It's OK I suppose. At least it's not all deep fried stuff and some of the food is fresh.
Our server didn't seem as polished as the rest we'd had in Florida, maybe she was in training. It was quite funny actually, we felt that she didn't really want to be working that night.
It's a nice setting on the waterfront and the drinks are cheap and was just across the road from our B&B.
It's cash only.
I've been wanting to go to the R&G for several years, but have always found something else to do or somewhere else to go, due, in part, to the luke warm reviews on Yelp and elsewhere. Â I'm glad we finally went.
We didn't stay there, so no comment regarding accommodations.
We walked around inside for a while, taking in the ambiance which is wonderful. Â We sat at one of the bars and had a beer and conch fritters. Â The conch fritters were actually quite good. Â We squeezed some lime on them and a bit of cocktail sauce. Â Beer selection is poor. Â They don't even have Heineken even though they have a Heineken neon sign on the wall. Â I suffered with a Bud, but it was better than I remembered.
We glanced at food that was served to other customers. Â It all looked good. Â Nothing spectacular, but not the swill some other reviews implied is served there.
We found the staff to be quite pleasant. Â The woman bartender chatted with us. Â Other staff members smiled, said, "hello," and were generally nice. Â We'll probably go back for a full meal next time.
We spent two nights at the rod and gun club and really enjoyed our stay. Â Our cottage was recently remolded and loved the screened in porch with water views. Â We did have one dinner and breakfast at the restaurant. Â Both were good (not bad/not great) and priced accordingly to the other restaurants we tried. Due to the beautiful views and really cool historic interior, I would recommend trying this place. Â Please note it is a CASH only establishment.
Review Source:The Rod & Gun Club is a great place to visit, but I would not recommend staying or eating here. Â The food is not good, the service is poor, the hotel accomodations are falling apart, and they don't accept credit cards. Â Paint is peeling off the walls and ceilings, tiles are cracked in the bathroom. Â Some rooms don't have adequate plumbing, and you can hear your neighbor, so the insulation is next to nil. Â AC/Heating unit set off the fire alarm at midnight when I was trying to take the chill out of the room. Â Embarrassing!
We have stayed here on multiple occasions because of it's close proximity to the water and fishing, but this last time will probably be our last. Â We were quoted a hotel rate when we made the reservation, and when we arrived they added $15 a night because there was going to be a 2nd person in the room. Â REALLY???? Â Having 1 other person in the room triggers a $15 surcharge? Â Give me a break.
It seems to me like the owners/management are just trading on the historical factor and notoriety of this landmark, rather than investing the necessary resources to improve and maintain the property to the condition it and the visitors deserve. Â
My recommendation: Â Definitely tour the Rod & Gun Club and walk the property, but stay at Everglades City Motel (reasonalbly priced, completely modernized, and very friendly staff), and dine at the Seafood Depot (salad bar + all you can eat peel & eat shrimp for $8.95 / lunch and dinner).
Rod and Gun is definitely worth seeing, built upon a foundation started in 1864 the actual structure was built completely of pecky-cypress (the wood that is practically impervious to termites and rot) around 1922. It has been visited by Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon and such notables as Hemingway, Mick Jagger and Burt Reynolds.
The all wood interior, the setting and the location are both awesome as well as inspiring. The food is fresh seafood and local (read alligator, Florida lobster, stone crab, oysters, frog legs) oriented but rather unnotable in taste and quality. The service is also a typical Everglades type CASH ONLY (no plastic accepted), find your own seat, make sure the wait staff realizes your presence, and then both rather awkward as well as slow. However, that is generally the way things are around these parts so when in the Everglades, do as the Everglades do and expect no different.
For service 3, for food 2, for general ambiance, setting and view 5; so I'm giving them a 4, but mostly because of the beauty of this fine old wood structure.
Bad service!!...especially for the price.
There were 5 of us in our party and only 4 of us received our meal. When the waiter brought our food, he said the other dish would be right out...15 minutes later still no grouper sandwich(waiters #1 recommendation). We were told that the kitchen was filleting the fish and it would be right out. Another 5 minutes went by and the rest of us finished our meal...still no grouper sandwich. When the waiter returned he said it would be right out, we said forget it we are all done. He apologized and offered a complimentary house salad...this should have been offered 20 minutes earlier.
