The Big Tiki Lounge — Restaurant in Siesta Key

Update based on 1/3/24 response from Management:

I appreciate your response. What I left out in my original and brief review was that I found the bar-tender/bar-manager to be very condescending.

When I asked why there was a service charge on a simple 2 drink order, he walked all the way around the bar to point to the service charge sign that I was standing right next to (this seemed unnecessary). After reading the sign, I asked him politely to remove the service charge (per the sign's instructions). He then pointed back to the sign to state that the service charge was their/your policy. I then called out and pointed to the part which stated that the charge can be removed. He acknowledged the verbiage on the sign and he then walked to the register to get the bill. He then (again, and unnecessarily) walked all the way around the bar to give me the bill. But the bill had the total tab refunded vs just the service charge removed. The refund made no sense given that I still wanted to buy the drinks. I explained again that I still wanted to buy the drinks and to just remove the service charge. He proceeded to say, "it's not worth it, I don't want to walk around the bar again, you can just take it." (Again, what's with the walking around the bar thing? Maybe this is a power move?). By now, I'm very irritated and this is when I put cash on the bar and called it a day.

With all of that said, I really like your establishment and I think its a great addition to Siesta Key. But I felt the bar-tenders reaction and attitude towards my question and request to remove the service fee was very frustrating, condescending and needed to be called-out. I'm glad that you responded to my review so that I could take the time to articulate the entire situation vs just the negative feedback on your...

Update: 10/24/24

I wanted to provide more context and update my review, as I appreciated the response from the owner. As with any review, it’s about sharing a specific customer experience, and while I value the additional context the owner provided through their response, it unfortunately didn’t reflect the experience we had. My husband and I were excited to visit the Tiki Lounge with our 20-lb Pomsky, as it was advertised as dog-friendly online. We made the trip from Tampa on July 4th but were disappointed when we were turned away due to having our dog with us. I understand health regulations and don’t expect businesses to compromise them, but it was frustrating to see this conflicting information. Perhaps it was just a hectic night. The food and atmosphere looked great, and I’m disappointed we didn’t get to experience that side of it!

Original Review: Online said it was dog friendly but it was not! They wouldn’t let us even pass the entrance! Of course it is totally fine to not be dog friendly but just don’t promote you are online...

Ate here on first night on Siesta Key Sat May 3. We arrived early and onlya few people seated. We waited awhile to even be acknowledged and have our drink order taken. We could tell service was going to be slow so we placed our drink and food order as soon as waitress came around. We waited and didn't even have our drinks delivered. We sat there empty handed and finally our food and drinks came all at once 25 to 30 minutes later. We both ordered the coconut mojitos and 2 waters. We didn't receive the waters and waitress never came back around to even let her know. The coconut mojitos were watered down like they have been sitting at the bar for 10 minutes. Our fries and food was mostly cold. We once again had to wait to even pay our check to leave. We paid $16 per drink, expecting something that matched the price and we didn't the drink even watered down was pretty terrible. The food and drinks were overpriced. We paid close to $80 for two people, had terrible service and terrible drinks...