Gramma Dot's Restaurant — Restaurant in Sanibel

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE - WE WERE HUNG UP ON!

If there were negative stars, I would pick 5. We had a party of 8 and arrived at 1:00pm. As we asked “how long will the wait be for a party of 8, inside?” we watched the waitress flip to another page and say “Should be about 30 minutes”. We were thrilled and perfectly fine with that as we could tell they had several other parties (none as large as ours) waiting around outside. A storm was approaching and after 30 min, we watched as they started telling parties arriving that they will no longer be seating outside until the storm passes. Understandable. We watched about 5-6 parties with no less than 3 or more in their group that put their names in AFTER us be seated inside. An hour passed and we were started to look at our clocks. We went up to the counter and were told, “you’re next!”. After that, we watched as 3 additional groups of 4 (some only including 4 adults and then additional children) were seated inside. After another 30 minutes, we asked again and were told “you’re next!”. We then waited another 15 minutes and the rain came. We watched as they brought parties inside that were seated outside and then we finally decided to leave after a 1 hour and 45 minute wait with 0 communication from staff other than when we asked ourselves. Before we pulled out of the parking lot, we called to tell them to take our name off of the list and as we were describing our situation, we were hung up on by staff! My father in law then proceeded to go inside and say “who hung up on me?!” As they all looked at him puzzled and the waitresses muttered “we don’t know, we don’t know” my father in law went on to explain that we would like our name taken off the list after we waited for almost 2 hours and relayed what we had witnessed in that time after being told we had a 30 minute wait at 1:00 pm.. it was now 2:46 pm..not to mention, we had a type 1 diabetes child in our group. We also witnessed after an hour, we were the LAST group of people just standing around waiting to be seated. Everyone else that was seated were people that just arrived! After my father in law said his peace, he was told “I am sorry” in almost passing and was not offered any explanation or regretful remarks. Worst customer service experience we have ever endured and we will not be back nor will we ever suggest this...

This was our first trip to the island and we were looking for something different than we usually had at home. We did our due diligence and searched Yelp for someplace that was open, and possibly in our budget. This one had and average of 3.5 stars, so we decided that we'd give it a try.

The location was beautiful. It looked like a charming little home set in a marina. There was a dolphin sculpture outside and a little area of outdoor seating.

When we checked out the menu, it seemed a little pricey - $16 for a fish sandwich. But, we don't go exploring every day and decided to stay. I ordered the curried lobster salad, as it wasn't something that I'd had before. There was a good size mound of shredded lobster on the plate, surrounded by seemingly ripe fruit. The problem was that the lobster was totally overwhelmed by onion. I could taste the curry, but not really the lobster. For the price of the plate, $16 for a scoop of salad, the lobster should be the star of the dish. The fruit wasn't ripe, so I didn't eat it.

I tried my daughter's fish and chips. This is one of my favorite fish dishes, when properly done. What I look for is a tender, non-greasy filet, dipped in a beer batter. These were more like fingers of fish, in a heavy cornmeal coating. They weren't too greasy and nicely cooked, but the coating had an off flavor.

We decided to split a piece of key lime pie for dessert. Generally, this is one of my favorite pies. This one was just odd. It had a scorched flavor, but nothing looked scorched. We had the waitress take it back and remove it from the bill. To her credit, she was cheerful and prompt about it, with no argument.

Maybe we just hit them on a bad day, but I can't say that for sure. If you're looking for a nice ambiance and friendly service, this is a great place. If you're looking for really good food, you might...

I guess I’m just not a fan of restaurants that are considered “main stays” or an “institution” of the place they have been for years & years when there are so many better choices around. We showed up at Gramma Dots on a Friday afternoon for lunch, the place was packed, maybe 5 empty tables outside and a line of 20 people waiting to even put their name in, after asking the hostess twice about putting our name on the list and her telling us she’d get to us we decided to leave. A few days later on 4/11, we decided to go back and showed up a few minutes after their open time. There was a party of three older people who were waiting outside as well in the 80 degree sunshine. We went into the restaurant to see about getting a table and were asked to please wait outside until they brought out the host station. We stood there for about 5 min, the other party decided to go sit in the shade at a table on the patio while they waited. As the host brought out the station she told us she’d be right back, another 5 min went by in the heat. She walked out again with another waitress dropping the F bomb pretty loud and then said to us, “Thank you for waiting here unlike these other people over here (insert eye roll), we have to deal with people like this all day long, can you imagine! I’ll be right back.” Then she went back inside again. Honestly that comment about 3, 80 year old or so people waiting on concrete in the sweltering heat was enough to make me walk away but we were there so we decided to stay and eat, hoping it would change our minds about the place. We were finally seated at a table, ordered the fish and chips, they were completely lack luster, nothing special whatsoever and some coconut shrimp which while it was good was not the best I’ve ever had. I guess it just wasn’t our kind of place. We...