Hammerhead Fred's — Restaurant in Panama City Beach

Pretty mediocre experience. This restaurant needs to step up the customer service game. For starters 2 people from our party of 11 were turned away as they arrived first and the remaining 9 were en route. The restaurant was empty on a Saturday night except one other table. There were a group of 4 staff talking around a hostess stand. When 9 of 11 of us had arrived the waiter reluctantly sat us however did not want to start taking drink orders. The waiter was clearly new, Inexperienced and I am ok with that. Everyone starts somewhere. The part that was annoying was so many staff just standing around. A total of 3 tables in a huge restaurant. We had empty glasses and when a member of our party asked for a refill the staff member he asked as our waiter was not in sight informed my brother in law she wasn't his server..... And walked away. Then obnoxiously came to our table 20 minutes later to take pictures or our party. Then came the food.... 1 app was horrible. The dip didn't taste like anything. The oysters were good. My mom ordered a catfish dinner and was given mahi mahi. She told the women that brought our food out that was not what she ordered and they just loudly continued to YELL. MAHI. My mom finally took it to shut them up. It was soooo salty she had trouble eating it. Then was charged 26 dollars for a dinner she didn't want or ask for. After waiting a ridiculously long time the waiter finally had it taken care of. About half of us were happy with our food. The other half were very disappointed. There is not continuity in service or in taste of the dishes. We frequent Panama City Beach but this will probably be a 1 time stop for us. Management needs to focus on building a reputation for customer service. There are way to many restaurants with a great reputation in a short distance to be so lackluster in taste, presentation and most importantly customer service. Which is why on a Saturday night most restaurants were on a 2 hour wait and they had a whopping total of 3 tables...

Oysters, Oysters, Oysters! I love Oysters, while on vacation we drove by HF numerous times and decided to drop in for a snack and check it out. The place was pretty busy, but only had about a 15min wait. Our waiter was very prompt and attentive throughout our meal. My wife is not a big oyster lover, but likes Char-Grilled Oysters. Also having my daughter with us, we got an order of nachos and the Oyster Sampler. I enjoyed most of the Oyster on the sampler, all were good, a couple I probably wouldn't try again, just due to my own tastes, but the Char-Grilled Oysters were the bomb! They were fantastic! The Nachos were fine, not a big liquid cheese fan, I like more traditional shredded cheese then melted, but that's me. The Char-Grilled were so go though, that my wife and I came back later that night for dinner and ordered a bunch more. Even tried there fried crab claws. They were ok, such a unique item, I have never seen them before, I'd probably get them again. Hard to explain, not bad, not out of this world, just different. I took a video of the guy making the Char-Grilled Oyster and talked to him for a bit. It's very cool to watch, check it out. The whole experience was good. We sat at the bar in the evening, since we were able to grab some seats there right away. Place seems to stay pretty busy. Overall its fairly large. They have a stage, where I am sure they have live music on certain nights. They have a large Shark in the back hanging that you can take pictures with which was kind of cool. There is also another bar area outside near the shark. If you like oysters I would highly recommend this place. They have a number of different styles you can try. Great atmosphere, good food and...

When we got there I'll admit they set us fairly quickly however eating inside it was freezing col . Yes we could have eaten outside but it's hot and music just way too loud for our kids to be able to sit and enjoy themselves. But to be clear it was a very positive atmosphere. Our server Keith did a tremendous job and il even give props to the kitchen for having our food cooked and delivered out in a quick timely fashion. I will say this tho even tho we had our hot food fast the bragged about fried chicken sandwich i came there for was tasteless. Then when I got ready to check out it was rushed. So rushed that I didn't notice til half an hour into my drive home that I was charged for someone else food who by the way ate way more expensive than my family did. And when I say way more expensive that's exactly what I mean I was overcharged by almost 100 dollars and I had to wait around and ask for my card cause he said he didn't even realize he still had it in his hand. Now I will say this it is partly my fault as well cause I was in a rush to get out of there because it was about to storm and I wanted to get my kids in my vehicle before the rain got harder. So please don't think I'm just blaming this solely on our server. I should have slowed down and double checked but at same time I feel I should be able to trust that our server is doing his job correctly as well. Now I have to drive an hour and half back just to get my card swiped to get charged for the correct amount and I'll admit it is upsetting but has taught me a valuable lesson for sure. Even tho this post has sounded so negative I will say I live by the motto to always give a restaurant a...