Bounce Beach Pensacola — Restaurant in Santa Rosa Island

Enjoyed everything from Greeting at the front door to the seating on the patio. Very beautiful view and felt good sitting out here with the fans going. The ambiance was great. Our waitress kamille was great and very attentive. Gabe was great and definitely the vibe you need walking in the door. I had the spicy pasta with shrimp and it was delicious. We also had the spinach dip and the chips were freshly fried and homemade. The buffalo chicken wings were delicious. We tried the dry rub and didn’t really like it. The chef came out and apologized and redid them for the buffalo. Great job and the wings came out delicious. The bartenders on the main floor for happy hour were amazing (Christina and Heather P).

UPDATE: We came back for Happy Hour 3-5. Now this was a different experience. I would rate it ONE STAR AND TWO THUMBS DOWN 👎🏾 👎🏾. As I stated before THE MAIN FLOOR BARTENDERS Christina and Heather P WERE AMAZING. Happy Hour was not well prepared. They only serve happy hour items (2 items, $1 oysters and half off wine) on the main floor and we were told we could get the same service upstairs but clearly the communication between the managers and staff workers was not clear and the staff was not informed of that policy. The bartenders on the main floor were great. They took care of us. While the upper deck gave excuses as to why they refuse to serve happy hour food and drinks BUT you could order food? Made no sense as you can order oysters upstairs but not happy hour oysters??? If you weren’t serving food up there at all then it would definitely make sense but this was not the case. The manager upstairs DC was confrontational instead of explaining why happy hour wasn’t being served, he gave some weird excuse as to him serving one floor over the other and they are the deck that isn’t worried about having a good vibe up there because they know they are pretty much the best deck and the other floors need to be filled first????? Weird answer coming from a so called manager. Clearly he needs some training. All floors in this place should be equally divided with several option being provided to everyone. As a patron I’m not trying to be confrontational but give you advice as how to succeed but clearly he doesn’t take constructive criticism well. A good manager would had explained this in a professional manner maybe explain it as “this was their first time doing happy hour and as of now they are just testing the process and maybe say I apologize for the inconvenience and we will work on seeing if we can make some changes to this policy next time” because his terrible attitude about input that could make it better was unacceptable. We weren't the only patrons sent up there, the couple next to us also seen and heard him and stated they were sent up there too and that makes no sense. Fix this if you can or this may end up another business dead in the water on the beach as customer service is the key cause your food can be great but that’s not the only thing that will keep...

When we arrived, we were early for our reservation, so we were told we needed to wait, and we chose to do so at the bar.

We started at the bar. They were “out” of Prosecco, so I opted for Capt. Morgan and Diet Pepsi (they don’t have Coke products here!!). The soda was flat. To her credit, the bartender offered to fix it, but I chose to just finish my drink, because she was so sweet. My husband’s top shelf Long Island tea was great! When it was time for our reservation, we presented up front a second time and a younger girl hostess was there. She was clueless. Said we had “no reservation,” even though the other gal had seen our Open Table reservation when we first arrived. Very frustrating encounter with her.

Our family finally was shown to our table, and we sat down to dinner. Our waiter was a nice young man named Ari, and he was fantastic. Frankly, he was the ONLY highlight of this restaurant other than the bar staff—both of which were also very pleasant.

We ordered two appetizers. The Bang Bang shrimp, and the artichoke spinach dip. The Bang Bang Shrimp is not hardly battered, has a spicy sauce, and is piled with onions, and other ingredients, but it’s certainly nothing like what you expect at other restaurants. It was mediocre at best, but there was a large portion of it.

The artichoke shrimp duo arrived cold, and was supposed to be hot. Most of the accompanying potato chips were soggy and chewy, not crisp. We asked that it be sent back and heated. It came back a second time, looking like it had been put in the oven a few seconds; however, the inside was still barely tepid, not warm or certainly hot!

For dinner, one Son ordered the Parmesan Garlic oysters. They were cold & not cooked underneath, with melted cheese on top. He said they tasted “slimy.” This is someone that eats a lot of local oysters. These were simply inedible.

One of us ordered the “pizza” for dinner, and trust us, it’s better at a local Chuckee Cheese or 7-11 than here. Don’t order it.

One person ordered a burger. Of all of the entrees it was the most well cooked & flavorful entree; however, the curly fries for this & also with our two grandkids’ meals were inedible, because they had so much seasoned salt on them!

After all of this, I took a moment to ask for a manager. Someone identifying himself as the “kitchen manager” took it upon himself to ask me “what the problem is,” and would not identify the overall manager. I explained the issues we had, and he kept a smirk on his face, but never said one word of apology.

Frankly, it’s one of the WORST local meals we have ever had, & we won’t be back. We don’t appreciate the kitchen manager’s attitude, either. This restaurant will never make it, if you don’t listen to locals that frequent a LOT of restaurants and...

I originally sent this as an email to bounce 2 weeks ago, but never heard back:

Hello, my name is Charlie, and I just finished dining at Bounce. I wanted to share some feedback about our experience.

First, I want to acknowledge that I didn’t bring any of this up at the time. I was a guest of another family celebrating a birthday, and since they were hosting, I didn’t feel it was my place to speak up in the moment. That said, I’d like to share what happened in case it’s helpful.

Our party of six was excited to try Bounce. While the food took a bit longer than expected, the restaurant was busy and we assumed it was just a growing pain of a new business. A manager came by to apologize and mentioned there was an issue in the kitchen. He also offered to bring us the silverware which we had never received to begin with. A few mintes later, our waiter explained the pizza oven was the problem and it should be out in a couple minutes.

The food (minus the pizza) arrived before the silverware did about 5 minutes later, and unfortunately, the pizza didn’t come out for another 10+ minutes after that. None of us wanted to start eating while our friend waited, so the rest of our food sat and got cold.

When we did eat, there were mixed results. The tuna nachos, fries, and garlic broccoli were all great. But the Caesar wrap was oddly warm as if it had been under a heat lamp nd was only half eaten. My mahi was dry and bland for a blackened fish. Again, had I not been starving and a guest, I would have spoken up.

A few other issues stood out:

We had to pre-bus our own dishes while waiting for dessert as the finished plates were just sitting on the table. We had to repeatedly ask for drink refills. The dessert (which was excellent) arrived without silverware or enough plates. Our server had to make three separate trips just to get utensils and boxes. (At one point he went to get more plates and only brought enough for one half of the table)

I know this sounds like a long list, and to be honest, we were laughing by the end because it felt so chaotic. I had recommended Bounce to my friends, and I was honestly a bit embarrassed. While the pizza was comped, it felt like the bare minimum.

I run a charter boat business here on the island and have been recommending your restaurant to my guests based on the strong early buzz. In fact, I ran into one of my previous charter groups on the way out… guests I had recommended Bounce to. I truly hope their experience was better than ours.

I do hope this feedback is taken in the spirit it’s intended. We really liked the aesthetic and energy of Bounce, and I’d love to see it thrive. Hopefully, this helps contribute to...