The Jetty — Restaurant in Maryland

I'm leaving one star because you have to leave at least one star in order to leave a review. They should come up with a rating that allows negative stars so I could accurately rate this clown show. This joint isn't a seafood restaurant, it's a scam. It's the "I've been trying to reach you about your car's warranty" of the seafood business. I brought my family of 8 here hoping for a nice meal, but ended up being served garbage. Our salads were wilted with brown sludge at the bottom of them. The oysters were milky with sand and shells in them. It was very obvious before our entrees even came out that this place operates on drunk people who can't taste their food anymore. We couldn't eat the appetizers. We couldn't eat the salads and the entrees served as well as expected. "Blackened Grouper" was just pre-frozen microwaved "fish" dusted with old bay and I'm like 90% sure it was tilapia. My wife had the same and was picking fish scales out of her teeth. My son couldn't eat the cold pasta and my 10-year-old could tell the lukewarm burger patty she made it halfway through was frozen trash. Nobody was able to eat their food. We asked to speak to the manager who ended up having to call an actual manager on the phone because she couldn't do anything for us. That manager then refused to make anything right besides forgive one entrees and one order of oysters. All in all, they charged us $250 for garbage. We had to leave and go to a different restaurant so we could actually eat dinner. Trash. Absolute trash. I wouldn't trust these people to microwave a slice of pizza, let alone cook "seafood". This place is so bad that I literally paid just to get as far away from it as I can. Come here to drink. Come here to be by the water. Come to dance or come to listen to the band. Come here even if you just want to point and laugh at the pretend seafood place. But whatever you do, for the love of everything holy, DO NOT EVER, for any reason, under any circumstances, ever EVER try to eat here. Second thought, just don't come here. Don't spend your hard earned money on the dumpster finds...

Now this is the ambiance that I was looking for when I came to Kent Island! We were a group of 4 friends who wandered into The Jetty for a late lunch on a sunny August Saturday. We found plenty of parking in the adjoining lot and went straight to the hostess stand on the deck and asked for a table in the shade. We were led to a raised table with facing benches and a surrey-style overhead canopy, it was seating with a large personality.

Kasie was our efficient server, immediately bringing us ice water. The menus said “ask me about specials,” so we did and Kasie said there were none-- however, there’s a large menu of Crushes. I prefer mine with club soda instead of Sprite, and the Cherry Limeade was very good. One of our friends was happy with her 32 oz Peach Crush bucket, one of the Daily Specials.

Foodwise, there is something for every palate. I had the Boom Boom Tacos ($19) and they were tasty. My husband had the Kent Island Classic Burger ($17,) one of our friends ordered the Kent Narrows Cheesesteak ($15.50,) while the other enjoyed his Hawaiian Grouper Tacos ($19.) We had a pleasant meal while listening to great music coming from a distant loudspeaker, watching a steady parade of boats tie up to the dock. Chillaxing, just the way a summer afternoon should be.

A few days later, my husband and I returned and sat on the other side, at the dock bar. On that side of the bar, it’s the fishing boats that are coming and going so you get their fumes coming and going also. (This particular server I will not name because she disappeared for a bit, and the deck was not busy.) Despite that we had another relaxed meal at the water’s edge. We ordered the Boom Boom Shrimp Appetizer ($16)-- the shrimp were tiny, the ones that were in my Tacos a few days before were much better. My husband had the Soft Crab BLT ($22) and I had the Asian Tuna Wrap ($19.) The food is accompanied by house made Old Bay...

I hosted a private event at The Jetty Dock Bar, pre-arranged an agreement with management that all cover charges for our group would be added to the tab we’d already opened. Despite this, the bouncers still forcibly collected cash from our guests—demanding cover charges at the door that were not supposed to apply to us. I felt awful for the young lady who was tasked with working with the thug bouncers - impossible job.

When we confronted management during the evening, they they had zero control over the bouncers on duty. It was a glaring sign of how disorganized and disconnected the staff is from venue leadership. Dangerous.

What followed was disturbing. The bouncers escalated from merely demanding money to making threats. One of them even threatened a man in his mid-60s—a display of intimidation we all found shocking, especially from a person presumably tasked with protecting patrons.

But it didn’t stop there. At the end of the night, one bouncer actually assaulted a member of our group—swinging over my silhouette to strike the guest in the back of the head, even though they were no longer on the property. It was violent, reckless, and unforgivable behavior.

The kicker? The very same bouncer who had extorted cover charges—and whose money we forced management to return—was the one who carried out the assault. It's impossible to believe this was an isolated incident. It felt like retaliation, deeply personal and dangerous. Management literally fears their own bouncing staff and did nothing.

In short: This venue is not just poorly managed—it’s unsafe. The security team acts like thugs, despite claims of oversight. If you're even considering booking a function here, I strongly urge you to reconsider. The risk is simply...