Paradise Key Dockside Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Rockport

Before you go ahead and read the review Keep in mind IF YOU HAVE ANY SEVERE FOOD ALLERGIES OR RESTRICTIONS PLEASE DONT GO HERE.

Supposed to be our anniversary dinner but glad my husband came out alive.

I have been in the US for 15 years and my husband for 30 years and this is one of the worst places we have ever been to. I would give zero stars if I could. When we first went inside (at around 7.30) oh we thought amazing and then our nightmare starts. Our waitress comes after 35 minutes and gets our order for drinks. We only wanted water and also we order an appetizer because we are really hungry. She said she has put it in her system. Then disappears shows 10 minutes later with glass of water. And takes our main order for dinner . My husband orders pecan chicken and I order impossible vegan burger ( I am vegetarian). After that she disappears and gone. 45 minutes later we see her we ask her why she hasn’t brought the appetizer and she says she didn’t realize that we ordered one And tell us she is sorry goes back to kitchen and comes back and says she didn’t ring it in and so she is not going to charge us for that and she will bring it out. We say okay we will give her the benefit of the doubt. Anybody can have a bad moment. Then another 45 minutes goes by and no food. My food is so easy to make and I don’t think Pecan chicken is so hard it will take 1.5 hours. We see her at another table taking orders so we call her and ask her when food will be out. She says she is sorry and will check on it. Then disappears for 20 minutes and comes to our table and says they haven’t made the cilantro sauce that’s supposed to go on top of the chicken because they DONT HAVE CILANTRO (ridiculous). I am like thinking seriously. That’s your excuse. Why don’t you just say that before. So my husband says okay bring the chicken. Forget the sauce. She brings the food out. I can see my burger is soggy because it has been out for 1.5 hours. Then my husband eats his food. I eat mine. He says half way through it tastes fishy. I am not sure what’s going on. He says it feels funny because they haven’t cooked it well as it’s flaky and tastes fishy. Finally we call the manager and ask her what’s going on. The manager says the golden words “that’s not chicken it’s red snapper” Can you believe this? I am like oh no my husband is allergic to most of the fish. Manager says she will take out charge but my mind is like how can you not know the difference between chicken and fish when you’re in charge of bringing the food out. Then the manager goes away disappears and 25 mins later the waitress comes out and says I saw the manager in your table “Is everything okay?” My husband is like you bought me fish instead of chicken. She is like oh I am sorry but why didn’t you tell me that before telling the manager. If it was me I would have talked to the waitress before the manager. I am like that’s what bothered you. You gave the wrong food to a person especially when there are so many food allergies around and you are worried why we spoke to the manager? The bill comes out 15 minutes later. And we just paid and left.

I am so glad my husband is well and not allergic to red snapper. He only takes salmon because he is very scared.

If you have any food restrictions or food allergies I DONT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE BECAUSE I DONT TRUST ANYTHING THAT COMES OUT OF THE KICTCHEN.

I must say...

