~They ran out of food for 2 of our orders but didn’t tell us until an hour later. We had to order something else.

~Food was very, very plain. No taste. Not one person at our table (out of 6 people) liked their dish. Actually, the bread and butter were good but that’s hard to mess up.

~A different waitress came by and put bread and butter on our table but then came back and picked it up and gave it to another table. We were all incredibly shocked! 15 minutes later we got our bread and butter.

STORY: Arrived at the restaurant today at 6:30pm and by 8:30pm we were still waiting on our main course and my glass of wine. I had to leave since I had a toddler who couldn’t sit another minute. My husband stayed behind to box up my food which arrived around 8:45-9pm. We were with 6 other people. They also were upset with the food and the service. When my husband got home at 9:30pm and I ate my dinner- I was so disappointed. It wasn’t even worth the wait and bad service. My husband, in laws, and their friends have been here before and they said it was good in the past. We are wondering if they have new owners. Either way, we will NEVER go back! You couldn’t even pay any of us to go back here. Worst restaurant on Marco.

Go to Joeys, Ciao Bella, or Snook Inn for good quality food and service. Marco island is our second home and those three...

We went here for the first time for New Years Eve dinner at $75 per adult for 3 courses including desert. There are much better options elsewhere in the island at this price level (Island Cafe, Oyster Society, Kretche's, and several others come to mind as far superior at similar or less expensive prices). Service was nonchalant and service team had serious communications issues. We had to refill our own wine glasses and ended up only ordering one bottle because no one ever thought to ask about the wine, much less fill our glasses. Water glasses for bottled water did not come out until 30 minutes after the bottled water was put in the ice bucket. Our sons ordered coke and sprite, and our daughter iced tea; no one re-filled or even offered to refill their long empty glasses the whole time. Long 30 minute gaps each time after our appetizer and main courses were cleared off the table, had us wondering what was going on, and no one ever came to check on the table until the very end. Kid's meal steak was burned to a crisp - we ordered medium it was charcoal and dark grey all he way through. Caesar salad (a $5 up charge over the house salad) had almost no flavor - no garlic, no anchovies, and romaine leaves were wilted. The Chef's "signature" Lobster Bisque was over salted but otherwise good, but definitely not anywhere near the best Lobster Bisque on the island. The Chef's "signature" Curry Prawns (green curry) was very good but I have had much better at small Thai "hole in the wall" restaurants (and there were only about a half dozen prawns and a cup of rice, very skimpy for $75). We took the desert to go because we had waited so long that the kids were getting anxious and no one came to take our desert order. When he finally showed up at the table, we told our server we were disappointed and I specifically mentioned the black charred kid's steak that was sitting my son's the plate uneaten. I was surprised that they made no attempt to at least fix that issue (the server did apologize to his credit and said he would make things right if we ever came back).. They nonetheless charged for the steak that no human child could have choked down. Very disappointing given the other good reviews. Despite the offer from our server, we will sadly not be...