I'm not sure anyone here like their job. Or maybe everyone was having a bad day. Either way I got horrible service three times. This last time waves were hitting kind of hard so left the water in search of food and decided to try this place out once again. Nice crowd but nothing crazy for a Saturday afternoon (other times were much more busy). So I take a seat at the bar with a friend thinking this will be faster then waiting on a table. I was wrong. I find a menu and tell my friend what I'll want and head to the bathroom.
At least 10 minutes later when I return (I'm a chick with sand in my bathing suit - and it was an okay bathroom) no one had even appeared to take our order. I can't say there were understaffed because I saw people roaming the floor. I flag someone down and place our order.
Maybe another 10 minutes later, we're given our water with lemons and told it will be another 10 minutes for our food and still no appetizer has arrived. A minute later she reappears with some weird looking nachos. (I'm sketchy of where they came from, so I don't eat and cancel my order.) She might have forgotten our order - but I'm beating someone else walked out earlier and left those nachos. Friend cancelled her meal since she ate those nachos alone.
She wasn't sick afterwards but a 45 minute lunch consisting of just nachos is not good. In short, my guest enjoyed her food and I was able to stick with my diet. Decent food, horrible service. But still willing to give it another try.
Two years ago, I wrote a review about the Pier. Â I was not a fan of the upstairs area. Â They have changed it. Â It is now a Mexican restaurant (just like the downstairs). Â The upstairs is better for families or a more intimate setting. Â The downstairs has outdoor dining and is more of a bar scene. Â I like the food and drinks. Â The service is a little slow, but that is not the staff's fault. Â It usually appears to be somewhat understaffed. Â This is one of my favorite places to go on the beach with a large group of friends.
Review Source:If I was rating The Pier as a dinner locale, I'd probably give two stars. But to tell you the truth, I haven't eaten a meal here since they changed their concept from upscale casual to run of the mill Mexican food. Not sure what prompted the change because it was pretty good before, but it, as they say, is what it is.
I will say that this is a really fun summertime beach bar though, especially on Sundays! All the barstools and tables are cleared out, live music is bumpin, and shots are being slammed every where you look. The best part is definitely the patio though. I'm so glad they gave up on the couch/lounge areas and just lined up a few rows of lime green high tops to congregate at. If you've ever wanted to post up and watch the Jax Beach foot traffic go by, this is the place. Granted it does get a little crowded with your typical "beach bros" and midriff-baring, obnoxious girls, but I still have a good time here. I foresee a lot more check-ins at The Pier now that the summer is upon us!
Came here for dinner with 5 friends this weekend and everyone loved it! The restaurant boasts delicious food and awesome service with a gorgeous view of the ocean. We ordered drinks, appetizers, and meals and had no complaints. The frozen mixed drinks that we had were delicious and very affordable, the chips & queso was the best in town, and between the 6 of us we tried a bit of everything. The food tasted very fresh and we will definitely be going back again soon!
Review Source:About 14 of us visited this place last week for dinner and it was pretty good. Â Although the restaurant was very empty and the seating was strangely sparse, we had a nice time. Â There was nothing too special about the typical chips and dip with salsa and queso that we munched on until our main dishes arrived. Â I was surprised however by the flavorful meat! Â I had the cantina tacos - one carne asada and one pastor - which were quite good. Â The refried beans and rice both lacked seasoning and the rice was overcooked. Â Needless to say, this is a cute place for a weeknight gathering. Â The staff was attentive and the food was prepared in a rather timely manner.
Review Source:Upstairs is wonderful service and delicious food, wonderful view of the ocean! Â .......Downstairs though, Â Is a different story. Â
We stayed to watch the Tigers vs Yankees game and enjoying every minute, until the bouncer came to TAKE OUR STOOLS FROM US!!! Â I'm sorry, but it seemed a little awkward to ask a customer to get up to take the stool their sitting on because of the anticipated " RUSH". Â We were told that maybe we should of stayed upstairs where they don't move the chairs. WHAT?!?!
As once a bartender myself, I would feel embarrassed to ask my customers to get up from their seat to be left to stand! Â (Correct me if I'm out of line) Â Seemed a little ridiculous...I feel they could of waited til the game was over and we left.
Great set up, amazing views, mediocre food.
The Pier has been on my list of places to try for a while. Last night I finally took the plunge and went. The restaurant is absolutely beautiful! I know it was a more upscale restaurant before they changed the menu to Mexican cuisine, and it showed. We sat upstairs where there were enormous windows with ocean views, and most seats upstairs have a great view.
