Lightsey’s Seafood Restaurant & Fish Co. — Restaurant in Okeechobee

Tried this place for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It is located on Parrott Blvd, one of the 2 main roads in Okeechobee.

Large parking lot, a very casual look, almost Margarita Ville style, which is what you would expect in Okeechobee, with no unnecessary fanciness.

We sat at the bar and I tried the pork Back ribs. These are not baby back ribs, so they are a bit less tender, but they had a great flavor and came with a very good BBQ sauce. They also came with a homemade Coleslaw, which was very fresh and tasty and the biggest hush puppies I have ever seen; these “puppies” were also very good, crunchy but not overly fried.

My wife went for the gator, which she likes and I tried. I have to be honest, it was tender, but gator doesn’t tell me much in terms of layers of flavor. Could have been chicken as far as I was concerned.

Make no mistake though: this has nothing to do with the restaurant, they cooked it light and tender, it is just I who don’t find gator very tasty.

We had a few craft beers, they have a good selection, and they offered the option of having a sampler, which we did. Good beer!

This place is renowned for fish, any kind of fish; you might think: then why did you get the pork ribs, but it’s how I am…Next time I’ll get fish.

They have an all-you-can-eat buffet on Sunday, based on seafood and fish that apparently is very popular. I am not big on buffet, but I am just sharing.

Service: nice and busy girl at the bar, service was good for us; I am saying for us, because we are Americans, but born and grew up in Italy, so we don’t necessary judge service in terms how many seconds it took to get served.

Prices might be a bit above average for Okeechobee, but I found them worth of the food, plus I live in Palm Beach County, so I rarely complained about prices out of the County.

Will I go back? Yes, definitely, next time I’m in Okeechobee, which I visit sometimes for work. Good laid-back place with good food and you can tell they take some pride in the preparation of their...

Update

Many changes have been made either for business reasons or new management, but whatever the reason food quality has gone way down, this is over a few visits as we are locals. "The Bull Rush Stew" formally Cooter Stew has okra (Which when we asked we were told was added when the name was changed) I personally am not a fan of okra so it ruined that particular offering for me. Prices have gone up and the sandwich selection has gone to 3-4 choices ,my wife and I used to go there for the sweet potato crusted grouper sandwich. We went with the inlaws a few weeks ago and it was our last time, as the things we liked have been eliminated. Service was bad as we had the bartender for our waitress and she was more interested in the bar at 2:30pm, the kitchen was short staffed and so food quality was poor this per the manager (Female, late 20s) when my mother inlaw was not happy about her fried green tomatoes.

**Previous negative visit was the wife, kids and I, we got a new waitress and she forgot the kids meals so we had to feed them part of our food not a big deal, then as we are almost finished the waitress brings the gator bites for the kids. We tell her we are done now and didn't want them. The young guy who was the manager that evening comes to the table and again wants to confirm we don't want the food and asked why. I tell him and he tells me well I guess I'll take it off then with what could only be interpreted as indignation. Yes, I guess you will..... And if there is one thing I cannot stand from a waitress its having to ask for more tea.

I have clarified, as my newest review was done in haste and with errors which caused confusion. My thoughts and opinions should be more transparent now.

• original post over a year ago*

Should have waited to eat and taken pictures but food was to good. We live in Okeechobee and its the most unique place with great Florida coastal favorites. We will keep...

I'm not one to like to leave bad reviews, and generally I like to give it more than one try but unfortunately this place won't even get a second thought of trying it again. And it's unfortunate because I know a few people who highly recommend this place. I went for my birthday today, I didn't mind the longer wait time to get seated, about a 25 minute wait, fine, you could see they were stressed, even though they weren't terribly busy, but when you're stressed and maybe under staffed I get it. We got seated, cool little room in the back, but when we went to sit down there was paperwork all over the table, that's fine easy to pick up but the waitress wasn't even going to have the table wiped down and was visibly a bit upset we even asked her to wipe it down, but she finally did and we sat down and ordered drinks. My Strawberry basil margarita was okay. My mom's sweet tea was extremely sweet, almost drinking sugar with a dash of tea, and thats saying alot on my end cause I love sweet things. My mom liked her burger, and my daughter (who's 5) was upset there wasn't a chicken option on her menu but did settle on a cheese burger and seemed good with it. My father got a fish sandwich (I honestly forgot which one) I've never seen him not finish one but he didn't finish his cause he found it to be way to salty....I got the fried gator, which was unfortunately also extremely salty too. The fries were good. I'm not a huge coleslaw fan but that was actually really good and the hush puppies were medicore. I was told from the get go that this was a more expensive place to eat in town, but for the lack of service on top of food we didn't particularly enjoy it was an all around unpleasant experience. And after reading through alot of recent reviews it seems others have some similar complaints, I just can't give an overly priced place a...