Duke's Retired Surfers Island Bar — Restaurant in Tampa

My friends, family and I frequent Hula Bay and Dukes often, in fact I held a huge Birthday party and my best friend even held her engagement party here. Each of us spending thousands each. This weekend our usual group of 10 decided to meet for an early dinner together. Our waiter was Erick. Within the first 15 minutes we quickly learned Erick was going to be rude and non existent. Service was slow and Eric was clearly looking for a fight. My daughter was hungry and so I ordered her some chicken tenders and fries ahead of everyone else’s meals knowing the service was so slow already. Eric informed me there was no chicken tenders and fries that I had to get it off the appetizer menu to which I asked him isn’t there chicken tenders and fries on the children’s menu? He instantly said in a nasty tone “not for someone her age” I explained to him my daughter was 11 years old, but he felt she looked 16 and did not want to give her a kids meal, he said he would have to explain to his manager why he serving over age, I explained to him that she was 11 and I could provide her birth certificate to prove it, but that I felt he was being very rude just assuming the age of my daughter and being so nasty about it. He simply could have asked me her date of birth. He rolled his eyes at me, clearly not believing she was and said to me “No, he was being straight forward not rude and that they make no money off kid meals” After this, I knew I was stuck with him as the waiter so I tried to be nice however multiple times throughout the dinner he was rude to multiple people in our party. He never brought the ranch we asked for, he never brought my refill on my drink that I ordered three more times, in fact, I only had one drink in two hours served to me. When someone else asked for their drink, they waited 30 minutes for, he yelled at them saying I brought the drink out and no one claimed it but what really happened is he brought out Mojito and a margarita. When it was time to pay the checks he said he would not split up the check, That their policy to never split checks , seeming all the times we’ve been there we knew this was not true and finally after all the disrespect rudeness and neglect asked for a manager to which he told us he would get her. He came by saying he was coming, and when we asked him about this he screamed yelling. I don’t appreciate being called a liar, no one was calling him a liar. We spoke to the manager who did apologize, he told us multiple people complain about him and the manager was very nice and even sent someone else over to do our checks however we were stuck with 20% gratuity which we typically pay 25% all of us but that evening we were only gonna pay maybe 10 or 15% for the horrible horrible service which he did not even deserve that on our huge check for 10 people, there was no discount for the food we complained about which a lot of the food was good, but some of it was not, and we told the manager and it was not taken off the bill nor was anything done about the horrific experience. I guess another establishment will be hanging our business from now on. An establishment for respect of its hard...

On the water and off the road, possibly a wee bit hard to find. Our GPS sighed and almost gave up. But we finally found it. Poor Siri...

Once you get there you have a left/right chance of going to Hula Bay or Duke's. We made the 'right' choice and went to Duke's. I am quite familiar with this restaurant's namesake, Duke Kahanamoku. He was the original Hawaiian surfing icon. As a former surfer myself, growing up on the East Coast of Florida near Cocoa Beach, I was 'immersed' in surfing and all the cool terms, like wahine, kahuna, gremmy. Fond but distant memories, like my surfer blonde hair!

And now, ain't I the lucky dude, hanging out with my Fab One and two other ladies! Cha! One of these girls just flew in from California(her arms were really tired!). We had to show her how Florida does seafood and sea air!

Our Duke's Diva, our Deliverer of Delightful Delicacies, was none other than the world famous Brianna! (Well, she's partially famous, in some part of the world???). Brianna was pretty, pretty upbeat, fun and always there when we needed her! Thank you for your service.....

I was so busy cracking jokes, having fun and people/water watching, it's amazing I actually remember anything about the food. But, the trick here is, it was good and made quite an impression on all of us!

California Flyer and my Fab Femaleness both ordered The Shrimp Boat. Not the rusty ramshackle kind that Forrest Gump bought! No, their menu choice was a mound of fried Shrimp breaded to order and flash fried with Duke's Famous Fries, Cocktail Sauce, Slaw and Cheese Bread. They LOVED the shrimp! It was delicious, lots of flavor and plenty of it. They both skipped the Fries and got asparagus, which they said was a little overcooked, soggy, bland and flavorless. (always an honest review!)...

Female #3, named Brandy, she started out with the Molten Martini. NOT the drinkable kind, mind you. This is shrimp with a kick! Think Boom! Boom Shrimp! (the name was changed to protect the innocent!). She received a martini looking vessel filled with crispy shrimp that were drenched with Duke's volcano sauce. We all tried them and they were GOOD! We agreed these were the BEST version of this dish we'd had! Go Duke's! #3 Brandy went on to get the Hula Bay Bowl with shrimp, which she really enjoyed.

Oh yeah! Let me mention that Cheese Bread here. Imagine a cheese infused, soft and gooey good piece of better-than-garlic-bread bread! Your taste buds will rock with that buttery creamy oh-so-sexy bit of manna in your mouth! Yum to da Yum! Yeah!

I was asked to mention one little negative. I'm an unsweet tea drinker, but my cooing companions were enjoying several varieties of fruit of the vine wine. They all felt the per glass wine prices were a bit high. One glass of Ruffino Pinot Grigio was $8. California Girl had the house Cab at $12 per glass. Wow!?

All in all, a successful evening with plenty of happy smiling faces! Even without the...

A friend and I saw the advertisement for “Hula Bay” on the TampaBay TikTok. So we decided to check it out for lunch. It seems Hula Bay is still in the construction process so they direct you to Duke’s Retired Surfer Bar and Grill, & as the name suggests this place should retire and close. Only nice thing about it was the scenery and the manager on duty. My friend and I ordered food, our waiter was very bland with offering suggestions or selling the menu. Then she placed a Hula Bay happy hour menu on the table and I had questions about things on that menu to which she blatantly said sorry this menu is very dated so such and such items aren’t even offered and then pointed to Duke’s happy hour menu. I decided on bacon and cheese sliders, my friend did fish and chips. My sliders were cold, and my friend’s meal was heat hot. I brought this to our servers attention and asked her was it possible to get fresh one’s she took those back and returned them following what I would assume was the kitchen air frying or microwaving them. They didn’t even have the common sense or decency to place the toothpick back into the same hole on the bun where I removed it...