Locals Dockside — Restaurant in St. Marys

This is a fish house, so the sparse, casual decor and atmosphere reflect that. Locals Dockside's ambiance is typical of a coastal, dockside eatery to refuel and have cocktails after spending all day sailing. If you're looking for fancy and elegant, you will not find it at Locals Dockside, but you will find friendly, talkative clientele and a warm, efficient staff. Where Locals Dockside really shines is the seafood.

I am from New England. Exceptional seafood is in our wheelhouse, so I'm picky. I moved to Atlanta in 1996 and in all that time I haven't had a satisfactory lobster dinner down here. That was until yesterday evening. We came to St. Mary's, took the ferry and spent the day on Cumberland Island, then dined immediately after returning, still in our hiking clothes, at Locals Dockside. I wasn't going to drive five hours down to the water and not have seafood.

For appetizers we had Fried Calamari and Bacon Wrapped Scallops. The calamari was fried to golden perfection and the bacon and scallops were both perfectly cooked. Scallops specifically are easy to overcook and make rubbery, but these were delightful and delicately seasoned. Both our appetizers were just very light, but generous portions.

My husband and mother both had Catch of the Day, which was Snapper. Hubby had it grilled, Mom had it blackened, both ways were excellent. I sampled both of their fish dinners. My husband loved the Loaded Baked Potato side. I had the Lobster Tail Dinner with Mac & Cheese and Steamed Lightly Salted, Buttered Asparagus. Their mac & cheese is better than average and the asparagus wasn't overcooked so that pleased me. The lobster tails, two lobster tails!, we're just divine! They were buttery, delicately cooked, lightly herbed. I didn't even need to use additional drawn butter. I was very impressed and that's not easy. So cheers to Locals Dockside. They were worth the drive. I will...

We have eaten at this place twice. The first time the food was pretty good, but the waitress we had was not. She took forever to bring our drinks, then other people were getting their food that came after us. Not once did she check on us to see if we needed anything else.

We thought we would give it another try since we understand that wait staff can have an off day! The second time, when we arrived they did not have any menus to give us. They said they were out, which was funny considering that only 4 tables inside had people and only 3 outside. Once we got the menus, I ordered grilled shrimp, seasonal vegetables and coleslaw and had a sprite to drink. The waitress got the drink order pretty quick but our meal took over an hour to come to our table. They were not busy when we got there. For the seasonal vegetables, which I have had before, was asparagus. When I asked her about it she said that was the only vegetable they had. My coleslaw was bad, actually bad. It tasted as it it had spoiled. When the waitress stopped by just as they brought out the food I told her the coleslaw was bad. She asked if I wanted something else and I declined. On my plate both the asparagus and the grilled shrimp had so much pepper on them that I literately could not eat it. My husbands asparagus and coleslaw was the same. His smothered chicken he got was also loaded with pepper but he was able to eat his. Our waitress did not come back to our table after the first time when they brought out our food. She never refilled my drink or even brought our check to to the table. We had to go to the register and ask for it, then she acted as if we were bothering her.

We gave this place two shots, there will not be a third and someone please take that pepper away...

My husband and I stopped here for lunch. The food was pretty good.. the service wasn't great. We walked in the door and the layout is kind of weird. There is a seating area with nothing saying to keep walking to be seated. Another family was confused because they were sitting and then followed after us when they realized you had to keep walking. We got to the front area and the servers were carrying on a conversation and after about 3 minutes of standing there they finally asked how many was in our party. We got seated and it took about another 10 minutes to even order drinks. They weren't incredibly busy either. We decided to order our food and drinks at the same time to make sure we didn't have the same issue ordering food. We got our app but another server had to come to our table and ask where our drinks were. She went and got them because our server didn't bring them. I ordered a side salad with my meal and they never brought it. We overheard the table behind us also say they never got there salad. A father and son got seated in front of us.. also took them forever to get there drinks. They waited so long to order that they ended up leaving cash on the table and walking out. It didn't appear anyone noticed because no one went to the table after they left. It appeared the people that sat outside had very good attention to them but inside was lacking quite a bit. We also asked for togo teas and they were way different than the teas we got served at the table. I didn't even take mine because it didn't taste right. The food was good but they need to do better on...