First of all, I don’t ever write reviews so this is how our experience was. Came to eat here for the first time today and Jaylene was our waitress. I asked what’s popular on the menu and she had no idea since she was new (understandable). Took our drink order (sweet tea, coke, and a sprite). Then, I added a water for my daughter. She brought us the coke, sw tea, and water. No straws. I asked for a sprite again and it felt like it was an issue. Okay cool, whatever. I asked another server what was popular on the menu and he explained everything to a T. Awesome!!! So we ordered 1/2 dozen gulf oysters, tuna, and the bread for our apps. The tuna was overcooked but still good once we finally got soy sauce. We had to ask for crackers, horseradish, and cocktail sauce after she walked off from another server. Then also had to ask for plates after we got our apps from I think the manager. I ordered the paradise fried platter but asked if I can get the mahi jerk styled but if they couldn’t do that then fried was fine, and then whatever else comes with it; which was fried shrimp and fried oysters or fried soft shell crab. I chose the oysters. She asked what was my order after I ordered, so I explained again, exactly what typed. When I got my plate, the mahi was grilled (no flavor), grilled shrimp, and fried oysters. I asked if the mahi was jerk styled and she said yes, I asked for fried shrimp bc I didn’t want grilled shrimp. Plus It literally looked like it had zero flavor and for an almost $40 plate, I would’ve hoped it came with what I asked for. I had to ask another waitress if my mahi was jerk and she said no, it looked grilled. By the time I got my fried shrimp, the shrimp looked like it was fried in old grease. I Only ate one, didn’t even eat the mahi and was a waste of money. The cocktail sauce was very good and so were the fried oysters and on a half shell. The Mac and cheese was good too. My daughter had the shrimp boil and she loved it, my man had the paradise GRILLED platter and he tore his up. Our drinks were never refilled on top of that but it seemed like a bother to the girl. I also told her about the Mahi not being jerk style and she just said oh. She ABSOLUTELY needs to be trained, but she looked blown af so idk if that’s why she was so forgetful and didn’t care. In my opinion, I would never want her to be our waitress again and probably won’t go back and we love returning to an atmosphere with great food AND GREAT SERVICE. That definitely wasn’t it. I actually couldn’t wait to get our ticket so we can just leave. To Jaylene: please learn the menu and always suggest popular plates and appetizers that your co-workers could possibly let you know if you ask. Also try having a little bit of knowledge bc it truly felt like a place that they just “hire anyone” especially bc there are so many restaurants that are short staffed. I really wished the male server who explained everything to us when I had to ask was our waiter. I wish I caught his name but we won’t be returning. I’m sure we spent at least $180 just on 3 people and even tipped her, but the crowd we usually go eat with is always 8-13 people and we all tip very generously...

Let me start off saying we did like our server, Cole. Very nice young man. Arrived at 8:52 pm and was seated right away at the night top tables. We did come a year ago and really enjoyed our food and cocktails. So we decided to come back, Don’t know if they are under new management or owner but today’s experience was horrible. I ordered a top shelf mango margarita, taste like water and tequila. Informed our server, Cole, he took it back to the bar. My boyfriend watched them just add more tequila and it was brought back to me and I tasted it and informed our server that it still tasted like water and tequila. Our server informed me that he will have the bartender remake me a new drink. Well the 3rd time the manager brought it to me and asked if I would try the new drink. I did and still had no flavor whatsoever, still tasted like it was just water and tequila. It was taken off the bill. I just ordered a Diet Coke. That was the safest option, especially since they couldn’t make a simple mango Margarita. The chips and dip with queso was very good. I asked about the red snapper and mahi-mahi and was informed that both would have a fishy taste. Not so much with the red snapper because the pecans and cilantro sauce will help hide the fishy taste a little better. That didn’t sound appealing to me so We ordered a burger, medium well. 50 minutes later we got our burgers. Very, very dry burgers. Bone dry. I tried putting a ton of ketchup and mustard to help it. We didn’t want to send it back because it took almost an hour to get our dinner and we were so hungry so we just sucked it up and chewed and chewed….. I got fries with mine, and no lie, I got about 10 fries with it. They were good, I’ll give them that. My boyfriend got sweet potato waffle fries with his, he said he had a good amount and no complaints on the sweet potato waffle fries. Our server asked if I wanted a box and I told him no, that I didn’t want to take anything home. I was able to eat 1/2 of my burger. My boyfriend ate all of his. Whataburger would’ve been 100 times better. Not judging but 95% of the staff tonight seemed to be high school age. Or that’s how they seemed to act. Running and jumping around. Very loud, even shouting at each other next to customers. We even seen a lot of the staff, including the manager, that was wearing a jean type shirt (same one who brought me My cocktail) eating in the kitchen. We sat directly across from the kitchen door, so we were able to see everything. Kitchen staff even jumping around and picking each other up. Very immature atmosphere. Unfortunately, not a good experience and we will not...