Pelican Bend — Restaurant in Marco Island

I read the reviews online and it seemed like a good place to visit. Was looking for some great local seafood during our visit to Marco Island and read mostly positive reviews. Here is what we ordered.. Appetizer, Fried Calamari. I had the Sautéed fish of the day (Orange Roughy I was told), Wife had the crab cakes and kids had chicken strips. First, the wedge of iceberg lettuce drizzled with the house garlic dressing is a wasted menu item. Iceberg lettuce has no nutrition value and it was actually difficult for my wife to pull the knife out that was shoved into the wedge. My suggestion for the restaurant is to get some mixed green with some tomatoes and red onion with the garlic dressing. Easy fix... Then the appetizer arrived... OMG, it was served with this ridiculous Mango Chipotle Sauce that was flaming hot and tasted like crap. A simple garlic Aioli sauce would have been so much better. However, the calamari tasted old and not fresh. My wife words "It tasted Fishy" Probably one of the worst I have ever had so I would skip on that one... Get some fresh ones please.... Now the crab cakes were pretty good that my wife had. Not the best ever, but defiantly would order again. However, for the side of vegetable medley, all they had was Zucchini. A side bowl of zucchini is what my wife got. What place does not have fresh veggies?? On the other hand, that sautéed fish the server told me they were known for.... OMG It tasted like soggy butter fish. I could not understand why everyone was going goo goo ga ga over that. I would never order that again and only could eat half by the time my gag reflex kicked in. The hush puppies were very good and honestly wished I had just order that instead of the fish. The place it self was decorated nice but the furniture was like some chairs removed from a elementary school cafeteria and the table top was falling apart. Again, easy fix to improve the image.. Services was ok but I am sorry to say I would not return.. Hopefully my feed back will help this place make some changes in...

First I will say that one visit is enough for my family. I gave it the rating to be fair because it is a good value for the flavor as the prices are good but service is poor when all considered. Shrimp capri & scampi were very good, coconut shrimp was way too sweet and heavy breading. The fish specialty was cooked well and very tasty and we assumed it was local fish. When we asked we were told the fish was White Ruffy (roughy). I thought it was related to orange roughy then, a very expensive fish. Oh not so, there is NO SUCH FISH AS WHITE RUFFY/ROUGHY. As I have found this is a fish industry wide thing but white ruffy is a brand name of a farm raised vietnamese member of the catfish family, aka basa or swai or pangasius. If i had known that before i would not have ordered that as i have turned my nose up at the store for swai cause of its origin and very low price. That name is misleading at best. Now the service. If you have over a party of 4 you will wait a long, long time. We arrived at 5:20pm, party of 6, and were told it would be until 6:15 with an odd tone. We thought that seemed long as they only opened 20 minutes earlier and we were 5th on the list but hey it was rated high and was full. This was after waiting until the hostess was done conversing with people in the waiting area to get on the list. We were seated at 7 pm!! One hour and forty minutes later. We were done with the meal by 8:10pm paid and drove away 3 hours after arriving for a so so dinner. The waitress was friendly and doing the best she could with the packed house. It was VERY obvious that known people are treated to preferred speed of seating, ordering and serving as a party of 9 got there just before we were seated, were seated immediately after us, had appetizers before we saw the waitress and we ordered entrees before they did and they had dinners well before us. Not sure why they don't use the outdoor seating like Snook's. They could serve a lot more people. We won't be back but it won't matter as it seems to be popular and we are...

Where to start... Gordon Ramsey needs to come here. There are so many other places to choose from so I'll try to keep it short. We stopped here for dinner and was seated immediately - (warning sign #1) Provided 2 menus for our table of 5 (#2). Once our waitress showed up - we were given waters and she didn't return for a very long to take our order. We ordered appetizers at the same time as our dinner is how long she took (#3). I ordered the "Pelican Burger"... pure angus sirloin?! HA! It was a frozen patty! (#4) With preburned char marks thrown on a flat top to be heat up! It had tomatoes when I asked for no tomatoes, and raw onion loaded up with pickles - It was unacceptable - and the waitress agreed!! (#5) - A manager, I presume, came to the table and said she would get me the catch of the day sandwich instead. My husband ordered, and it looked ok. He did say no cheese... it came with cheese. My daughter ordered Swiss cheese - it came with American. CLEARLY there are issues in the kitchen, too. After 20minutes, and my family was done eating, I stood up and walked out. WARNING! Your food is gross! Your burger was laughable - and your waitress knows it - You could have a great place if you served real meat - and if you won't do that, add a bar - some drinks in a person and maybe they could overlook the horrible food &...