Outriggers Tiki Bar & Grille — Restaurant in New Smyrna Beach

Most people choose a place for its atmosphere and food. A place where they can catch up with friends, enjoy good food they can’t always make at home, and to enjoy pleasant surroundings. With that said, my college-aged son and I decided to try Outriggers one more time. We ordered 2 of the Royal Reds peel and eat appetizers, which were well beyond their sell by date. They arrived nicely microwaved to somewhere between dried out and mummified. Somehow Outriggers violated the laws of physics by serving overcooked shrimp with melted butter that was also room temperature. Neither hot nor chilled, but very, very smelly. Fresh seafood shouldn’t reek. For entrees we ordered the lobster and shrimp tortellini, Filet medallions (we ordered medium rare, to share), and the fresh catch of the day. We were not told what the fresh catch was, but hoped for the best. The tortellini also arrived cold, with exactly 2 pieces of shrimp and 2 lobster fragments. Not whole shrimp, not recognizable pieces of lobster, but fragments—-the kind you get from opening a can. The tortellini itself was tri-color, and looked just like the Barilla I get from my Publix ready to eat case. The fresh fish was $45, and consisted of one 2x5 wafer thin serving of something similar to tilapia. It was swimming in a nauseating pool of buerre blanc that someone thought would look good drizzled with turquoise blue emulsion, the kind you see drizzled over a child’s dessert. It was so odd to behold, that I was mildly nauseated. It too was served at such a tepid dampness, that I wondered if I was being served something that someone else had sent back. Finally, the filet medallions arrived bloody, cold in the center, with blood oozing onto the garlic flavored gelatin that was supposed to be mashed potatoes. The blood combined with the buerre blanc into a revolting pink bechamel. Even the bread served with the tortellini was stale. The frozen margarita I ordered that was $14 and described on the menu as “a key lime pina colada” , was served with a bizarre floater on top that tasted like mildewed laundry smells. Literally, this place can’t even get iced tea right. Ours was a pale amber, the kind of color you get when you try to make iced tea from one tea bag per 10 gallons of water. If a restaurant skimps on teabags, it makes you wonder what else they are pinching pennies on. The last thing I want to point out, why does Outriggers think it’s acceptable to have someone come over to the table with a greasy bus tub under one arm, and instead of walking around the table to get the plates, leans over your meal with this gigantic bus tub in your face to reach plates the busser could easily get by going around the table? Who trained these poor people? The view of dirty plates, used tissues, and remains of other diners food directly in front of your face while you’re trying to enjoy your own food put us off of ever being able to think of Outriggers as a decent place to go. How hard is it to teach your staff to put a bus tub on a tray stand behind a potted plant or something? Whose idea was it to have these poor kids carry a massive plastic tub full of other people’s dirty plates to tables where people are still eating? We didn’t send anything back because judging by the ingredients and presentation, we didn’t want to risk our health. We won’t be back, and if you’re thinking of dropping a few hundred here as we did, there are better places...

I would like to preface this review by saying I am a local and frequent the restaurant regularly ( this might not be the case for much longer). To use the launch of a new menu (which is not) as an excuse to increase prices and reduce the quality of the food is not only disingenuous but just plain wrong. It all started to go wrong about a year ago when they changed the bun for the fish sandwich and has gone down hill ever since. A few examples, the rigger bites were a delight, nice chunks of fish, perfectly cooked to a flaky temperature, now we get end and side pieces, flat as a pancake and totally overcooked. Happy hour menu - one of the few good things were the smoked wings, but sadly gone. We live in NSB and you serve us mealy Patagonia shrimps, disgraceful. The fish sandwich, sadly the change in bun was a mistake, we went from a great vessel to hold the fish and trimmings in harmony, to a so called “brioche” which is sweet and dissolves leaving you with a soggy mess that cannot be eaten as a sandwich! The “chef” is obsessed with ruining great fresh product with these heavy sauces that have no place in a restaurant like this, it goes against the atmosphere and vibe of the place. Dare you want just a nice piece of grouper grilled with some lemon and side, it’s almost impossible there is a whole song and dance why it’s not a good idea, really?!! The service is good, unless you want to sit at the bar, and you are not one of the gang, the bartender treats you worse than at a gulag in Siberia. I ordered the aforementioned fish sandwich which came with fries. The fries are double fried (a good thing) but they arrived cold, limp and greasy. They refused to change them because they were busy. Not acceptable. Management needs to readdress the price-quality equation because it is not right. Stop trying to make it what it is not - we want the great drinks, friendly staff and wonderful local products cooked beautifully to enjoy at the great location. I might be back, definitely not as often as I...

I have wanted to go here for the last couple of years, but being from out of town the opportunity always got away from me until today. The setting is lovely as they have an outside tikibar/restaurant and more formal restaurant inside that is very nice. My company and I ordered the happy hour special drink "crush" and it was very nice and refreshing. The gentleman who took us to our table was very knowledgeable and pleasant and I liked him very much. Our server seemed to be just as nice and pleasant throughout almost all of the meal, to which I will finish my comments on later. I ordered the mahi fish bites with grilled brussel sprouts with candied bacon and it was delicious, the coleslaw that came with it though was dry and really showed very little signs of any dressing. My company had a grilled mahi sandwich with tots. She stated and I confirmed the fish was unfortunately overcooked a bit, so with that being done it ended up dry. Also the bun they put the fish on was too large, so that made the sandwich even drier. She did eat all of it though as she was hungry. Unfortunately now is when I have a slight issue on how we were treated by our server. When it came time for the bill I had mentioned that my companions fish was dry but she did eat it, but I wanted them to know it was a bit of a let down. His response was to explain to us that mahi does not have much fat content thus it can be dry. No apology (which is all I wanted), but I certainly did not need an explanation from a young man about the fat content of fish, when it was clear the fish was overcooked. That being said, I will be coming back my next time down to NSB. I am so glad I finally got to try this beautiful place, but I will not be ordering a...