Juno & The Peacock — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

I'd like to start out by saying that prior to 1 year ago (or whenever the change in ownership occurred) I loved 400 Beach and would recommend it to anyone. However, I have had 2 poor experiences here over the past year. I'm only going to speak of my most recent one from Sunday.

About 3 months ago I contacted 400 Beach to reserve their Banquet room for a baby shower I was hosting. My mom had hosted my shower here 3 years ago and it was perfect. Gabby, the point of contact to book this event never responsed to my inquiry for 2 weeks and after a couple attempts. So I drove there and met with her and was able to get it scheduled. She continued to be unresponsive to emails and found communication was extremely lacking and very difficult. Two weeks before the event she did confirm she had the menu and table set up and understood what I needed as far as "extra" tables for decor and party set up. I never heard anything after that.

The day of the event I arrived early to decorate for the shower. My event was scheduled for 10:30am. I arrived at 9:30am and a very nice employee, Calie, asked her manager if I could come in early to decorate (as they usually don't open until 10) and they let me. NOTHING was set up in the room. The room was dirty! It had not been cleaned since the day before - crumbs all over the floor and high top tables. The tables and chairs were not set up and it appeared that not one person was made aware of the plan for the shower and what needed to be done. It was like I walked in off the street and asked if I could throw a party here today. When I asked where Gabby was, I was told by Ashley (apparently the manager who was EXTREMELY RUDE and not at all helpful nor trying to resolve anything) that Gabby was on vacation.

My mom and I set up the tables and chairs. There was no time for the staff to iron the linens therefore they were all wrinkled and looked messy. In fact, there weren't even enough of them. I was told there were more tables and more linens in the garage but nothing ever came. If I had brought 4 of my own table cloths from home that I brought as decor, there wouldn't have been anything on the extra decor tables that I had requested. It was embarrassing as a party host.

My mom and I (and Calie) rushed to get the room ready and were able to just a few minutes late to party starting. This was extremely stressful as tables should have been all prepped and ready to go when I arrived. If they allow you to book a party in the morning, they should plan for appropriate set up time from their staff.

I will say, thanks to Nina (another staff member) and mostly Calie, the shower was wonderful and everyone had a good time. Food and drinks were very good. (though if you want to change anything or add anything about food, you cannot do that).

This would have been a one star review from me due to the lack of responses, extremely poor communication, and no show from Gabby. As well as, the rude attitude and unhelpful nature of Ashley. In addition, absolutely no set up or prep for a organized and booked event with a $2000 minimum which we far exceeded.

The only reason I even gave an additional star was because Calie was absolutely amazing and did everything she could to make this a great shower despite the mess ups. You are lucky...

My parents came down to St Pete to see me, and I decided we would come here for lunch after doing a quick search on Google. The outdoor seating area was very nice, especially since we were lucky to get a table with shade since it was pretty sunny out. That plus the view of Vinoy Park and the water, it set the right mood for a long, and relaxed afternoon. Our waitress was very accomodating and friendly, as well as basically every other staff member there. We got into conversations with a couple haha. I had the Planters Punch Cocktail, and my father had the Hurricane Cocktail, and I was surprised by how good both were, but mine was definitely my favorite. I am super picky when it comes to what I drink. I don't enjoy really tasting the alcohol, and I always prefer sweeter drinks, and the Planters Punch fit both of those exactly. For our appetizer we ordered the sampler with Calamari, Crab Cakes, and Coconut Shrimp, and I ate the Calamari pretty much myself, I enjoyed it that much. It was just fried perfectly, had enough seasoning that no dipping sauce was needed, and it was light and delicate and amazing. The Crab Cakes as well, very light and soft, perfectly seasoned with no sauce needed. The Coconut Shrimp was a bit disappointing, to be honest. My father and I agreed that it had absolutely no coconut taste to it, and we ordered COCONUT shrimp lol. We addressed it with the waitress, and after she said she went to talk to the chef but that even if they redid the order it would taste exactly the same. The Tropical Orange Marmalade that came with the shrimp was very good, though, and I had to ask for another little container of it for with my entree. For the entree I ordered the Pan Seared Sea Scallops with Chorizo Roasted Corn Risotto. I absolutely adore scallops, and these were cooked perfectly with just a tiny bit of a sear, which I actually enjoyed since there was no kind of grit or burnt bits you find yourself crunching on as you would have with a harder sear. The chorizo and corn risotto I was surprised had a bit of heat and spice to it, and there was absolutely no need to use the sauce on the plate, everything was seasoned so well. That alone, the perfect seasoning on everything we ate, kind of blew my mind. It's surprisingly difficult to find a chef or restaurant with the ability and right palate to basically nail the right amount of salt and seasonings that each ingrediant and dish needs. For dessert we got the bread pudding with raisins and caramel, and that by far was my favorite! I live for dessert. I was hesitant when I saw it came with raisins, I don't particulary enjoy them, but these were very soft and baked into the bread pudding. If I hadn't of known already what they were, I wouldn't have been able to guess. Ok so the Coconut Shrimp wasn't that good, but eveything else was delicious, the location was amazing (They even had free valet parking, which was a life saver. Downtown St. Pete parking is horrible) and I would recommend 10/10 if Google had that...

Food was freaking amazing!!!! The service, a whole other story! :-(. First, we entered the restaurant and we're told to take a seat, so we did. It then took at least 14 minutes before anyone acknowledged that we were even there, let alone take our order. By the way, it was not very busy the day we came here. With my kids starting to complaint, the wife and I were getting ready to leave so we get to exit the restaurant, ans as we're leaving someone finally notices us and I explain to them that we're leaving because we've been sitting there for about 15 mins and Bo service.

The person then apologizes and convinces is to sit back down, then gets a waiter to immediately take our order. I would love to say that was where the bad experience ended... But it gets worse, much worse.

As we ordered out artichoke dip appetizer, which came out questuonably much sooner than we had expected, we realized after digging inot it that it was still cold in the middle. So we couldn't finish the appetizer. The server apologized and took it off our order. So now it's that much longer that we have to wait to eat. Next, we order our meals, my wife specifically asks to make sure the her meal doesn't have any onions in it, as she's highly allergic to them.

So they bring our meals and the food itself was delicious... But I noticed that my wife was picking something out of her salmon... Sure enough, she was picking green onions out of her meal! She didn't want to cause a scene so she didn't say anything. That's when I had to get the waitresses' attention again. She about freaked when she saw that that the chefs had put onions in her meal.

The waitress went and got her manager. Her manager comes over and without even asking my wife's permission, just says to her "let me make you another one, this is unacceptable!", And just takes the plate from under face, while she was still eating!

When he comes back and replaces her meal, he forgot to put the salmon she was eating back on her plate! I was in total shock... JUST SHOCK!

I have never scene that kind of atrocious service even in a lower end restaurant, let alone one of this caliber. My wife said nothing about the missing salmon only because I she just wanted the bad experience to end.

When we got our bill, there was no discount for our "Manager acknowledged" bad service. The manager was standing right there at the door as we we're leaving, looked us in the eye, and didn't even say "sorry" or anything. The service was so bad that if I didn't know better, I would have thought that they were intentionally...