Hunt's Oyster Bar and Seafood — Restaurant in Panama City

Our experience at Hunt's was absolutely terrible to say the least. My girlfriend, myself, and 2 kids decided to eat here on 4/5/25 for dinner. So we arrive to the restaurant that night and wait around 20 mins or so for a party of 7 (which isn't bad for a packed house), we had other family members with us as well, and everyone wanted seafood so we chose Hunt's. My girlfriend has a severe allergy to shrimp, and cannot have any food cooked with shrimp, or anything to that nature. Our server arrived to the table and we let her know that she has an allergy, her response was "Let me take the orders, and I will ask the kitchen what we can do" which is a reasonable response. So we all placed our orders and she went to ask the kitchen. 7-10 mins pass and she returns to our table notifying us that everything is cooking together, it is not possible to get anything cooked without the chance of being contaminated by shrimp. Well if this is the case my girlfriend cannot eat anything at this restaurant, so I am not going to let her sit there and just watch everyone else eat, and sip on a drink while we all eat and have a good time. So I told the server to go ahead and cancel my order as well, and we would let the kids eat then pick something up later for us. Well a few minutes go by and the kids then tell us that they don't want to eat if were not going to, so I proceed to get up from my table and try to track down our server to tell her to cancel everything and we are just going to go somewhere else where we can eat together. I had in my mind that the kids order had probably already started in the kitchen and I might need to compensate the restaurant for something, which I was perfectly ok with. A few minutes go by and someone rushes to our table from the back, I can't remember if he said he was the owner or the manager, but he comes to the table if front of all the others tables of customers at the restaurant, and puts his face in front of mine and proceeds to say "Hey what is going on with all these cancelled orders, were losing money on this" in an elevated tone with hostility. He then proceeds to tell us that "Oh my sister has a severe allergy to shellfish and has never had any issues, I have been running this place for 5 years and never had this issue" he also states that "Now I just don't feel like cooking anything for this table" referring to the other family members that were sitting at the table with us. Well this caused me to lose my temper, and I told him that I do not care what type of money he loses, and that we are going to be eating somewhere else, he could feed the food to a dog for all I care. I was more than prepared to help compensate this restaurant for food that was already being prepared for us, and if he would have came to me more polite, and tried to find the reasoning behind the cancelled orders instead of just saying "were losing money what's going on" in a hostile tone there would have been no issue. We ended up going right across the street to Uncle Ernies and they were more than happy to accommodate and we had a great time. I will NEVER give my business to Hunts...

Okay, here's a tip for anyone planning to eat at Hunt's Oyster Bar and Seafood:

If you order one dozen raw oysters each for you and your guest and your waiter says "Do you want premium oysters?" and you ask "is that the raw oysters listed in your menu?" and the waiter says " . . . yeahhh. . . . premium oysters" Then you need to make sure that you very specifically ask that waiter whether the "premium oysters" are the oysters listed at $15.95 per dozen in the menu despite the fact that it's the only raw oysters that appear in their menu.

If you don't perform that precise exchange in conversation that should not be necessary, then you will get a bill from the waiter who states "there you are, my man." and the total is $48.00 for 2 dozen raw oysters that the waiter stated as "premium" and who knows full well that he had been attempting to deceive you all along.

Hunt's Oyster Bar and Seafood is nothing more than a routine tourist trap who will intentionally play the name game and put the spin on an order that no one in their right mind would accept in paying almost $2.00 per bay oyster that can be had anywhere in Panama City or Panama City Beach for far less.

It should also make you wonder just what grade of oyster Hunt's Oyster Bar and Seafood would otherwise sell you that does not constitute the "premium" grade if you can manage to get a straight and honest conversation from your waiter.

Don't waste your time being subjected to a line of intentional double-talk . Go somewhere else and be treated honestly to get your...

This restaurant is the definition of mediocre. If you are coming specifically for the oysters it’s “good”. I put the quotations because while the raw oysters were good the Oysters Rockefeller, which is described as “baked”, were microwaved. I try not to sound snobby, because let’s be real we all microwave food, but 15 dollars for 6 microwaved oysters is….a little ridiculous. The Mahi Mahi was, again, just “okay”. I ordered it blackened and I really don’t think it was cooked in either a pan or an oven. I didn’t even seen an oven in their open kitchen. (I’m not saying there isn’t one but I didn’t smell freshly cooked fish at all or anything apart from the smell of raw oysters.) My husband’s fish tacos were more of the same. Dry, unflavored, overall not great. The total meal was 72 dollars (mahi mahi meal shown in picture, two tacos with fries, 12 oysters-6 oysters Rockefeller, and 6 raw, and a coke.). We were extremely disappointed with THAT price and the food. So while we won’t be going back it was “okay”. Go if you JUST want oysters.

Edit: my husband has had NVD for 4 hours since he woke up. He was the only one of us who ate the raw oysters. It started with vomiting at 6am when he woke up, we ate around 5 pm yesterday, and it is now 11am and he continues to vomit and have diarrhea. He had the Louisiana Oysters not the...