Dirty Dick's Crab House - Panama City Beach, Florida — Restaurant in Panama City Beach

WOW. And not a good wow. Just moved to the beach a month ago and really wanted to find a good local spot for our family and we were beyond disappointed. Honestly feel like we got stolen from. Walked in and right away wanted to walk out. Maybe it was the dim lighting. Maybe it was the empty restaurant, but my family said give it a try. We ordered, and for being an empty restaurant it sure took a long time to get our food, and I mean a LONG time. We ordered the gatorbites as an appetizer and they were OK. Felt very mislead thinking we ordered fried mushroom bites. Fried mushroom, not good at all. Now these are appetizers, okay we are ready for our meals. All the reviews we hoped that the empty restaurant was just because it's local season... wrong. Entrees come out and it's lackluster at best. A family of 7, nobody enjoyed their food. Really hurts spending $285, supporting a local business to get bad food. 7 people, not one good thing was said about their food. Broke my heart seeing everybody will a full plate, not wanting to touch their food, me included. I work very hard for my money and to get bad food, that's not cool. You aren't only hurting me, you hurt my family. I hate leaving reviews but this was just absolutely unacceptable for a restaurant to serve this food. In the month I've been here I've had some AMAZING seafood. This is absolutely the worst food we have had and can't believe a restaurant would put out the food they did. We paid good money. Tipped our waitress as we should, and truly expected more. If you want good seafood, look elsewhere, there are better lit restaurants with better service, and much better food. Feels like my family got taken advantage of. Really hurts. $285 down the drain. Really wanted to do something nice for the family, spending money I probably didn't really have to spend in the first place only to look like a fool leaving everybody grossed out, unhappy and hungry. And for those reading this review if you see the "owners" response, I assure you they have done nothing to correct this. After being directed to their manager "Jeremy" we were astounded at how rude he was, telling us our claim that they served a whole table of bad food was unfounded. Just know this company DOES NOT stand behind its product, or its service. $285 down the drain. Read this review and really consider coming here before you take the family out. Horrible food, horrible service, and a team that doesn't stand behind their product. They don't care about locals, go somewhere else cause there are tons of better options!!!

UPDATE: the owner called. Know what she said? "Can't fix your taste buds, everybody loves our food and that's your fault".

We will make sure everybody we know never eats here or has to deal with this place again. Your family deserves better. Places that don't care about serving their locals and don't stand behind their product don't deserve...

Exceptional!

We aren't the easiest crowd to serve as my wife and I spent years in the restaurant industry. This was a top notch experience from beginning to end. Our youngest child is autistic and basically non-verbal. She's not patient to say the least. They accepted a reservation for our party of 6 due to these special circumstances. They were on quite a wait when we arrived. We were seated immediately and our server, Cameron, was on top of everything. We never once had to ask him for anything other than the check when he checked on us mid dinner, we take the check early so we can make a quick exit if necessary.

Now, the food. It's above standards as far as local restaurants at comparable prices. The complimentary hush puppies were home made and delicious! We ordered the gator bites as an appetizer, they were freshly prepared and very well seasoned, not too salty which so many places achieve by just dumping seasoning salt in the breading. The kids loved them. My wife had the Mariner and we ate it all. Everything was so well seasoned and perfectly cooked. I ordered the beef tenderloin tips, rare, which were spectacular and the portion size was much more than I expected. My oldest daughter had the Monster fish sandwich which was named appropriately. The filet dwarfed the bun 4x at least. It was huge!!! My oldest son had the fried chicken club sandwich but subbed out the jalapeno cornbread for toast, I wouldn't have but... It was amazing! Not too sweet but very savory! Perfect flavor profiles from quality ingredients all around. My younger two had the chicken finger baskets with fries. They were fresh, hand breaded. I don't think we were served anything frozen, just fresh made food although I didn't try the fries, they looked home cut. I appreciate a restaurant that trust in the quality of their product and service and doesn't automatically apply a gratuity to a party of 6. We will definitely be back!!! My daughter took a picture of her sandwich and I took my food to go, everyone else just dug in so no pictures there lol. There are restaurants where you have an exceptional experience and make them a family vacation tradition. Add this place...

We should’ve taken the hint when we saw people leaving their table before getting their food.

Upon entering, we were rudely greeted. The hostess didn’t know what she was doing because she kept walking to see which tables were available. Once the two of them agreed on where to seat us, she didn’t ask us to follow her. We asked if she had wanted us to go and was rudely answered yes. Thankfully we hadn’t followed her the 6-7 times when she walked away before. She sat us at a dirty table (the table the people just left). She had the audacity to ask us if we wanted her to wipe it off. Finally we got another table and she snatched a chair from another table. The restaurant itself was nice and so was the atmosphere. Our hopes were up when our server greeted us and he was chipper. Initially he was on top of it. It took a while for our appetizer but we figured maybe they were just short handed because the restaurant wasn’t nearly full. Finally our food came out, served by someone else because our server hadn’t been seen at our table since a table of girls came in. He was over there every few minutes. He never once filled my drink. My kids plate was wrong, we waited for over 15 minutes and someone finally stopped when we asked and she brought out the right dish 10 minutes later. Overall the food itself was delicious. Definitely got that part right. The server finally came by to say he had taken over more tables and his tables suffered for it. I get it, you’re busy. But there’s no team work and there was no service from the beginning. Leaving the restaurant I was astounded to see there was a ton of people waiting when there were so many open tables.

Good Food - Horrible Service. Don’t go if...