Salt Water Cowboys — Restaurant in Saint Augustine

So I’ll start out with the food was really pretty good.

Now to the experience…

• BEWARE IF YOU AND WHO YOU ARE WITH WANT TO TRY EACH OTHERS FOOD they will charge you 5.00 per plate if you do. * I will come back to this in a moment.

My wife and I will order different things when we go to a place so we can taste what the other had to see IF we want to have that for ourself the next time we go. We are not big people and honestly do not have large appetites so sometimes if a dish is large we will split it depending on where we go. This was one of those times. Our family placed our orders. We mentioned to our server that we would like to share this dish and then ordered our sides each. When they brought out all of our food the server passed out of of our food. We noticed that she had separated the dish for us. We said to each other when she walked away, “Wow, that was nice she didn’t have to do that.” We just thought that was a really nice gesture and her tip had already doubled in our minds! We all enjoyed our meals and the service was really good. Now to the part I mentioned coming back to earlier. When she brought the bill I just handed her my card without looking and going over the bill. Which I always do for a couple of reasons. One to be kind to the server. It keeps them from having to make a third trip to the table. (1st bring the bill, 2nd to come back to get the payment, 3rd bring change or payment back.) Now I go to sign and go over my bill and there is a 5.00 fee on there for sharing my meal with my wife!!! Really?!?!?! So I just paid 5 more dollars for the same amount of food! So obviously I called her over to ask about the fee. She proceeded to to me “Well we have large parties come in and order different items and share so that’s what we do.” …ok so what??? So you punish us and make us order more food than we can eat? For what, to just throw it out? That’s called wasteful. We know how much we can eat and we order based on that. Why would we order more than we can eat to just throw it away? And the incentive to do that , we either pay more money for the same amount of food or they want us to be gluttons?? Make absolutely no sense. The way we ordered means less labor and effort on their end. Less dishes to clean (or would be). Etc. What it is, is in this “tip culture” the more your bill is the more you tip should be. It reads that right at the bottom of this receipt 18%, 20%, & 22% suggestions. Well that’s counterintuitive, the tip would have been a lot more IF you wouldn’t have punished us for eating correctly and not gorging ourselves having to eat too much food. Or wasting food in this great country where in other places they don’t have enough to eat.

It would have been nice for her to communicate to us there would be a fee for sharing from our plate.

Sorry but won’t be back. So that greedy 5.00 fee just cost you potential future visits that would have exponentially made you more money. Thanks for the life lesson to carry with me in...

It was quite a while to get seated. We called and asked if we needed a reservation. They said no, and we aren't busy now. We were less than 8 minutes away. Got there, got on the list. Waited 35 minutes. Then we were seated on the back patio directly in the sun over in the corner. We did all to move eventually. After the waitress decided it was hard on her eyes. Problem: 1st - wait 35 minutes to get seated (with them telling us 10 mins) 2nd - not moving the table around to get us out of the sun coming down over the bldg. 3rd - waiting 15 mins for our drinks (non alcoholic) tea and soda 4th - at least another 15 on the appetizers. There was so much breading on the gatortail and a nickel size piece of meat in the middle. 5th - ordered our food finally, sun went down, moved two tables over. Oh, I ordered refills on soda, and it took forever again. 6th - one waitress for the whole outside area. If at least 15 to 20 tables. 4 to 6 at each. 7th - we get our food delivered by a helper. Crabs were cold. Child hamburger looked like they got it from the road, the 3 shrimp platter deal was overcooked cold, and my sister to this day has not gotten her salad. The waitress came back 2 times, and each time, she said she had forgotten it. My other granddaughter ordered a PLAIN chicken tender sandwich. It came out with cheese. She told him it should be plain...he states...why is it an allergy thing? Doesn't matter. This is how it was ordered. YES. It was an allergic reaction to cheese. So he goes off. I'm still waiting for our waitress to get butter and cocktail sauce. The collards had a ton of salt in them. On a good note, the mac and cheese and broccoli and cheese were good. 8th - we were there a lot more than we should have been. Staffing was awful. When we were leaving people up front, were complaining of how long they were waiting and not being advised of the timeframe. We clearly told them that once they got seated, it would not be any better.

Atmosphere beautiful on the marsh outside.

Won't go back again. The people just didn't care. We left enough COLD food on our table for another family. We just wanted to leave.

The vrbo we were in....doesn't even have them as a recommendation for a good local restaurant. The owner says that the value has gone down so low. She didn't want to mislead anyone.

We chose it from years past experience. However, it was a total letdown.

People were actually leaving the parking lot after finding out it was over 2 hours waiting.

Sorry guys. I don't usually get this involved, but I felt I needed to say all this.

Yes, we...

Would really like to take a moment and recognize the servers + host working on 7/3. They were incredibly professional and kind.

To say we had the worst dining experience is putting it lightly. It was pure chaos. Being open from 4 to 9 should allow operations to be streamlined for 5 hrs of nice flowing dinner service.

We did not experience that. After being skipped on the wait list for another party, we made it to the dining room. Immediately, it was awkward. Only one table had their food. Out of the entire dining room.

The dining room was at a dead lock of service. 45 min for salads and appetizers. Families are restless and upset. No one smiling or happy about their experience. Servers offering bowls of crackers and percentages off due to the wait for food.

Then slowly the parties had their food arrive. Some enjoyed their meals while other felt less impressed. Salt water cowboys once has the best house salad in St. Augustine. Best crab cakes. Best stuffed shrimp. Now .... it is a sad representation of once was.

This is the 3rd attempt in the last year we have tried to go. Each time we show uo hopeful. Ready to wait and are let down. Good food can almost always make up for bad service. The food was almost comical at how bad it was. Fried items were good except the fries. They were soggy and cold. Coleslaw was weird and came in a huge bowl for the portion served. I hate yo go on trashing the food. Here is what we ordered...

Stuffed mushrooms - zero crab stuffing House salads Cheesy bread Crab cake dinner Snow crab dinner x2 Fresh catch -so over seasoned Fried frog legs dinner Shrimp 3 ways -stuffed shrimp was really not good

Unfortunately, the servers and host were so defeated. They were awesome to be able to handle the poor operations. I hope they can find jobs at a better restaurant to showcase their talents. Please get help for your kitchen. Please look into a better manager system. Even consider reservations in 15 min increments so your kitchen isn't so overwhelmed the moment you open. There are literally so many options for a change of pace for the system.

We as a family have been going to this restaurant for 30 years. 30 YEARS! Once the restaurant was sold 4/5 years ago and the menu changed, it has suffered.

To have a 3.5 rating on Yelp, you literally have to be crashing and burning every dinner service....