Paradise Restaurant — Restaurant in Safety Harbor

I don't typically leave bad reviews because I understand that things happen but the experience that my family and I had at this restaurant was unacceptable. My sister and I both ordered house salads. Her salad came out fine, but my first salad had a small bug on it. We informed the waitress and she brought over another salad for me. I went to take a bite of the salad and there was a dead bug laying under a layer of lettuce. We told the waitress once more and she apologized and brought me French fries but did not take anything off of our check. Most people would have walked out immediately but we decided to stay and eat our food. Prior to leaving, we had asked to speak to a manager because it is disgusting to have a bug in your salad, not once, but twice! The owner tried to normalize the situation and say that there was nothing he could do about it since the doors and windows were constantly open (meanwhile the restaurant is inside!). He finally took some money off of our check but really we shouldn't have even had to ask. I am incredibly disappointed by the food and service at this restaurant and will never come back. If you decide to go to this restaurant despite this review, don't order a salad or anything with lettuce on it!

Edit in response to the owner: The lettuce in the house salad was not spring mix FYI, it was iceberg lettuce. It's very interesting that you would disregard my concern by saying that I mistakenly saw not one, but two bugs in my salad. Once again if you are a customer here, DO NOT eat the lettuce unless you like the taste of bug in...

My wife, our son, our dog, and I showed up to try out this restaurant for breakfast. I stay outside with the stroller and dog while my wife went in to see if the tables outside were ok for us to use. My wife had to wait a few minutes before someone would acknowledge her. When someone did, my wife asked about sitting outside and mentioned the dog and baby stroller. The response she received was that we can sit outside but the wait would be longer since they were short staffed (the interior was, at most, at 25%-30% filled). My wife responded that the wait is not an issue, and it isn't like we could have gone in with a dog anyways. My wife brings out the menus and we look through and wait.

Now here is where the 1 star comes in. After waiting outside for at least ten minutes for anyone to come out (not the problem), when someone did pop their head out the door it was to tell us we won't be served outside and if we want to get food we have to go inside. Then he rushes back into the building. Not even acknowledging the fact that because we HAVE our dog with us he would have kicked us out anyways. Now I would have been just fine running our own order inside and getting our own drinks because we HAD been interested in trying this place out. I would have also been fine being told "no outside service right now" when we first showed up. But instead they jerked us around, wasted our time, and offered an unfeasible solution.

We left immediately and found a new restaurant to try that had a much friendlier staff and, for all I know,...

This is one of my favorite places in Safety Harbor. It definitely has my favorite salad. The cranberry chicken salad with poppy seed dressing is amazing. But... I just had my first bad experience here. Stopped in today, it's a beautiful Saturday afternoon but it's rather empty. I was acknowledged right away which is great and I don't even have to look at the menu. I order my favorite and I'm just sitting there waiting when I notice my server going through some receipts at the counter. She throws a receipt or receipts in the waste basket but then I guess she needed them again and she reached in the waste basket to get them back out. I see my salad on the window and I'm thinking, I sure hope she washes or sanitizes her hands before she handles my plate. But she didn't. She grabs my plate, then a knife (for the chicken) and my dressing and brings it over to the table. This really bothered me. I told her what I witnessed and her very first response was "so? I didn't touch your food". And I said, "but you touched my plate, the knife which is now laying across my food, and the container of dressing". She said you're right, I'm sorry. It's extremely busy and I'm here by myself. In which I looked around, I see no other customers in sight and said, "that's no excuse for poor hygiene". I left the restaurant. I don't feel like I over reacted. If I hadn't seen it, she would have served it to me and not thought another...