Uptown Raw Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Port Saint Joe

Questionable billing. And the staff disappear out back around their dinner time. Fritomann went looking for fish and chips, not easy to find in Port St Joe. I walked over from my hotel, the Port Inn, just a short hike crossing a wide side street, FL route 71 I believe. Uptown bar and grill is on Reid Street which is the main historical retail district in Port St Joe. Lots of restaurants and other stuff for tourists. Free angle in street parking is not a problem in the off season, which is when I was there. I ordered the mahi mahi dinner, which included 2 side dishes, I was told. I also could have grouper, which is listed at a slightly higher price. I always choose Mahi anyway. The girl told me the fish is always super fresh and it was good. I got it a little blackened. You can watch the cook, the kitchen is right in front of you when sitting at the bar. Also the cole slaw was very good, I wish I could make it like that. Lots of french fries. Those were my 2 sides which I chose. I also had 2 bottles of Corona. They don't have malt vinegar, and so I brought this up with the young lady cooking my fish, and the next day I actually checked the price for the Heinz malt vinegar at the local super market. It was about 50c more than I quoted to the chef while she prepared my meal. The acidity of vinegar make it extremely shelf stable unrefrigerated, so why not keep a bottle in the rack just in case some guy wanders in from the Great Lakes. Anyway the food was good. So I waited around waiting to pay while all 5 or 6 staff members were in a back room, eating dinner I guess. In this moment I was the only person in the joint. The hostess gal came over eventually and I settled the bill. She gave me a print out of my itemized bill and later on I saw that they had charged me $2.50 for a "basket" of something. Sides which were supposed to be included. This was very strange seeing as I left a substantial gratuity for service. I didn't feel like going back and raising a fuss. So now I have just decided to mention it here. Next time, Fritomann will try the place...

I will preface this review by stating that my wife and I have dined within Michelin rated restaurants as well as Mom & Pop joints in the middle of the country. Please understand that I do not like leaving bad reviews as I used to work in the restaurant industry and I know how hard it is for the owners and wait staff. That being said, I try to resolve differences first. I was really looking forward to dining at Uptown because they had a larger selection on their menu, and if I had to peel one more shrimp for 30 bucks, I would go insane. The Uptown is not big, probably about a dozen tables and spots along a bar facing the kitchen. Barring that in mind, it took us inquiring on how to order before our server finally showed up. Again, this place isn’t that big. Our order wasn’t that hard; a kids meal, a couple of apps to come out first, followed by our dinners. Kids meal came out, followed by two apps and chowder, following (literally) immediately by dinners. One app came out WITH dinner with not enough room on the table to fit it, and the other app (garlic bread, SERIOUSLY) came out AFTER dinner. Okay, so that sucked, but it gets worse. When it came time to pay the bill, I first confirmed that the Oyster Sampler was removed from my bill, but when everything was tallied, Uptown charged us $101 for lobster ($34.99), crab ($33.99), kids meal ($7.00) one domestic draft, an unsweetened tea, and two sodas??? I understand everyone is suffering due to inflation and “Bidenomics”, but these place in Port St Joe are not worth the exorbitant prices they are...

Great oysters, worst service we’ve had in years, maybe a decade...

We vacationed in Port St Joe with my sister, her family, and my parents in late July 2019. We noticed that many establishments are still closed due to Hurricane Michael and wanted to support the places that are still open. We had lunch at Indian Pass Raw Bar, we arrived around 12PM on a Tuesday. The place was not packed. Many menu items were not available. My mother ordered Clam Chowder off of the paper menu and was served Crab Chowder. The waitress said (as she was serving the soup to my mother) that they didn’t have clam, but just gave her crab. My father and daughter both ordered chicken tenders. After a few minutes we were told they were out of tenders (?!), but then said they had some and we would be getting the last ones. Everyone got their food except for the chicken tender orders and then 10+ minutes later the waitress served my Dad and daughter a spilt tender meal because they only had enough for one. Both of them were really hungry at this point and were rather annoyed.

My husband and I ordered 12 baked oysters. We were served 11. We caught it and they did bring us two extra, so they did make that right...

The baked oysters and the mahi sandwiches were great. However, after the terrible service experience we will not be going back and would not...