Saltaire Kitchen and Bar — Restaurant in Surfside Beach

Meh. A detailed review of my mediocre experience. Let’s start with the good. The bang bang shrimp were excellent. Every local seafood restaurant has their different version of this, and these shrimp were large, larger than most. The happy hour special for them was $11. Not super cheap, but not bad for quite a few large shrimp. My drink was OK, but too expensive for what it was. I got a Bahama mama, and it just tasted like a regular rum punch. My partner bartended for a long time, and he used to say if the bartender did not know the drink well, the rule was “rum, make it red.“ Here at the beach, it seems to be “rum, make it peach- colored.“ It’s just tricky, because my hometown has a lot of wonderful cocktail bars with great mixologists, and so they are squeezing their own limes etc. But here, everything is a mix. I was looking at their margarita, and it said “sour mix“ and if it’s $13 for a drink, you should have some sort of fresh squeezed lime in there, rather than just what seems like some rum and some juices. I even asked to see one of the juices that went in one of the specialty margaritas, and it was a premix. So I ordered the Bahama mama, thinking it may be a little bit more special, but all these rum punch drinks sort of bleed together. But usually you can get this level and type of drink for Eight or nine dollars, so for $13 I expected something more special. It wasn’t. It was boozy though.

And finally, although the setting was nice, it is still a hotel bar. Some hotel bars are destinations. I remember several hotel bars in Boston being real destinations for us. And this still feels like a hotel bar. A nice hotel bar, but it has a hotel bar vibe, something sort of Mediocre about it. Even how brightly lit it was it just felt a bit generic. I hope that makes sense. If I was staying at the hotel, it’s a nice bar, but I actually came here as a destination, and it’s not a destination bar. I hope that makes sense. The bartender also didn’t seem especially excited to serve me. So I would return for the bang bang shrimp, possibly, but not for the bar or the bartender...

WORSE SERVICE EVER We arrived on a Monday evening a little before 5. There were 4 other patrons in there who already had their food. There were 2 bartenders and 4 waitstaff.After being ignored for over 20 minutes my dad went to the bar to order. We watched as he was ignored while others who walked up after him right beside of him were able to submit their orders. Finally a man sitting at the bar told them they needed to take his order. We then waited another 20 minutes to get our drinks. Me and my sister told my dad let’s just leave, but he wanted to spend time with us and said this is a good place. Well it is not now, over an hour later we finished 4 simple drinks and an order of wings that contained 4 wings for 12 dollars. My dad was definitely discriminated against because of his age!! NEVER AGAIN WILL WE GO HERE OR STAY STAY....

This restaurant is attached to a Holiday Inn along the Atlantic. While waiting to check in, my wife and I ate lunch there and were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and the service by Stepanie. We shared a asian-style chicken stir fry that was one of the best Asian dishes we ever had. The food and service were so good that we came back for dinner, sharing a filet mignon tips appetizer and the fried grouper fish and chips. Again, the meal was tasty and fantastic, as was the service (didn't get name). The place was rocking as well as it was karoake night with a full crowd of locals singing great songs. So not only did we eat very well, we were thoroughly entertained. And guess what - we're going back for breakfast and...