When we began looking at the menu, that is where the disappointment set in. The food listed was very typical, not creative, and (in my opinion) slightly over priced for sub par Mexican. The margarita list was underwhelming as well. The house margarita is $5.99 and most of the others are close to $10. We ordered one of the specialty margaritas. The server did not ask if we wanted salt, and it was not on the glass. It was also quite sugary and not very good.
I would visit The Pier again, but only to enjoy the views and atmosphere.
I was excited to visit the Pier as I heard they had good food and an awesome view. Â It's a nice place and it does indeed have an awesome view. Â I'd recommend sitting on the second level. Â It's dimly lit and would make a nice place for a date night.
The waiter started off good, but seemed to lose interest in our table and kept forgetting things. Â The menu offers the normal Mexican dishes with higher than normal prices. Â The food was decent, but not better than any other regular and cheaper Mexican restaurant. Â I thought it was overpriced for the quality although they do give huge servings.
Overall, I was disappointed in my visit. Â The service was below average and the food was just average at a higher price. Â The main reason to go here is for the view and the atmosphere.
Handle being in the dog house like a cool cucumber and treat your lady to a romantic dinner at The Pier.
A few paces to a pristine, undeveloped cut of the beach The Pier Cantina is one of the best Date Night venues I've seen since I've been here. The layout is functional, dimly lit, perfectly comfortable, and the seats deliberately face the beachfront. There are flat screens at the bar so you can keep tabs on your favorite games.
In terms of food, they offer casual eating that fills the gap between the seriously priced offerings of places like Roy's Hawaiian Fusion and the cheap but not always cheery sometimes dingy JAX beach pubs. On a Friday night they were very accommodating to our table of 9. We devoured our meals, choosing from a selection of local fish and Mexican/American contemporary items, which were tasty and nicely presented. Service is super-efficient, prices are very reasonable.
I really, really wanted this place to be good since we had a surprise birthday party for my husband in the VIP room. The venue is gorgeous. The view is gorgeous. I suppose you can say the staff is gorgeous. But the food and service is something else entirely.
Now, I went in knowing there were some bad reviews on Yelp but I figured that it was possibly just a new restaurant ironing out the kinks. Unfortunately, they seem to still be working on their issues.
The party was booked weeks in advance and the final number communicated a week in advance and reconfirmed days in advance. You would think that a restaurant would be able to handle a party of 14 (which actually turned out to be about 11) with ample prior notice. I was warned that if we did not order off of the large party menu at $29.99/person (not including drinks, tax and gratuity) that it would probably take longer. Fine. But service shouldn't have taken longer. We shouldn't have been sitting with empty glasses. We shouldn't have been served cold food. They should have staffed the place appropriately. They have, unfortunately, just turned away 11 potential customers, 2 of whom have now written poor reviews.
Several members of our party had to send food back. Our one server was unapologetic, for the most part. One of our friends alerted her that the food was cold. She looked confused and them touched the container to see if it was warm! Really? Then it came back with extra salt and a fishy taste to it.
My advice would be to go for drinks upstairs, enjoy the view, and then go pretty much anywhere else for food.
Avoid this place. Bad experience! We had arrangements to have passed appetizers in the VIP room, they did not provide them to us. Our server was terrible. She'd disappear for long periods of time and take forever to refill our drinks. They were out of a lot of menu items. Waited for what seemed like an eternity to get our order. The server may as well rub her armpit in my face because she doesn't know how to serve a plate. Just leaned over us and plopped it on the table with no regard to etiquette. The food was absolutely not worth the wait. The Crab Bisque was cold and tasted terrible. Smoked Fish Dip was more like tartar sauce, fail. Mega skimp on the fried green beans. God awful beach music blasting on the overhead speakers. What we hoped would be a nice dinner gathering turned into a patience killing experience. We will not be returning, evaarr.
