Ichabod's Beachside Bar & Grille — Restaurant in Melbourne

Ichabod's Bar & Grille - Melbourne Beachside - 4 Stars

"Flattery should be spread on, not in thin layers, but with a trowel, or better yet, a shovel." Ashurst.

200th REVIEW!!!

This is the official 200th Big Boy review, and let me tell you, this brings me almost full circle in my life. I was in this bar 34 years ago when the Florida Legislature raised the drinking age to 19 and I was grandfathered in by one day. Three years later in 1987 I would be back in the bar behind Ichabod's, called The Wine Gallery, working as a bouncer, and eventually as a manager. Many a night I sat outside on my barstool checking IDs and listening to the cacophony emanating from Ichabod's. Back then, Ichabod's was filled with the local beach barnacles who rarely had money but always needed a drink. At that time, it was a local watering hole that could get outright dangerous on a Friday or Saturday night. However, with gentrification and high growth, most of the surf rat troublemakers were pushed north into Satellite Beach and even mainland.

Now, upon entering, you immediately notice in the intervening three decades that nothing has really changed all that much. The decor is the same for the most part, but instead of having a Galaga machine, now there is a high tech golf game that sits idle because everyone in this bar is too old and lacks the teenage dexterity required to play. Anyway, I have been here four times to date because I enjoy coming.

If you want a strong drink, Jody the bartender rocks. She was attentive to all the customers and didn't miss a beat. She was there three of the four times I went. On my fourth visit, there was a scruffy guy in a ball cap who, at first, I thought was a homeless person going behind the bar where he shouldn't, but he turned out to be one of the bartenders! He looked like Joaquin Phoenix during his faux-rap days, and was mildly inattentive and apparently not interested in his job. My drink struggled to reach one ounce and my order had to be repeated five times.

As for the order? Well, I consumed the same thing all 4 trips. The peanut butter cheeseburger is a thing of beauty: it is a handmade burger they will actually allow you to order medium rare that is covered in bacon, cheddar cheese, and peanut butter. Let me tell you - if I could only eat one meal for the rest of my life this would be it. The delicate interplay between the cheese, peanut butter and bacon is truly symphonic.

The Big Boy highly recommends Ichabod's burgers anytime, and the drinks most of the time, especially depending who is on shift. Give Ichabod's a try - but definitely don't lose your...

Upon googling to write this review, I learned Ichabod means “without glory”, and I could not agree more (the ICK is right). We walked inside and went to a table, was not greeted for about 10 minutes. The only staff member visible was the bartender, and when we were “greeted” it was a gesture to get up and grab menus from her at the bar. She did put on a smile but was very short with us and pretty rude, wish I had her name but she didn’t give it. They don’t have a fryer, but that’s no biggie. We ordered potstickers to start- they were underwhelming, especially for $11. We ordered a burger with garlic potatoes and and jack Daniel’s teriyaki mahi with rice. The potatoes were actually very good (5/5), the burger was about what you’d expect, the rice was super undercooked and I can’t even describe the funky taste of the sauce on the cold mahi. At the end, she brought us a handwritten ticket that had multiple numbers labeled total on it, none of them were actually the correct number. Atmosphere was really just a dingey dive bar, HIGHLY do...

The food was good. Our waitress was attentive which was nice, and she was friendly. We ordered several drinks, and two of us decided to get a drink that we had heard was good. We got the drinks and both of us took a sip and looked at each other and we both said, this is absolutely horrible. We set them aside asked the waitress to take them away please as we're not going to drink them, they're not good. We were expecting her to say I'm sorry about that and either comp the drinks or offer us at least a discount or even show that she cares, something but no we got charged a full $9.50 for horrible drinks that neither one of us took more than three sips of. We still stayed and continued to have other drinks. Overall I would say it's a decent place with good food and good service The atmosphere is okay, the patio is facing A1A, but it's still nice. I probably would have given a four star review if they had comped our 2...