Maria's Olde East Hill Grill — Restaurant in Pensacola

Hands down, the food is outstanding, fresh, and tasty. The menu is a bit pricy, but the portions of grouper were generous. Atmosphere is good. But ...here comes the “but”.... My husband and I would give 5 stars, however, at the counter, we looked at the menu and found the Grouper Dinner which very specifically indicates “Served with 2 Hushppies and choice of 2 sides”. When asked what sides we wanted the lady pointed to the list on the board, which does not show prices. We randomly picked okra and sweet potato. Mind you that ordering at the counter makes you feel rushed as there is a line behind, so this also works on their favor. Nothing else was said and then we were given the bill for $52.98, not itemized. We were confused, since our dinners were each $19.99 (not $20). Initially we hesitated to ask because of the line. This did not set right so we went back to ask and then we were told that we had picket “premium sides” which the cashier never explained, so now our dinners went from $19.99 to $26 each in a blink without any explanation. How premium can okra be? This seems done deliberately so that the restaurant can up charge an average of $6 per person per order. Later we found out that premium sides are $2.50 – 6.00. The ladies were polite but were ok with the way they handle orders and never indicated they would do anything about it, not tell a manager, not write the price on the board. I hate this happened because we are locals and have visited before with family and friends and were happy to find quality food; we shop at Maria’s once a week, but this feels just like any other business out there trying to up charge and make extra money from unsuspecting clients. If you multiply $5 or $6 times as many customers that fall for this daily, we are talking about a large amount. If businesses continue this patron, we are in for a hard world....

The food was hot, fresh and absolutely delicious, especially those greens. The only thing keeping this from being 5 stars was the lackluster service from Jasmine. She never greeted us as she seemed to be too occupied playing on her phone. When she did finally put her phone down for 1 minute, she took our order and went right back to playing on her phone again. The girl never even smiled but maybe she was just having a bad day? She was just a total buzz kill on the excitement and anticipation that we had choosing to eat here. The ladies at the fresh fish counter were no more customer focused than Jasmine. The ONLY employee that made us feel like a valued customer was a young lady named 'Queen'. The rest of the staff could take lessons from her!! Great job Queen. We will eat here again because the food was so good but they really need to work on their customer...

So this was a mixed bag. The small restaurant with counter service only is located next to their seafood market. The entrance to the restaurant is on the backside of the building, away from Cervantes.

They have baked, not chargrilled oysters. My daughter loves chargrilled, and despite similar:same ingredients, she didn’t like them (missing the grill flavor). On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by the baked oysters. They were terrific even though missing that welcome ‘char.’

The fried catfish was not good. I can only describe it as breaded, belly. Not good but they refunded our money for that.

And for some crazy reason, they failed to bring the dozen raw oysters, but after some debate, they refunded our money.

So again, a mixed bag. I’d go back for the oysters for sure but I will be...