Hooters — Restaurant in Santa Rosa Island

The experience was horrible. We are visiting from another state and my brother-in-law has never been to Hooters. We brought him to this Hooters since Hooters is based in Florida. Our server did not get our order right I sent my food back multiple times she claimed she understood what I was saying when she asked how to correct it but than continued to bring it back incorrectly. She forgot some of our food and than when we told her how to split the check, she brought the checks back incorrectly. It seems like she was zoned out and did not care to service. I was polite to her. I was kind to her. My family was kind to her. I thanked her repeatedly because we do have children so I didn’t want her to feel overstimulated. When I asked to speak to the manager because she continued to messed up she had a problem with that. The manager came he didn’t say anything. He just asked what goes on what check he didn’t apologize for her behavior. He didn’t apologize for her mess up. He did not have any empathy or care for the bad service a customer behind us, went to our server and gave her money and said here don’t worry about them And handed her money because of her horrible experience with us. While I’m waiting for my change instead of interacting with the server, I go to the bartender who had my money in her hands and asked her could I please have my change so I could leave Jordan the server we had snatched my money from the bartender and wrapped it in her Hand and would not give me my money until I started yelling at her to give me my money she was yelling at me to get out of her restaurant. I asked for the manager again and I asked for my receipt so I can make sure my change was correct!. He did not try to diffuse the situation. When I called to speak with the manager to get my receipt information, he told me to get the F off of his phone that I caused a scene in his restaurant. I told him to check the cameras and to speak to the bartender because the bartender had my money and I went to the bartender to ask for the money to not speak to the server, but the server snatched my money from the bartender’s hand, wrapped it in her own hand and refused to give it to me when it was my change. I told the general manager this and he told me to get the F off of his phone and to call corporate and he hung up in my face when I told him you’re the general manager I’m a customer I’m explaining to you what happened? You can ask your bartender the service snatched the money out the bartender’s hand, and I had to snatch it back because she didn’t like that I was asking my brother how did she have a horrible experience with us when we were the ones who had a horrible experience with her and she told me what b word ? what did you say? So I’m guessing y’all think that’s OK to speak to customers that way y’all think it’s OK to mess up an order and laugh about it and be rude to a customer. Who’s paying. You work for tips I Tip well we were not rude to her. We weren’t disrespectful to her or anyone in that restaurant until she and another customer became disrespectful. This is actually not OK she wouldn’t wanna be treated that way and neither would the manager. Also, the food was really...

Terrible service, but at least the manager comped half the bill. Details below. Let me preface all of this by saying that it was mid afternoon, and they were at about half capacity ... so, not really busy:

The visits starts with my wife and I being seated on the patio looking out over the beach. After about 10 minutes the hostess seats another couple at the table next to us. After 5 more minutes a waitress, who we'll call J., stops by the other couple's table, takes their order, and walks away. She comes back about 5 minutes later with their drinks then stops at our table and asks "have you been helped?", which confuses me because we're seated in HER area. No other servers going into this area. Obviously if SHE hasn't helped us, we haven't been helped.

So, she finally takes our order and leaves. About 10 minutes later the couple next to us (who didn't arrive until 10 minutes after we arrived) gets their food. We just finally got our drinks. 10 more minutes go by and we still don't have any food. Not our appetizer, not our entrees. I stop the waitress as she's walking by again and ask her about our food. She says she'll go check on it. 10 minutes later she finally comes back to say it's almost ready. The fact that now our order is 20 minutes late, and we don't even have an appetizer, this tells me she didn't even submit our order.

10 more minutes go by, and she comes out with our 2 entrees ... no appetizer. The food is cold, but I don't send it back because I've been super hungry since I sat down, and it's about 50 minutes into my visit. 5 minutes later we get our appetizer. Short of spitting in the food, there really wasn't much more she could do to provide bad service.

So we eat the cold food just because we're too hungry to wait for a re-do, not that we wanted to risk getting the food spat in either. Once we were done eating, I requested a manager and explained to him how we were treated during our visit. He agreed it wasn't right and cut our bill in half.

J. processed our payment, and when she came back, she still gave no apology for her bad service, and tried to throw the guys in the kitchen under the bus by saying "I wish they would have cooked your food faster." Yeah, and I wish you had taken our order sooner, and actually submitted it to the kitchen when we placed the order. In the end she took no responsibility and didn't appear to learn anything from this experience.

I've been reading more comments on this board, and it seems that my experience is just par for the course. I don't recommend this location. There are lots of other options in the area. Go to...

My wife and I came in and were seated promptly. The hostess was very nice. However, we were at our table for approximately 10-15 min and nobody came by to introduce themselves or to take our drink order, even though it was not busy and a few of the waitresses were just standing around. It was when I saw a couple of large parties of 10-15 enter that I became concerned that our order and subsequent meal was going to be delayed. I took it upon myself to change my seating area to get more attention. When that caught the servers attention, they seemed to have a problem with that, I asked to speak with a manager, and their silence seemed to indicate that must be a problem, so my wife and I decide to take our hard earned money elsewhere. We were approached by Michael, the Manager on Duty, literally 20' on the boardwalk outside the restaurant. He was engaged and really wanted to know what had happened. We explained, Michael was sincere, polite and asked that we give him a chance to make this right. I'll admit, I was still pissed, but my wife said, "Let's try again." So we did. Michael assigned Deena, one of his best servers to our table...she was outstanding. Both checked on us frequently and entirely changed my outlook, my wife and I had a very enjoyable dining experience. I asked Michael for his supervisor contact info because I wanted to note his and Deena's performance. Both were very professional, sincere and engaging. I'm a retired Marine LtCol, and former Commander. I fully appreciate that things can go wrong at the best organizations, it happens. The mark of a great organization with well trained people and lead by great leaders is how they respond. Michael knew what his role was as a supervisor, to make things right and get things back on track. Deena was keenly aware of her role and worked with Michael to overcome a bad experience for a customer. What a great team. I would have no reservations on recommending this Hooters establishment because of their professional efforts. The highest praise I can give them is that they would've made great Marines! (This was what I sent Michael and Deena's supervisors). Never forget, if you have a great experience, it's great to note on Google....but take a moment and let the server's and manager's "bosses" know...it could get them a pay raise....you can make a big difference in...