William Brown
Google
First, I had no idea this was a Greek restaurant until coming here to post a review. My wife had described it to me as a "seafood restaurant", and my only prior knowledge of the place was that she reminded me "It's the more-modern looking place with a huge amount of outdoor seating (and seemingly always empty) next to where Villagio had been." In fact, we'd been to Villagio maybe 12-15 times, alas not frequently enough to do our part in keeping it afloat, and its since closed in 2024. This restaurant claims to be a "sister restaurant" to Villagio, and my wife insisted we try it as we were running behind on Saturday, I had made an earlier reservation for the Rusty Pelican that we could not keep, and -- it being her birthday and the night before our daughter was leaving for her summer internship -- I wanted my wife to get what she wanted.
Unfortunately, now I understand why its mostly always empty. Despite being less than 1/2 full, and on a Saturday night, service was extremely slow, with waiters having to walk a 1/10th mile to get to the kitchen from patio seating. The appetizer was good and table bread were fine, but the entrees -- especially the birthday girl's lobster -- were just awful (my kids didn't complain, but none of the three adults present liked their meals). The lobster was overcooked, and served without liquified butter (or any butter), and repeated requests for either led to long waits while the waiters apparently researched how to bring butter to the table. The "lobster pick" that a staple accessory for the lobster meal was also not provided, in its place was a 2-3 pronged small fork most typically used for eating shrimp at a cocktail party, which was impractical for digging the lobster meat from the claws. Repeated requests of the staff to fetch a pick simply produced, after minutes more of delays, more 2-3 pronged small forks. It and heaping amount of spaghetti were served on a too-large plate. At the end of the meal, no wipes were provided, and when we finally asked for these, at least steaming hot wet washrags and lemons were brought on small plates, which looked nice but were scalding hot.
My simple dish of penne pasta with chicken... ugh. The penne was still partially hard, not hot or even warm, and the whole thing drowned in olive oil. I did not want to complain or add to my wife's displeasure of her meal, so I kept quiet on this. The chicken I had added to the meal amounted to about 3 strips of cut chicken, so modest I had to toss my pasta around on the late to locate the pieces.
Staff were nice guys, seemed to be conscientious and trying hard, but I'm reaching to find positives here.
The bill was delivered with a 20% gratuity already applied, which had the practical effect of having me not pay for my party of 5 but instead 6 meals, mine mostly inedible, my wife -- famished and resigned to just eating what served -- not happy.
The weather was, fortunately pleasant, and the venue, outdoors under palm trees, is attractive. But there's no security presence or traffic enforcement, so every 2 bit alpha-dude with a convertible or windows down slow drives through the center of the Shops at Merrick Park with their music entirely too loud, disrupting conversations and dining (never look for a police officer to enforce noise ordinances, or do much more actually than respond to an accident already being handled by another officer; that's how you see 5 officers at one accident, and no one doing basic "broken windows" policing). For a $300 meal -- without alcohol or other beverages -- I'd never return to this place. Street parking is difficult, the garage now charges guests, and the food abysmal, although on paper it looks like a great place.