AJ's Grayton Beach — Restaurant in Santa Rosa Beach

Our group of 6 went for the NYE dinner special of Prime Rib/Snow Crab. Arrived at 6:45pm & were seated in the bar area. The server was very welcoming & bubbly and the best part of our experience (she alone deserved 4 stars). She took our drink & dinner order promptly then returned nearly 15-20 minutes later to say that they were out of the special, left menus & had to ask another server to find our girl to reorder since it had been an additional 10-15 minutes without her returning! It was still early & out of the special?! (Someone didn't plan ahead!) The majority of us ordered the Mahi & when it came to the table, each piece was so small it was like a child's portion & over cooked, veggies were mushy & mashed potatoes were cold, and for $32. After dinner we went into the entertainment side only to find a handful of tables, most of which were occupied. Finally a party left & we were able to snag up their table. We waited for a waitress, but none were to be found. My husband went to the bar to order our drinks & ran into our server from dinner, asking if she could wait on us. She said, unfortunately the kitchen is closed & I'm not allowed to serve drinks, you'll need to go to the bar. On the busiest night of the year, no servers are scheduled to wait on your customers???? 😲 The same drink we ordered at dinner for $4, was now $10 and just in a different room! Why? Our table wasn't far from the door which was propped open. All customers sitting in that area were wearing coats because it was so cold & all ceiling fans were on! The hostess was outside by the door with a heater & I guarantee she was warmer than the customers inside! A fellow sitting next to us went to close the door & the sheriff standing there said they wanted to leave it open. The fellow said that everyone was really cold. The sheriff replied very rudely with "I don't give a F-+# how cold you are! Leave it open!" while pushing the door back. I was shocked! It wasn't some young kid, it was an older man probably in his 70s. No need to be so rude! The man returned to the table next to us, gathered his party & left. Needless to say, we followed shortly thereafter!! What we thought was going to be a pleasant dinner & entertainment experience to ring in the new year was quite the opposite!! Will NOT return here in the future. Especially if you don't take care of your paying customers! Very...

We had high hopes for this place due to all the good reviews but saying it was a let down is an understatement. I would give this place 0 stars if I could. We had a large party due to spring break and was told we could not split up the checks individually. Either one person had to put it all on their card or we could split it between two people. That’s not a huge deal bc I understand giving 13 separate checks is a lot. We said that was fine and continued with our order. When our food came out some sides on people’s dishes were missing (a hush puppy and coleslaw with the house sandwiches). We told our waitress, Jen, and she didn’t seem to want to take care of the problem. She said “it doesn’t come with that” even though the menu clearly said it did. Making a mistake is fine as long as she makes an effort to make it right. In addition, she brought out some sides that we didn’t even order. We assumed they came with the dish, but they didn’t and she charged us for them. When we received the bill at the end for over $500 we noticed there were multiple charges for things we never ordered. It seemed as though she was adding charges because the entire bill would be so large that we wouldn’t notice. We notified her about the false charges and she fixed it, but I felt as if we were getting scammed. We also noticed that a 20% tip was automatically added to the entire bill. It’s understandable to automatically charge for gratuity when you have such a large group, but because she knew she was going to get a good tip ($100) regardless of the service, the service sucked. We also think this was the reason she added extra sides to our bill that we didn’t order (we still paid for them). A more expensive bill meant a larger tip for her. The cherry on top is that they charged us a $15 fee for using a card. They make us pay for all 13 of us on one bill and expect people to have over $500 in cash? We got heavily scammed for average food. Do not go here unless you plan on spending an arm and a leg on okay food and...

Wow! Don’t go.

Let me start with the not so helpful hostess. She didn’t want to seat me without my husband and kids. I get it. The place wasn’t busy and there were plenty of seats open which was the reason we ended up here. Everything else in town was packed. I know why now.

Then, we sat outside with 2 other tables. Wow! The sewage smell would have made me lose my appetite if i wasn’t starving.

So, we order our food and it comes out. It wasn’t great especially for the price. It all sounded good but the filet was charred and the pasta flavorless. The kids chicken was so bad our daughter spit it out and refused to eat another bite.

After about 15 minutes of empty cups some waitress wandered over to our table asking if we were 203 and needing ketchup… no was not us. She asked everyone. No, not them either. I asked if she could have our waitress refill our drinks and she went on her way.

Then, two minutes later someone else walks over and hands us a fork. Again, we didn’t request but asked for a refill on our drinks.

Then about 5 minutes passes and a drink (1 drink) arrives. It’s a combination of the two we had asked to have refills for. Coke and tea… we got 1 half coke half tea. Wouldn’t you check your check and make sure to get the drinks right. Has anyone out there ever heard of a coke and tea drink together, I haven’t!

Thankfully, we got our refills after we had finished eating and somehow the kids drinks were refilled too so we just took them on the road.

I got the check and paid rather quickly. I thought I gave a decent tip for poor service and poor food. But then on the check i noticed they suggest way higher than 20% for tip & they charge a 3% fee for credit card. What restaurant of any good quality charges a CC service charge. It’s unreal.

We will never be back. I hope that ownership or management sees this as they should know what their customers are experiencing. Our waitress also had earbuds in. It would be hard for me to focus on my customers with something else demanding...