Sid's Caribbean grill — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

What a dissapointment! The atmosphere is great.... if only the food and service were they would have a lucrative business. Honestly, I don't know how they stay in business.

We were there for 3.5 hours for a SINGLE meal. The majority of that time was spent waiting... and waiting.... and still more waiting.

It was like a bad SNL skit! We were headed to the area to check out Ricky P's (my Mom had eaten there and had a good experience and my brother who was visiting was in the mood for Cajun/Creole food. On trip advisor we saw that this place had a 4.8 out of 5 star rating. I have NO clue how they got that almost 5 star rating. Did they pay for them or ?!

We walked in and the cooks were nice enough to greet us and then the waitress came out key word "wait" and that is what we did. She had 4 tables in 3.5 hours (not busy). It was a Sunday. We waited for our drink order to be taken (15 mins) then 20 mins later she brings our drinks. She never offers to take our order or asks if we are ready to order just drops of the drinks and leaves another 20 mins. She comes back and take our appetizer order. We ordered the crawfish fritters and onion rings. She disappears another 20 mins. She comes back (by now we are starving and thinking our apps are coming out any minute). No, she comes out and says the cook JUST told me we are out of onion rings. Say what?! You tell us that NOW?! So we order sweet potato fries and crawfish fritters and she again disappears another 15 mins. She comes back and takes our meal order. Again disappears for 20 more mins (by now it's an hour into the "meal" and we have had one round of drinks (our glasses are now empty and there is still no food on the table).

She delivers the crawfish fritters and sweet potato fries along w 2 "thimbles" of sauce (it was tasty for the crawfish fritters) and 1 "thimble" of ketchup for the fries. The apps were decent. The fritters were made of stove top, crawfish and a few diced red peppers that was then battered and fried (prob same batter we missed out on on the onion rings).

In 3.5 hours I had 2 glasses of drink (ridiculous, I left feeling dehydrated). I ordered sweet tea and sweet it was! It was like sugar water with a cut up sliver of lime. My mother ordered the limeaide which tasted much better than the tea. My daughter ordered the tea. My brother ordered the phone punch. After I finished my tea and had tasted my Mom's limeaide, I asked to switch from sweet tea to limeaide to which the waitress snapped as if offended "is there a problem?" I said no I just liked the taste of the limeaide better. She leaves the table and again returns 20 minutes later with two salads each with a "thimble" of dressing. My brother didn't even finish half of his salad after finding some brown leaves. The waitress never even asked if his salad was ok (he had pulled the brown lettuce out to the rim of the bowl and left more than half the rest of the salad). He did not have enough dressing in his thimble but figured at this point (overlooking the brown lettuce leaves) he would wait another 20 mins for another thimble of dressing. So not worth it. Next course!

So, my meal comes out (just mine) and then 10 mins later my brothers meal comes out. We ask my mom if she minds if we dig in (her food did not come). So we started eating. We were 20 mins into the main entree and more than halfway finished and my mom's food STILL hadn't come out. Finally, her food comes out. No apology, nothing just like oh yeah ok and here is YOUR food. 20 more mins goes by and my brother and I are done. My mom has lost her appetite. So we are waiting for a box for her food. We sit there with her more than half full plate.... waiting, and waiting and waiting. She brings the second round of drinks (I was ready for that 20 mins after sitting down 3 hours ago)! My mom asks for a box for her food.... another 20 mins later.... she brings the boxes for her food. I'm ready for some beniets. But at this point it is after 8:30 (they close at 9) and the way things are going it is going to be another 30 mins...

While the owners and most of the staff are very friendly, and the atmosphere is pleasant, nothing could make up for the inefficiency with which this restaurant is run. It is likely they were at their busiest on the day we dined, but many of the problems had nothing to do with crowds. Before we were even seated the woman at the front made a big fuss about the front door being held open too long. I guess they were trying to keep tbe A.C. cold but you shouldn't be harassing your customers about how long they take to shuffle in. Upon being seated it took 20 minutes for someone to greet our table, at which point we were brought complimentary fried okra, but no one took a drink order. Finally we flagged down a table busser who was kind enough to do that. It was another 15 minutes before someone took our order. Clearly no one in the restaurant has training. He proceeded to take our order one person at a time, and walked each individual ticket to the kitchen. We were a party of 10 so you can imagine how long this took. Oh and they were out of gumbo. Naturally because of the tickets going in separately, we were all served food at different times. And several people received luke warm food. Drinks were never refilled without us having to ask. As for the flavor of the food, the etoufee was good, the red beans and rice had way too much seasoning, you could see it, in crumbles, it was overpowering. All the entrees with seafood (etoufee, shrimp and grits, etc) had sparse portions of actual seafood. All the side salads were brought out with random dressing flavors on the side. No one was asked what type they wanted. The "apricot basil" salad dressing tasted like pure jam. There was a $5 charge to split food, but no indication of that on the menu. It took an hour and twenty minutes to eat and it was extremely frustrating from start to finish. They are very warm and welcoming but appear to have no clue how to run a restaurant. I would...

I really liked it here. We came in towards the end of the day. They were out of many things on the menu, or they were running out. They prepare everything on the spot.

There was only one waitress and one cook. This translates into longer wait time, but we were ok with that.

Valerie was our waitress. She took each of our names to allocate our orders by names. The place is quaint and has a lot of character and personality.

The waitress let us know they were shorthanded, and that everything is served in to-go plates. Soooo... We were informed.

As they were out of macaroni and cheese, and some other items, they gave us a free order of Gumbo to go! Yes, this actually happened. Whatever they were short on, they made it up with service and a smile, professionalism, and honesty. Everything tasted great still.

The seating is similar to elegant and luxury house furniture (some mismatched, but nice and comfortable). The place showcases a lot of American history, especially from Louisiana. It's a really place that makes you feel at home. Really.

They brought out the salad. The dressing for the salad was homemade. It was Da BOMB! I need them to package this... 😊. They have a garden that they use to make the salad dressing from scratch. Everything here is made from scratch using recipes handed down through the family for years. O-M-Goodness! It tasted like it...

They make a "dirty beignet". You just have to try it as an appetizer. The bottled water is $1. The home-made limeade was $2.75. We didn't get a refill.

The place is a nice place, it's quaint. The food is excellent. It's a small business with real Creole food and recipes. The food portions were adequate.

I recommend this place if you love excellent Creole Food in a nice quaint down-home Louisiana feel. If you grew up in the Dirty-South or the Bayou with good home cooking, this is a place for you.

The atmosphere is a very good cultural Creole experience. I...