Gather Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in Santa Rosa Beach

Been here twice in the past week. Once for lunch and once for dinner. Very friendly service and casual, clean and comfortable environment.

For lunch, we had the fresh grilled fish (grouper) sandwich, truffle fries, and kids pita cheese pizza. All were great. The grouper sandwich was perfectly cooked (moist and flaky and not fishy at all), and well seasoned on ciabatta.

The truffle fries were pleasantly (surprisingly) crispy, not the flimsy homemade fries you get at a lot of places. The pizza was really tasty.

For dinner, we had the edamame, steamed wontons, mona lisa roll, spicy emerald roll, and pho bo. The edamame was perfectly cooked (just til soft, but with a little bite) and sprinkled with sea salt. The wontons were very tasty (the skin was slightly thick for my taste/chew preference).

The mona lisa roll was perfect - it was crusted with a delightfully thin batter - flash fried I assume, it is what I have always wanted in a battered roll, but never had until now. Thank you, the Gathering Spot!

The pho bo was not the quintessential pho you get at your favorite vietnamese restaurant - it seemed like it had 5 spice, which is not my favorite, but most people that like pho will definitely appreciate it.

The spicy emerald roll had a nice think chunk of tuna in the middle and was all that I had hoped for in a simple tuna roll, not a hint of fishyness :-) and not a speck of brown on the avocado that was layered on top.

Last but not least, a tenor saxophonist played along classic hits, and he was great entertainment and helped make the night really enjoyable for the little ones with us. I...

Gather is located in watercolor inn and has a wonderful atmosphere inside. Dress casual or dress up you’ll fit in! We went two separate times and had great waiters and service. The food was good, but a little on the salty/vinegar side. The blackened mahi fish sandwhich was good and the truffle fries with aioli were our absolute favorite thing there. The Asian inspired bowl was good, but quite salty. The strawberry shortcake dessert left something to be desired; the shortcake was two large dry biscuits (?) with very minimal whip cream and a few strawberries. For the price it was not worth it and better desserts around town. We also got a to-go snack around 8:30 pm one night which consisted of the garlic parm chicken wings and a ceasar wrap with fries- unfortunately these were not good. Perhaps because they were to-go? The wings were dried to a crisp we couldn’t even pull the skin off. The ceasar wrap lacked fresh greens, and the fries were.. just fries.

Overall we’d dine in again in the future when we’re back but might try...

Straight to the point- this place had really good food (sushi, oysters, burger, kid food) at terrific prices & a lovely outdoor ambiance. But … our food/drinks took a VERY long time, plus we got over charged for drinks we never got. We waited over an hr for our meals, and a salad took the longest which we had to ask for it to go, and several drink orders took forever or were forgotten about. To be fair - it did seem like they were very understaffed… during spring break. We were a party of 9 (6A, 3K) but we were the only party sitting outside and looked like only 3 other parties sitting inside. Could not figure out why it took so long-Maybe this restaurant serves whole hotel for room service? Had we known/expected longer wait times and not come famished, it could have been better. But would still go again for their food, as it was delicious. Maybe sit at bar so can see drinks being made. Hope they get some more...