C.J. Cannon's — Restaurant in Vero Beach

First of all, the good.

The location is great. Right on site at the Vero Beach airport. You get a full view of the runway. We were there in the evening and there wasn't any air traffic but I can only assume during the day you get a great view of airplanes taking off and landing.

Decor is predictably aviation-themed and charming, with a wide assortment of pictures and memorabilia of pilots, airplanes and history of the Vero Beach airport.

The menu items all looked inviting. A variety of homestyle meals and seafood. From what I saw they offered bread as an appetizer.

All of this would have been great, mind you. That is, if we had actually been given a chance to eat. Unfortunately, all of that was ruined by some of the worst hosting I've ever experienced.

It was a Saturday night, so we knew things might be a bit busy. So I called in and asked what the wait time was. I was told about 40 minutes. Which was a bit long, but because the place had good reviews and looked interesting, we figured it was worth the wait. Besides, our hotel was about 10 minutes away so we figured it would only be 20-30 minutes by the time we got there.

So I ask the host over the phone whether they do call ahead and put our name on the wait list. She tells me straight out yes. So I give them our name and we head on over.

We get there and predictably, it's a busy Saturday night. But I go over to the host's station to make sure our name is on the list. And it is--about 4 names ahead of us and about 10 behind us.

So we wait. 20 minutes--nothing. 30 minutes--nothing. 40 minutes--nothing. 50 minutes--nothing.

Meanwhile, the hostess is calling names throughout this time. Nearly all parties are of 2. (We had a party of 4). I see larger parties leaving, but we are kept waiting, all while smaller parties continue to be called.

Finally, I go over to the hostess again. All the names in front of ours have been crossed off. And nearly all the names behind us as well.

So frankly, I'm a bit miffed at this point. I ask the hostess--politely as possible--why we are still waiting an hour after I had called in and everyone ahead of us and nearly everyone behind us had been called.

And she replied, rather shortly, that we were call ahead and people who call ahead don't get priority over people who walk in. Which seems to defeat the entire purpose of call ahead--which mind you , was something they had told me they did when I first called. Why call ahead and put us on the list if we're not actually going to be called in order?

She then turns to another person waiting at the counter, right in front of me, and tells that person, "Oh don't worry. We're getting YOUR table ready right now." And then she says to them--as if I wasn't even there--"I'm sorry, I'm standing my ground on this. I don't care if they leave."

And unfortunately, that's what we did at that point. Which is a shame because from all appearances it looked like an interesting restaurant with good food. But it was all ruined by some of the worst customer service I've ever experienced at a restaurant.

I would also add that there was a large area for banquet seating that was sitting virtually empty. (There were no banquet events that evening). It would seem that perhaps that could have been used to relieve the crowding and wait time.

Disappointed that we didn't have a chance to try their food (which again, looked quite good). But there's no excuse for bad service and our experience there was ruined by terrible, rude and inconvenient hosting. And because we weren't local, we're unlikely to be able to give them a second chance.

A pity, but that's...

Food was fantastic however the service was awful. I was in a larger group and as soon as we sat down the bartender who was also the waiter for that area proceeded to sate “are all of you on one check?” Our response was no we are all separate. He then said that “none of us better not change seats or he will put us on one check and we can figure it out amongst our selfs.” Only time he came to our table was to seat us, take our order, and bring us food, anytime we needed anything else such as refills we had to wave him down In witch a few times he saw us he turned around and walked the opposite direction. After we were done eating. We had to wave him down again to get our checks. We were in no hurry but it was to the point we were just sitting there. A few of our checks were messed up. We told him about it. When he came back with the fixed checks he stated “if we ever come back we will be on one check” then walked away. Honestly I was not upset at the fact that our checks were messed up or even that he was not checking up on us all the time. I understand in this line of work you can easily get fought up with other duties however. His attitude and the way he approach us was down right rude, disrespectful and disturbing. Everything else was great and fantastic. Would...

My mom and I stopped in for a drink before my flight to go home on 11/30. We sat at the bar and we felt like we were an inconvenience from the moment we sat down. We were told we couldn’t put my backpack under the bar (not a problem, completely understandable). When the bartender dropped off our drinks, I politely asked if we could take a peek at a menu. He walked over to service bar and was like “sorry Linda, what?” As if I had interrupted a conversation- which I most certainly didn’t. He stayed at the other end of the bar while my mom’s soda was empty. I was ready to order a glass of wine before I had to leave my mom to go home. It was also my birthday, and our last time together for several months. He made snarky comments the entire time we were there. He just made us feel so unwelcome and extremely uncomfortable. We would have left if there were another restaurant to go to. We had a $27 bill and we left $3- which is more than he deserved, but I’m in the industry and I felt too embarrassed to leave zero. I watched him pick up the receipt and audibly laugh out loud. I have a hard time believing that he thought he gave us service worthy of ANY kind of tip, let alone a good one, but that’s what I took from...