Island Cafe — Restaurant in Portland

Hostess lied to me. I came in 07/21/25. 11:15AM. I don’t like people sitting behind me so when she showed us to our seats table #8 I requested for table #12… she said she could not accommodate because of a big party coming or something.

Within 20minutes table #10 #12 both had only 2 people sitting per table.

So what happened here? A. I was lied to? B. She did not want to accommodate my request. C. A big party must’ve canceled?. D. The system does not allow for requested seating.

Your hostess is the first person people see at a restaurant and gets the ball rolling. She earned you a 2 star review for what I believe is A,B. There was no big party and if there was?!?! SO much open seating was available. So I was lied to and not accommodated. Thank you hostess. Love my starting my day off being lied to. 👍🏽 Bill was 166$. Server was great.

UPDATED

So because the server of #28 #30 had 10 people… and the server of table #10 #12 also had 28,30 I was denied to move to that table and mind you it was within 10 - 15 minutes my food came within minutes of the tables of 10,12 getting served their food so the reasoning is all the same regardless of server and wait times because 10minutes goes by quickly and I WANTED TABLE #12 the customer is always right what happened to that… table #8 was waited on after table 28,30… if I was not table number 12 like I wanted I would of had to wait 8-10mins longer but as the customer what I want is what I want that is what you are failing to take into account.

With the response from the owner I’m now taking it to 1 star. I won’t be coming back. Your restaurant rating because of me went from a 4.7 to a 4.6. It’s a shame really I don’t like to do that but if you accommodate and see from my perspective regardless you’ve just lost 0.1 rating WHICH IS HUGE!

If I as a customer want table #12. If I have to wait an extra 10minutes to get served I have no problem with doing that as # 8 #10 #12 all got our food within minutes of each other…. You are in the service industry and failed to serve me my requests and I still feel bad about the 4....

I suspect that most of the people going to Island Cafe are not going for the food. They are going as a social event, to meet their long time drinking friends, to be seen in their floppy hats and to talk about their new tennis instructors. The food, as long as it is not awful is secondary. And it was not awful, it was not fantastic, but it was not awful. My onion petals were kind of pasty with little flavor, but kind of addictive, like potato chips. They did not offend, nor did they excite. My BLT had so much bacon pressed so tightly, that I could not bite through it. Imagine! A male of the species complaining about too much bacon! But we took most of it home where it graced the next three BLT’s I ate. Other than that, it was rather pedestrian. Now the service was great! They found us a place away from the speakers, opened umbrellas for us, refilled our drinks, and though it was crowded and they warned us service might be slow, they were attentive and kind. It feels, like a different world out there. Not Vancouver and not Portland. A kind of between place, where maybe a lot of people play golf and drink cocktails and aren’t really that concerned about the food. Because if you don’t have to be on the water, there are a lot better choices out there. But it seems this is what happens to places with really great locations. The environment starts to carry the weight. That flavor of tourist starts to seep into everything, including the food. It gets into the spices jars and the walk in freezers and it takes real commitment and some real imagination to break free and find an authentic culinary...

Halibut and fries- How can one mess up a perfectly buttery fish? I don’t even know. It was so bitter and dry. Also breading makes up most of the size. I asked if they use frozen or fresh and they said fresh but I highly doubt that. I didn’t even finish my piece after taking a bite. Burgerville uses fresh and it tastes 100 times better. Their fries actually were crisp, thick, and delicious. If I were to come back that’s the only thing I’d order.

“Lobster” salad- if you consider imitation crab lobster then yea order this. No lobster to be found in the “seafood mix.”👎 The cucumber and tomatoes in the salad tasted so plasticky. At least use organic vegetables. I was looking through the salad leaves and I was actually given some bad leaves with brown going bad spots. I didn’t even finish half of it. Y’all should add avocado to this salad to add some sort of creaminess.

Calamari- meh 5/10 very fried taste. No meaty taste. You can’t even tell if it’s calamari.

Ahi Tuna Tacos- corn taco shell was extremely hard. fish was bland. They add a bunch of unnecessary corn chips to make it look like a bigger plate.

Overall prices were a little high end but the quality was worse than fast food. The location is probably the only thing that brings them business.

Our waitress was actually really nice. She took off the fish and chips for us even though we didn’t ask. Very kind of her. And she exchanged the virgin pina colada(that tastes like blended sugar water) for a lemonade but still charged for the pina colada price. No biggie, thanks girl for the...