Grayton Seafood — Restaurant in Santa Rosa Beach

Can’t speak to the food - didn’t make it that far. Intended to eat with my family - parents, brother, sister, their spouses, and 4 kids. We arrive at 5:45, surprisingly no wait. No host is around, but a few servers are around. They say we’ll clear this table for you right here. As I’m standing there, another party shows up just behind me, and I see the server write their name down on the list and then continue clearing our table. The servers I spoke with continue to clear the table and then take care of other guests in other parts of the restaurant. It’s a tight space, so they were around the corner. The “owner” Tabitha (I doubt it actually was) then shows up and starts bossing the servers around but not actually doing anything to help. She then walks over to the list, which I’m not on, and calls the name of the party that showed up behind me, and proceeds to seat that party at the table that had just been cleared for us. I step in and say, “hey we were here first, they said that was our table.” I wasn’t upset...yet - just making sure that things were handled fairly, the way most people want to be treated. She then told me “we do things with love around here - I don’t want to hear that.”

Whoa. I’m an adult, a licensed professional engineer, and worker in the public service sector - I’m no stranger to being thick skinned, letting things slide, taking a rough comment in stride. However, as a customer in this situation whose party is about to drop $300 minimum on dinner and be out pretty quickly, I’m not used to someone coming at me with claws out like that. She then continues to seat the other group before us, continues to not listen to us, and when the original server tried to explain what had happened, she physically grabbed the server by the shoulders, told her “I have this under control” and “shoved” the server away. She then keeps us dangling for another 10 minutes before telling us it will be about 25 minutes before we are seated. The whole time, she kept saying demeaning things like “that’s not how we do things here”, “don’t be upset we’ll take care of you guys”, and “it’s just dinner - why the rush?”

To me, the raw part of this wasn’t that someone got seated before us - this happens all the time, people make mistakes. But being treated like that, never apologized to, and offered no amends other than “you just wasted 30 minutes of your time” stung. My wife is extremely anti-confrontational, but this incident, which she only spectated, made her more upset than I’ve ever seen her.

My sister-in-law whose worked in restaurants previously, said she broke the rule of “LAST”. Listen, Apologize, Solutions, Thanks. This is something I don’t think Tabitha has been trained in. To be fair, I’m sure in a different scenario, we might have enjoyed the restaurant, and might have thought differently of Tabitha, who probably is competent and managing operations. But we definitely saw a lack of customer handling skills in her tonight. I hope they get it worked out - it seemed like they had some good servers that I’d hate to see her out of a job if the restaurant goes under.

I went to this restaurant at the recommendation of an associate - Deann Henderson, who has since withdrawn that...

This was the worst experience I have ever had at a restaurant. First off, we made a reservation for 10 people a month in advance, and when we arrived they had no record of our reservation. I even showed them the text message showing the confirmation of our reservation.

Once seated, we ordered our drinks and food. After about 30 minutes, 3 of our entrees came to the table. We expected the remaining entrees to come out promptly, however, no one came to our table within a span of 20 minutes with our other entrees. At this time, all 3 people who received their entrees were finished. When our server finally came back to our table, we brought to his attention that no one else has received their entrees, and he said he would check on it. Around 20 to 30 minutes later, no one still received their entrees. At this point, we asked that they cancel the remaining entrees, and they insisted that they could box it up quickly and send it with us. After around 15 to 20 minutes no one checked in with us or updated us on the entrees so we had to go up to the hostess to check again. During this entire visit and as bad as this experience was, you would think that a manager or the owner would come to the table and apologize, but we never once saw a manager and they left it up to the server to handle everything.

Once we finally received our missing entrees, we were ready to just get the tickets and go, and we had specified prior to our server how the checks were supposed to be split. They sent another waitress that we had not seen to bring the check to the table and everything was together and nothing was split.

They did comp the entrees that were late, however I paid $100+ for my two entrees, and could not enjoy them as my whole party could only complain about this experience. It was also not enjoyable for the only 3 who received their food while the other 7 of the party spent the dinner wondering where their food was.

I have had only a few other dining experiences like this, and I never leave bad reviews. But in those other experiences, management has been apologetic and at least checked in on us. I felt bad that the server had to deal with this all by themselves, and management should have stepped in on this situation.

I have visited this restaurant one other time before and did have a good experience, but I will not be back after our...

Do not miss this place! Top tier customer service and dining experience.

You've probably already read how amazing the food, service and atmosphere is at Grayton Seafood Co. I won't labor those areas too much as my wife and I enjoyed every aspect of them ourselves. My review will focus on some of the negative COVID-related reviews and comments that GSC has received.

Most of us are well aware of the lax COVID-19 rules in Florida - leaving protocols up to business owners to implement what is right for them. During our trip to Seacrest, my wife and I only ate at restaurants with open-air outdoor seating and staff masking requirements. As soon as we saw some of the reviews of GSC and their lack of required staff masking, we were worried...and almost cancelled our reservation. Instead, I wanted to give them a chance, so I called GSC to express my concerns and see what they could, or would, do about them.

I was very surprised when Tabitha, the owner, answered the phone. She listened to my concerns - my wife is 6 months pregnant and we are trying to be extra careful - and she was very pleasant and determined to meet our needs. First, she offered to sit us in a totally separate area from the other diners. It was great, we were far enough away from everyone to feel safe, but still close enough to enjoy the atmosphere and live music. Second, she offered to have any bussers or servers who would be delivering food wear masks, and they did. Lastly, the server and anyone not wearing a mask who was assisting us would stay well over 6 feet away to keep distance. I was very impressed with her understanding of the severity of the pandemic, and willingness to go above and beyond to help my wife and I feel safe and welcomed.

Again, do not miss this place. If you have concerns with their health protocols, call ahead and they will take care of you. Once you're there, sit back and enjoy the awesome food, music, and time...