Barry's Bistro Bar & Grill South Padre Island — Restaurant in South Padre Island

Tragic. 0/10 would never recommend. Walking in for our first dinner, I thought “wow it’s empty maybe we will get our food quickly.” How very wrong I was First dinner was on the inclusive meal plan, which has almost no options (only 8 main courses), and of the few none are gluten free, so if you need gluten free food and are on the inclusive meal plan you are screwed. It took an incredibly long time to get served even in an almost empty restaurant, but once we did it was disappointing. The fried chicken was greasy and oily and not a golden brown like you would expect. The corn was from a frozen bag you would find at the grocery store along with the fries which were not cooked/reheated all the way and tasted like mush. The mashed potatoes were instant mashed potatoes. The overall presentation looked terrible as it was a plate of only yellow, and needed more variation in color. The burgers were also disappointing. At breakfast the next morning, unless you like eggs or cereal you are going to need to find somewhere else because that’s just about all they offer. At lunch we went to their food cart by the beach. The tacos were decent, but the pepper jack cream and chips was surprise surprise, another disappointment. The chips were stale, and while the cream was decent, the corn in it was the same mushy corn from a frozen bag as before. Skipped going to Barry’s International Disappointment for dinner again to save ourselves from the horror. Breakfast the next day was the same case as before. Unfortunately we had to go to lunch there again as it was most convenient, but this time in the indoor restaurant where dinner is served. The inclusive menu is the same tiny menu as it is for dinner. Again the restaurant was almost empty with only 2 other tables eating, and it took ages for a server to even come for us to order drinks. I’ve come to the conclusion the restaurant is empty because nobody wants to punish themselves by eating here. Once again Barry’s had let us down with more Burger King-like burgers and limp fries from the freezer isle. The amount of flies in the dinning area was also an irritation. Overall, it’s safe to say that we will try our best to not need to eat at Barry’s anymore. It’s a shame that a restaurant in the hotel, designed to be convenient for the customers not only takes an incredibly long time to bring food despite the place being desolate, but the quality of the food is horrific. You are much better off going pretty much anywhere else for food, such as the PadreRita Grill, where we went for dinner to escape Barry’s culinary terror, and had excellent food including an extensive gluten free and vegan menu. If whoever Barry is is still alive, Im sure he is not too impressed with this quality because I certainly would not want my name to be on such culinary abominations as the ones served. Its as if the chefs have the anti-Midas touch where instead of turning things into gold, they turn food into disasters. Truely disappointing. Would not recommend. If I could I would leave a 0 star rating. Id rather try and use photosynthesis than try to eat any more of their “food”. On a scale of Dirt - Gordon Ramsey’s Pub & Grill, this would be...

It wouldn’t let me give less than one star.

I came her the first night at the hotel (staying upstairs, drove all day, didn’t want to drive anymore…etc.) thought it was a fluke that I had to wait almost 45 minutes to order and had to flag someone down multiple times just to do that. Then it took probably another 45+ to get my drink. I ordered appetizers which came out another almost hour later as they finally brought chips and salsa I had to ask for, the entrees and the dessert we were going to get. While waiting we made friends with the neighboring table who was finishing their food as we sat down and they then had to wait till after we finally got our food just to pay!! They were definitely more patient than I would have been—I would have just left after waiting half as long to pay after waiting so long for food, I only waited as long as I did because my wife and I were having good conversation and seriously didn’t want to be in a car anymore. I (regrettably) tried them again for just queso and a margarita thinking that’s a hard combo to mess up. Well I couldn’t have been more wrong. Took forever to order, got my drink wrong and then when I asked for it to be put on my room they said ok and disappeared. My queso was cold by the time I finally found someone. I like going to On The Border back home and I honestly never want to go to OTB anywhere after how bad these two...

Sat at the bar to have dinner with my wife on the Saturday evening before New Year’s, things didn’t look too busy but it took a few minutes to get menus (and the lead bartender didn’t seem pleased that we asked for them). We ordered a couple of beers (big fishbowl glasses) and he warmed up after that, though it took another few minutes to get food menus.

I tried to order the enchiladas, but the barkeep talked me out of it, saying that since this location changed from “On the Border,” the enchiladas weren’t that good anymore. He talked me into the Washington St. burger, which was pretty much a hamburger with three slices of lunchmeat ham on top: it was alright, nothing special. My wife had the quesadilla, and it was average.

We ordered three beers between us, and I noticed that the 5x5 Vaquero (local option) tasted a little funky, like either the keg was old or the lines needed to be cleaned. The Negra Modelo I ordered after tasted fine.

At a beach location like this, I was pretty happy that the bill came to around $50 for three beers and two meals. This wasn’t anything special, and I much preferred this place when it was On the Border, but the price was right. One thing to note: the bar is next to the hotel lobby, and there was some free-range parenting going on, with two little kids running around the bar with no supervision, almost colliding with a server...