Review Source:Come on, man! Â Really. Â Four of us had dinner upstairs last night. Â Would have been a great experience, with a excellent salmon dish, good steak and very nice sliders for two of us. Â BUT...two things that really soured the experience. Â We've ordered sliders before and part of the schtick is that you get some tater tots with the slider--really good. Â About 10 to 12 tater tots with the slider. Â Last night, even though two of us each ordered a slider, they came on a single plate with a couple of small plates for us to use. Â But there were only 8 tater tots on the plate. Â I pointed out to the waiter that we seemed to be shortchanged on the tater tots and he said no problem and brought a small basket of more tater tots out. Â Fine, but when the check came, we were charged for the additional tater tots! Â Also, we had order two pretzel and dip appetizers. Â We had gone through the two pretzels and still had a lot of dip left. Â Waiter noted that and asked if we wanted another. Â Sure.. it seemed like just getting more chips or bread. Â But, also an additional charge. Â We had a total tab in the neighborhood of $150. Â Adding charges like this seems incredibly chintzy. Â They have publicly wondered in the papers why the restaurant hasn't been patronized as much as they expected by "locals" -- Â perhaps this a reason why. Â All we were talking about after dinner last night was not the very good food we had, but why they felt it necessary to add a $2.99 and $2.00 charge to the bill. Â We're locals, and with about 20 restaurants within walking distance, experiences like this make it tough to justify a place near the top of our list of choices.
Review Source:I hate giving a bad review, but this was a miss. We wanted to check out a beach front lunch spot, and this place looked inviting enough. We were wonderfully surprised to see the boardwalk, pier, ocean and sand dunes as we approached, and opted to sit outside. The hostess was pleasant and sat us down quickly. The place was about half full, and we were sitting within a few feet from the doorway used by patrons and staff. There were about 3 different waiters serving the 5-6 tables around us. Â We waited about 15 minutes for one of them to come by, make eye contact, tell us they would be with us in a couple of minutes, but it was like we were completely invisible. Â The only person who acknowledged us was the hostess. I guess with an amazing location, service may be lacking, but this was just awful.
Review Source:To be fair - the waitress was really sweet and the manager came out and apologized for our experience but really, there is no excuse for cold soup, burned sandwiches, and an extremely long wait for it all when the place is mostly empty for lunch. Â Good service - terrible kitchen staff.
Review Source:I'm really debating between 2 or 3 stars, which is probably not a good start. Â Let me hit the good parts first. Â The view is legit. Â I hear it all the time that the beaches area have no good restaurants with great views. Â Well, this place has a pretty nice view. Â Also the staff was extremely nice. Â The food...... very average. Â And it seemed overpriced. Â The thing I enjoyed the most was my bottled water.
Review Source:I just went to the bar area. Nice decor, no service. My husband and I sat at a table (there were several available) outside. Waiters we running around, going to tables, even carrying out conversations. Nobody came to ours. We waited 15 minutes. No water, no drinks, no acknowledgment (and yes, we were directed to that table). So we left. Not going back.
Review Source:Oddly enough, I found myself at The Pier one week after my previous "meal". I was hoping for a better experience.
I ordered a $10 fish taco lunch plate - which turned out to be shrimp tacos. It would've been fine if the shrimp was fresh, but they were clearly frozen. Very reminiscent of the shrimp from my favorite bad Chinese takeout restaurant. Â They came with a bizarre, dry rice and a flavorless mango salsa. Blehhhh.
I tasted my dining companion's shrimp and grits. It was pretty good because it came with - prepare yourself for this - fresh shrimp. Crazy concept, but it worked.
I don't get the atmosphere here either. They have three menus that I have seen: Â lunch, dinner, and "casual" dinner. Â The dinner and lunch menus were very pricey, but the servers were wearing shorts and tank-tops. They really need to establish what they want to be - beach shack or fine dining. If the plan was to marry those ideas...they might need to find a good divorce lawyer. And supposedly the upstairs is supposed to be "classier" - what's that? The mistress???
I think that your best bet is to come here for some drinks and enjoy the outdoor dining space. I would've waste your time eating.
I experienced the upstairs of The Pier. The decor is very elegant and modern with a great view of the beach. Since this is the only restaurant in town with a view, I decided to give it a try.
Keep in mind that there are really two restaurants here, the downstairs casual (less expensive) area and the upstairs classier, more expensive area. Â We didn't have a reservation on a Saturday night be we were able to be seated upstairs within 15 minutes.
The meal did not start out great because the server took forever to come over, then forever to take our order and then forever to bring us our check. So the service is definitely lacking but that is an overall problem in Jax Beach that I have experienced. I have yet to have great service even at the best restaurants in town.
