Bonefish Grill — Restaurant in Trinity

We went here as a fairly small party of five to celebrate my girlfriend’s birthday. The restaurant was mostly empty when we dined in and our server Tommy came over and introduced himself. I am surprised other reviews mention he is a good server because he missed the mark on many occasions throughout our brunch and was outright rude at other times. I know because I have worked in the industry myself. A person in my party asked for recommendations for a dish containing eggs for brunch and he rudely said that “it says it right there on the menu”. Personally, I thought this was rude but I brushed this off. I assumed maybe he was just having an off day which is okay. Tommy proceeded to take our orders and it didn’t seem like he was very knowledgeable about the menu considering after I ordered the burger and French toast sticks he said that it would come with potatoes which it didn’t. I later reread the menu on my own and it does not come with fries, why not just tell me this? I ordered the burger medium rare and another person in my party ordered a burger well done. My burger came out well done and it was on the other person’s plate that ordered a burger in my party. I only know this because the other person replaced his French toast sticks with fries and didn’t want any vegetables on the burger but both came out well done and the one with no vegetables came on the plate with French toast sticks. The other person also ordered double fries with his burger and only received one side of fries. This was honestly not a big deal and the food actually tasted great so we didn’t say anything, but what came next is what really made the experience a bad one. Our elderly grandmother had ordered the bang bang shrimp tacos and the shrimp still had the tails and shell attached. Now I would understand if it was shrimp that didn’t come in a taco that you take a bite of but these shrimp are fried already and supposed to be ready to eat in a taco. I have had this same dish at another location in Tampa; it was excellent and did not come out with shell still on the shrimp. We tell Tommy about this and the first thing he says is that’s not a shell and begins to argue with us. His attitude at this point had pretty much ruined the birthday brunch. The other person in my party had seen enough and just politely asked him to please just change it to chicken and he took the plate back to the kitchen, walked away and brought back the chicken tacos after a couple of minutes. He should have just done that from the jump. The girls food running and refilling water were very polite and brought to go boxes when we needed them. I am not the type of person to demand a lot from service workers or a restaurant in general, I don’t like to call people out, but I have worked in this industry and when it is a special occasion you try and do your best and make that occasion special for those guests. As a restaurant all you have is your food and the people who work for you to represent your brand. Unfortunately, Tommy could not seem to grasp that...

Candace took care of us last time we were here. Billy took care of us and 3 family members tonight. For happy hour, I was the only one who ordered a discounted drink - a $5 blueberry martini. My first! It was like drinking dessert.

Billy was good, but had too many tables. We got 4 setups, not 5. We asked for a 5th, and butter for the bread, but he did not return. He was really hustling for other patrons. When I went to the bar, Candace got the butter & setup we needed. Billy came by with more butter (no set up), and apologized for bringing it so late AND the time our food was taking. We could tell he and the entire restaurant was busy. We'd been waiting for almost an hour for our entrees. Bread was good. Too good! We filled up on it.

A young woman brought out our food in two quick shifts, and Billy came by to be sure everything was fine. It was. He refilled our drinks. My mahi mahi was dry, but the delicious whipped potatoes, vinegar based coleslaw, and lemon butter made it better. Husband & family member had bang bang shrimp with small Caesar salads. They were VERY satisfied with their choices. Other family members had broccoli, & whipped potatoes with rainbow trout for one and the sirloin steak for the other. Sirloin was perfect. The rainbow trout was okay.

When it came time to pay, we pulled out our 6 bonus gift cards. We had 3 checks, and due to small print, could only use 3 of them. That was okay. We'll use the other 3 next time we go out. As we left, at 6:40, it was busier than when we arrived at 5. It was a frantic pace for a great staff. We tipped more than 20% - Candace, too!

I should have paid with my regular gift card - the one I bought which earned me my 2 $10 bonus gift cards. But I paid with my American Express card. Which I left behind. An alert on my phone, 26 minutes later to a new charge at Bonefish, made me realize my mistake. I called and Manager Linda said she'd look into it & call me back. I called American Express, reported my "lost" card & I'll be getting a new card Tuesday. Jeffrey at AmEx said it had to be reported as lost since Bonefish reversed the charge.

It's 10:18, and I have not heard from Bonefish. But they WERE busy. And they did take care of the $13:43 someone else charged to my AmEx card.

Thank you, Linda and Mary, for finding my card accidentally left in the portfolio I used & locking it in a safe. Your call at 10:23 was a relief! And thank you for destroying my card since a new one is on the way.

American Express: don't leave home - OR the businesses you patronize - without it. Or pay...

The hubby and I eat here frequently and tonight has been by far the worst nights we have ever encountered. We hope that it was just an off night for everyone especially our waitress April; whom we feel was extremely inattentive and overall service was sluggish. We were greeted promptly by the hostess and seated within steps from the entrance next to a couple and their guests with a small child whom was tired because they seemed cranky...even though it was still early in the evening and plenty of seating in the restaurant to have a more romantic setting but we didn't complain. Then my husband and I waited for our waitress (which I am a waitress by trade also) it took over 10/15 mins for our waitress to even acknowledged us, and still there were no complaints from us because we wanted to have a good romantic night and thought it would get better. Unfortunately ☹️ it went downhill from there...we first ordered a water and Sprite along with my husband ordering a jack and coke (come to find out it was punched in as a jack on rocks with pour) then was charged just for a jack Daniel drink at then end of the night when questioned about it. My mojito was not even good so I settled for a martini (which was surprisingly better) when our waitress brought our water/sprite to the table she just put the glasses down and threw the straws on the table and walked away.  Our appetizers came out in a reasonable amount of time however it seemed like our main courses to take too long…..my husband's main dish was the salmon and artichoke which was bland and the artichoke had hard pieces that weren't cooked/or grilled or however it was supposed to be prepared. My tuna poke bowl was just ok it had more rice than anything. The best part of dinner was the bang bang 🦐 shrimp and that was actually one of our appetizers…..it will be awhile before we come back for dinner @Bonefish again and if for some chance we are seated in April's section or close by the front door we will ask to be moved / different waiter/waitress or we'll just find a new place to dine...sorry but bad service makes the whole dining experience that much worse

And also FYI it's unprofessional for customers to overhear their waitresses/waiters talk about ordering/sharing food and/or their personal cell phones going off a few feet away from customers or having inappropriate conversations…...maybe the last booth shouldn't be sooo close to the...