Surfing Deer — Restaurant in Santa Rosa Beach

Key takeaways from our visit here, which was highly recommended. The good, the bad, the ugly.

Timeliness & seating: wonderful and prompt. Sat us 5 minutes before our reserved time and in a lovely spot. Add 1 star.

Ambience: seated outside, water feature, lights, seating enjoyable. Add 1 star.

Food: decent. Nothing to write home about flavor wise. Prices higher relatively BUT with the categorization of the place, it’s on par with what we were expecting and was not a surprise whatsoever. Would gladly pay double what we did for a great experience. Add 1 star.

This is where the service comes in…. Which really makes or breaks the price justification. At this point, it could’ve been impeccable dining but the level of service failure would ultimately prevail and leave a bad taste in our mouth.

Service: Subtract 4 stars. Horrible. Our server greeted us, took our order for drinks & food, and did not speak another word until he placed the bill on the table. He offered in the beginning that if we didn’t like anything he’d happily remedy it, which is a funny offer when you then don’t check back on your table until it’s time to pay. Bussers/runners delivered our drinks, food, and cleared our table. Our server, John C., circled around us at other tables taking care of them but did not stop to check on us once. Not even a passing “how is everything?” When paying. I did note that one drink wasn’t to our liking while paying and he disappeared and plopped the bill down taking the $8 cocktail off the tab. It just was plain distasteful. I don’t care about taking it off the tab, but the initiative to mend our experience could have been entirely prevented if he would have just… checked on us. I attempted to speak with John prior to tipping because I never tip poorly (always give the benefit of the doubt and know tips are livelihood) and wanted to quickly assess why the ball was dropped so that it didn’t happen to others, but he brushed me off and told me not to tip him anything and walked away. Again, this was not an abrasive conversation on my end and I was very cognizant of his other tables he was tending to. He sent the manager over and we had a pleasant conversation that I hope results in action or training improvements. I insisted nothing be comp’d or remedied and still left John a 20% tip in hopes that he doesn’t give up on a table before even beginning their experience in the future. This was extremely unnecessary considering how terrible our service was. We as customers receiving an experience and he as a server receiving monetary reward and recognition could have BOTH benefited, (I genuinely LOVE making a server’s day when they kill it) but instead I’m here writing this review, angry, instead of reminiscing with my guests on our dinner.

All in all, I really want to see this place succeed and I think it IS succeeding, but they just need to weed out some of the bad eggs that are killing the customer experience and reinstate their expectations. This guy should not be representing your brand. It really is unfortunate as the couple I brought down here for the first time was given such an extremely poor example of the experience...

Made reservations for my 65th birthday. When we got there they sat us and then a few minutes later sat a couple next to us and then another group on the other side. We requested something from the bar before we got our drinks both of the groups on each side if us had received their drinks and even food before we got our drinks or asked if we wanted to order anything. We complain to the manager and he came over and took our appetizer order we still had not seen our waitress. After we had finished our appetizer and sat there for 20 minutes she finally came over and asked if we wanted to order. We ordered our food and waited another 40 minutes before we received it. Both of the groups beside us that were sat after us had finished their meal and were eating their dessert when we received our meal. We asked our waitress for new silverware and she asked what was wrong with what we had of which discarded on another plate and was Obviously used on the appetizer, and if she had been watching us she would’ve noticed that the fork had been dropped on the floor and picked it up and put it on the table to be removed. We had enough and asked to see the manager again because of the ridiculous service we had been trough and her attitude towards us. She began to berate us at the table in front of everyone saying how rude we had been and how unkind we had been to her that she had done nothing. That was the only point I agreed with her she had done nothing. As she walked away my wife and I started to discuss her attitude and the poor service we were receiving. She overheard our conversation and went and informed her manager that we were talking about her. He came to our table and asked us if we had been talking about her, we said yes in a private conversation that was none of her business. He then began to say that he was going to support her side of the story because she was upset and crying and didn’t care about how she had treated us. He asked us to leave the restaurant. I have owned restaurants in the past and realized right away that this assistant manager Hall Hartley only had his job because he must be related to someone that owns Hartley Restaurant Group. He certainly did not handle the situation correctly or did he bother to think about the impact of how it looked for him to treat patrons that way because a waitress was upset that we called her out on her poor performance. The Surfing Deer has good food and a nice atmosphere but this treatment of a patron is...

Our original reservation was for 5. At the last minute, one girl could not make it. When we got to restaurant I told them we were only going to have 4 now. Seated very promptly on the patio as requested, hostess was lovely! Atmosphere was very nice, we were looking forward to our meal so much! Our waitress came over to take our drink orders, and she asked if we were waiting for someone else, I said no, it had changed at the last minute. Her expression immediately turned angry and left without taking our drink orders. The waitress then pulled the hostess outside on the patio next to the door and was clearly berating her for seating us at the table (two pushed together) intended for five. Throughout their conversation our waitress continued to stare at us with occasionally pointing at us. She then proceeded to get her manager (I suppose manager) and the conversation went on with the waitress and manager staring and pointing at us. It was terribly uncomfortable. The manager came to our table and made us get up so she could separate the tables and move us to one of the small 4 person tables. Let me clarify this: 1) We did not give any hesitation or backlash when we were moving tables 2) I understand waiters/waitresses want to serve the maximum number patrons as possible. BUT the way the staff went about this was so wrong. They were so inappropriate with clearly talking about our table while staring and pointing at us. Once seated again, she came over made a comment similar to “Aw, looks like we’re at a smaller table now” and complimented my sister’s earrings in the most fake and disconcerting tone. Our meal was good, I wish I would’ve checked the menu before making the reservation because I did now find anything we loved (my fault completely), but made the reservation completely based on positive reviews and recommendations. My sister asked our waitress if one of the appetizers could be on her check, and she said they only do one check for a table. This was not stated on the menu which I thought was strange. Our bill came, we paid. The table next to us were then brought their bills. Yes bill’S’, one for each person at their table. We were given a free dessert for having to split tables-thank you? Overall, our experience made us feel so uncomfortable and unwanted, leading us to a conclusion of not giving our business or any recommendation to this...