Next, the wine list certainly leaves a lot to be desired. There's hardly any choices or variety to the menu.  That is also true for the main menu. There are just a few options that do not seem to flow together, a few fish items,(grouper, shrimp or salmon)  Osso Buco, a filet and a chicken dish. When I ordered the "Macadamia Nut Crusted Grouper" $29.99 I was not surprised in the least  bit to hear it was the most popular menu item. In my opinion, it was the only thing that looked great on the entree menu.
However, with the above to being my main gripes, the food was SURPRISINGLY EXCELLENT. Â We ordered the asparagus for an appetizer and it was fantastic. I had the grouper as mentioned above and it was perfect. My friend had the salmon and she enjoyed that as well. Â Overall, the meal was great and I will definitely go back. I hope they can work out the server kinks and add more variety to the wine list.
UPDATE: I've been back to try the downstairs and the service was just as terrible. I will not be returning any time soon regardless of how good I thought the food was.
Hmm...it's not a fair review since I only went to the bar downstairs.
But here's what I saw...
Nice, new modern feel with a beach feel. Â Some surfboards set up and pics of old Jax beach. Â The bar is done in this clear acrylic over ground up shells and starfish. Â Makes it feel like you are on the beach. Â Drink pours were strong and the bartender was pretty cool. Â Didn't catch his name. Â Hooked up a blended margarita with a Cointreau float. Â I prefer Grand Marnier, but it was a nice gesture. Â Only 5 bucks and strong.
They have a nice outside patio along the boardwalk as well.
They have free valet which is nice at the beach.
I didn't partake of the food, but I did wander upstairs to take a look. Â They have a nice bar up there and giant floor to ceiling windows to take advantage of the ocean view, which is expansive, impressive and romantic. Â Nice date spot for sure. Â They set up most tables so that diners can really appreciate the view.
Finally a nice spot to go to at Jax beach, which in the past has been solely the domain of college bars and shitholes (which are fun). Â I hope they can keep a good level of service up and keep the food quality steady to maintain a good clientele.
Finally there is a place with a real oceanfront view in Jax Beach. Â The upstairs is more "upscale" with both the menu and the view of the beach. Â You have an open view of the beach and the Jacksonville Beach Pier. Â Downstairs is more casual and they offer a lesser menu. Â They also have a small outdoor patio area where you can enjoy the ocean breeze while sipping on your cocktail of choice. Â
I have been to this establishment twice now and have sampled a few of the menu items.
Apps:
Gulf Coast Scallop Ceviche- fresh scallops served with fresh vegetables over some crisp ciabatta bread. Â I had never had scallops this way before and was very surprised at how mild the flavor was considering that it wasn't "cooked" per se. Â Very full of distinct flavors. Â I would get this again.
Tuna Carpaccio- The presentation on this dish is amazing. Â The tuna is sliced ultra thin with arugula and pea sprouts strategically placed on top. Â A miso vinegarette is drizzled over the tuna. Â The vinegarette was a perfect match for the tuna. Â I am not a fan of arugula but it was still very good. Â Â
Havarti Fondue- A homemade soft pretzel with cheese fondue dipping sauce. Â This was just an expensive fancy pretzel with cheese. Â I'll pass next time.
Grilled Jumbo Asparagus- another dish with a great presentation. Â Tender asparagus grilled to perfection then wrapped in prosciutto, Â topped with sauteed mushrooms, and a cream sauce. Â The best way to eat asparagus.
Entrees:
Shrimp and Grits- Â Fresh mayport shrimp with tails intact. Â Smoothest grits I have ever had. Â One of the owners stated that they cook the grits real slow to make them smooth but he wouldnt share anything else. Â Fried green tomatoes are paired with the dish. Â The best shrimp and grits I've had..sorry Lady & Sons..
Macadamia nut crusted grouper- just like the name sitting on a bed of sauteed spinach and basmati rice. Â I could seriously eat two of these. Â That good.
New York strip- Â this is where we hit a bump in the road. Â The presentation was nice. Â The steak was just ok. Â It was a little on the tough side. Â The mashed potatoes on the side were not hot at all.. Â A little bit of a disappointment here. Â Not worth the $29.95.
Dessert:
Key Lime Pie- didn't like it. Â the filling tasted like lime rinds and the crust was just average. Â I'll take a pass. Â
Drinks:
water tastes like crap. Â get a beer or a cocktail. Â they have a full bar both upstairs and downstairs. Â
I would definitely come back to try it again. Â The view can't be beat. Â They have only been open less than two weeks and I'm sure they will work some of the kinks out. Â Make reservations if you want to sit upstairs because it gets crowded.
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