New Pass Grill & Bait Shop — Restaurant in Sarasota

I think my favorite restaurant experience during our recent Florida vacation was the New Pass Grill & Bait Shop. My family and I stopped in for lunch after a visit to the nearby Mote Aquarium. This is a great spot for outdoor dining, with a desk and beach overlooking Sarasota Bay. Orders are placed at the counter and your name is announced over the speaker when your order is ready for pickup.

My wife ordered the New Pass Stuffed Tomato with chicken salad ($9.99). Choice of homemade chicken or tuna salad stuffed in a fresh ripe tomato served on a bed of lettuce, onions, pickles, and greek peppers. Once you start slicing this up, it is essentially a salad topped with chicken salad. The chicken salad was tasty and no dressing was required for the salad.

I ordered the chicken salad sub ($8.99) and onion rings ($4.99). As you can see in my photos, the servings are plentiful! The sub was really good, and again a quality traditional chicken salad with celery and mayo. Our kids enjoyed the grilled cheese with fries ($6.99).

The food at New Pass Grill & Bait Shop is simple, but serving sizes are large, and the view is spectacular....

The view is terrific, the lobster bisque was good, everything else was worse. The lobster bisque, fried clams, grouper sandwich and a bottle of water was $57 before a tip. The tip got us our food in just a short 45 minutes. The fried clams were average at best and the fresh grouper sandwich, that may have been fresh once in its life but certainly not in the last month. The sandwich didn’t have the lettuce and tomato nor did they include the Cole slaw. It was hardly seasoned and mushy. I suspect about the same thing I can buy at Aldi or Costco. I asked for a manager and none was working today. I recommended saving yourself time, effort, money and emotion and go elsewhere.

Posted Reply on 12/10/24: Just to be transparent for anyone reading this, I made my order at about 1:05PM, sat down for a little over 15 minutes and then hovered near the food pick up area (shade) for about a half an hour, getting my food at 1:49PM. To the owner, I don’t recommend publicly calling a customer a liar; thanks for the offer but keep your...

I always stop here for my bait for the day. Most of the guys in the baitshop are very friendly and helpful but there is one guy (curly grey haired gentleman id guess late 40 to mid 50s) i cant remember his name. But he is a jerk. Ive dealt with him several times over 4 years. But i love the food and most of the staff as well as the prime location for eating a great lunch. That being said the last time i was there feb 2018 the young ladies at the food counter were very rude as well. I attempted to place a lunch order 3 minutes before they transitioned from breakfast and she was very rude and told me i had to come back later to re place my order instead of just wroiting it down and getting to it when they could. I hope this isnt a growing trend with this place ive made it a point to visit every time i vacation in the area and ive recommended to many people. Side note the bait shop side is open much earlier than what is stated on google. Usually someone around by 530 or 6 in the morning. But the restaurant hours...