We are down here for two weeks, so we read much of the "favorite restaurants" thread and compiled a list of places to try. One week into our vacation we have tried several which were listed - and some which weren't. It occurred to us that it might be just as helpful to have a thread addressing restaurants people might want to avoid and why. So, here goes:
The Old Florida Fish House was mentioned by some folks on the "favorite" thread and it was closest to our house, so we went Friday night, October 5, 2007. It was very crowded. After waiting a reasonable time for a table - probably 20 minutes - we were seated in the back next to the kitchen doors. While we were being shown the table a waiter came crashing through the doors and hit my husband causing dishes to crash. (They have two sets of double swinging doors going into the kitchen. There is a perpetual flow of waiters going in and out and the doors "wop-wop" with each one of them. To make matters worse, on their way out of the kitchen, laden with their trays, the waiters KICK the heavy doors to open them adding a loud "crack" to the "wop-wop.") We were four adults and a 2 year old. At first I thought they have sat us here because we have a baby and they think he will be noisy, but then I remembered that there were numerous children in the place and I also realized it was already so loud that there was no way a child, no matter how noisy, could cause a disruption.
We sat there for 10 minutes before a waiter ever showed up. By that time our nerves were ragged from the "wop-wop-crack-wop-wop" so when the waiter did come, we told him we wanted to move. He got the manager (I presume that is who this man was) to come over and this man told us that this was the most quiet table they had and they had seated us there because it was so loud in the rest of the restaurant, but, OK, he was going to move us next to the water wall. Great. It certainly looked better than the view of the black, industrial swinging kitchen doors.
We were immediately served water and absolutely delicious bread. We ordered our meals. The choice of salad was either a lettuce wedge or mixed greens. I chose mixed greens with blue cheese dressing. Well, mixed greens are just torn pieces of green leaf lettuce. There was one slice of a purple onion and I think I saw a pale tomato in there. It was really hard to tell because the plate was absolutely drowned in dressing. I had just managed to scrape a great deal of it off to render the salad edible when all of a sudden from the direction of the bar came a great, loud "thrummm" of an electric guitar and the ear splitting amplification of that fine dinner accompaniment music, "Brick House." This was quickly followed by rounds of the oft-repeated high pitched squeals which indicate the presence of drunken sorority girls. It was 8:00 p.m.
My dinner company and I had to sit in "silence" because it was so loud that there was no use in attempting to speak to one another. This began to wear away at what appetite I had remaining. One of the members of our party asked to speak to the manager again. He was stunned that we were not ecstatic with the atmosphere. (Another couple sitting next to us had already asked to move so I am pretty sure the manager's shock was feigned.) He took that opportunity for a well-timed, "I told you so." "I told you that table by the swinging kitchen doors was the best in the house." "It's a wedding party; there's nothing I can do about it." "It's this loud because we do a good job here."
We asked for our food to be packed to go rather than leaving without eating only because by this time we were starving and didn't have anything to eat back at the house. I am bitter about paying for that meal but we just needed OUT quickly. Sitting around the peaceful kitchen table back at the house and eating from Styrofoam containers was one hundred thousand times better than being in that restaurant.
The food itself: It was good, but heavy-handed. I enjoyed the flavor of my fish (pompano), but the sauce was very heavy and I scraped what I could off of it. My husband had the scamp and the sauce and breading on it was very heavy also and it really masked the flavor of the fish. I prefer seafood treated delicately so as to enhance the flavor rather than totally overwhelm it. There were no vegetables or starches. The fish, the lettuce and the very good bread were all you got for something like $28-$30 per entree.
For the reasons stated above I place The Old Florida Fish House at the top of my "Least Favorite Restaurant" list.
The Old Florida Fish House was mentioned by some folks on the "favorite" thread and it was closest to our house, so we went Friday night, October 5, 2007. It was very crowded. After waiting a reasonable time for a table - probably 20 minutes - we were seated in the back next to the kitchen doors. While we were being shown the table a waiter came crashing through the doors and hit my husband causing dishes to crash. (They have two sets of double swinging doors going into the kitchen. There is a perpetual flow of waiters going in and out and the doors "wop-wop" with each one of them. To make matters worse, on their way out of the kitchen, laden with their trays, the waiters KICK the heavy doors to open them adding a loud "crack" to the "wop-wop.") We were four adults and a 2 year old. At first I thought they have sat us here because we have a baby and they think he will be noisy, but then I remembered that there were numerous children in the place and I also realized it was already so loud that there was no way a child, no matter how noisy, could cause a disruption.
We sat there for 10 minutes before a waiter ever showed up. By that time our nerves were ragged from the "wop-wop-crack-wop-wop" so when the waiter did come, we told him we wanted to move. He got the manager (I presume that is who this man was) to come over and this man told us that this was the most quiet table they had and they had seated us there because it was so loud in the rest of the restaurant, but, OK, he was going to move us next to the water wall. Great. It certainly looked better than the view of the black, industrial swinging kitchen doors.
We were immediately served water and absolutely delicious bread. We ordered our meals. The choice of salad was either a lettuce wedge or mixed greens. I chose mixed greens with blue cheese dressing. Well, mixed greens are just torn pieces of green leaf lettuce. There was one slice of a purple onion and I think I saw a pale tomato in there. It was really hard to tell because the plate was absolutely drowned in dressing. I had just managed to scrape a great deal of it off to render the salad edible when all of a sudden from the direction of the bar came a great, loud "thrummm" of an electric guitar and the ear splitting amplification of that fine dinner accompaniment music, "Brick House." This was quickly followed by rounds of the oft-repeated high pitched squeals which indicate the presence of drunken sorority girls. It was 8:00 p.m.
My dinner company and I had to sit in "silence" because it was so loud that there was no use in attempting to speak to one another. This began to wear away at what appetite I had remaining. One of the members of our party asked to speak to the manager again. He was stunned that we were not ecstatic with the atmosphere. (Another couple sitting next to us had already asked to move so I am pretty sure the manager's shock was feigned.) He took that opportunity for a well-timed, "I told you so." "I told you that table by the swinging kitchen doors was the best in the house." "It's a wedding party; there's nothing I can do about it." "It's this loud because we do a good job here."
We asked for our food to be packed to go rather than leaving without eating only because by this time we were starving and didn't have anything to eat back at the house. I am bitter about paying for that meal but we just needed OUT quickly. Sitting around the peaceful kitchen table back at the house and eating from Styrofoam containers was one hundred thousand times better than being in that restaurant.
The food itself: It was good, but heavy-handed. I enjoyed the flavor of my fish (pompano), but the sauce was very heavy and I scraped what I could off of it. My husband had the scamp and the sauce and breading on it was very heavy also and it really masked the flavor of the fish. I prefer seafood treated delicately so as to enhance the flavor rather than totally overwhelm it. There were no vegetables or starches. The fish, the lettuce and the very good bread were all you got for something like $28-$30 per entree.
For the reasons stated above I place The Old Florida Fish House at the top of my "Least Favorite Restaurant" list.
Inlet Visitor 
Hubba and I were at that same table. We didn't move, just didn't go back. 
It's all dark and fancy then you get the kitchen door swingin'. 
idontno: owner's weekend) and one of the sushi guys was actually doing double duty as a waiter at a few of the tables around the bar. The sushi was great, really. We did laugh at the chaos in the dining room;there was a humongous crash as an unseen waiter deposited a tray of food to the ground in one of the back dining areas