Any restaurant should know not to send out the meals until every dish for that table is complete. Nothing worse than having 1 person sit while everyone else has food.
By the way, the rest of  our meals were below average. Fried oyster sandwich, lobster sandwich, shrimp basket, and fried oyster Caesar salad.
Decent ambiance, but bad restaurant!
Will never return and will steer people away from this place.
Like the other reviews say- the history is impressive, the decor is old Florida awesome, the service is bare bones and ticket times are abysmal. (oddly huge kitchen, maybe 15 tables full, and it took us 90 minutes to eat)
The sign said "seat yourself", but only the patio seating was open. Luckily a few servers saw us sit down almost all the way on the end and almost immediately gave us menus because a few tables sat down after us and were completely ignored and eventually just left. There was definitely a huge lag in every step of the process, we had to ask multiple times to get our drinks refilled even once, and luckily we didn't take her up on the offer to wait until the appetizers came out to place our lunch order, because I'm sure we would have been there three hours if we had.
But if you're looking for old south comfortably slow, you want to sip your drink by the water and catch up or just relax in the breeze - this could be your thing. Just be prepared to pay a little bit more than you think you should.
We ordered the gator (fried) and the conch fritters to start. The conch was decent, the gator was pretty good until my last bite - undeniably fishy. Unfortunately this flavor would return to mouth in some of the bites of my soft shell crab sandwich which was otherwise tasty enough and ridiculously huge (think two crabs per sandwich). Three people at the table ordered the crab sandwich and each of us in one way or another had to break it apart to enjoy it, from removing the bun to removing tainted pieces of  meat out of the sandwich (with the lack of anyone to say anything to, we made it work). The chicken sandwich went over well, the salad with the fresh fish got high marks, and the caesar with fried oysters seemed to be enjoyed. However they seem to bread and fry most of their items in the same breading and oil... lots of things that should not have tasted like each other did.
I probably will not return to eat. If anything I'll stop by for a drink in their dark wood filled bar with old jukeboxes stuck in the corners. I get the charm, but it's not worth the price tag. Our server was very pleasant when she was around, though.
This place has received a lot of harsh reviews, but I must say we had a delightful lunch. We stopped in on our way back to Naples & Fort Myers from Shark Valley
As it was 90 degrees & sunny (this was in early April!) we ate on the screened porch.
The three of us had the Crab Salad Plate, the Crab Salad Sandwich and the Grouper Sandwich. My Crab Salad Sandwich was delicious although it came with the ubiquitous & unnecessary cole slaw in a little plastic cup and French fries. The other two meals were equally good, and fresh.
This place is clearly historic and has a nice warm feel to it like an oversized hunting lodge, complete with stuffed animals & fish on the walls, wooden bars, walls & staircase, you get the idea.
This is well worth a stop & see even if you don't eat here.
Somewhat surprisingly, this is a CASH ONLY joint.
Service - 4 1/2 STARS
Food - 4 STARS
Ambiance/Decor - 4 1/2 STARS
Location - 4 STARS
MENU WARNING: You may want to wear gloves when reading the menu. They are all ancient and filthy. A rather disgusting start to an otherwise fine meal.
Hi have to agree with Michael M, this is a nice place to visit, however, last time there the staff were extremely rude when we told them we would not be eating there. Be advised they don't want tourist, just people eating/drinking.
I visited it twice, the first day(St. Patricks Day), I had a drink at the bar and fish dip, which was decent. Â The main fair for that region is Stone Crab Claws, so you can't go wrong with that. Â The bartender was an old Spanish native to Everglades City, and was very nice. Â The next day I decided to bring the wife and kids to relive some of the old florida and memories of my mother and Grandmother who loved the day trip from Miami. Â However, as we were looking around the staff became very belligerent about eating or drinking something and that they were not there to cater to tourist looking around. Â Unfortunately, I would not recommend this to any of my friends with that type of customer service. Â If your driving across alligator alley (US-41), it is better to go by Grimm's Stone crabs <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crabsr.us%2F&s=4f886c011c58e07140920f535038939d8b453000979b45cf075f6a07eea97f1a" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.crabsr.us/</a> and pick up some very reasonably priced claws and if you want to risk getting yelled at by the Staff at the Rod and Gun Club just for a view of old florida history, again beware.....
Fabulous setting but barely adequate food. And the absence of customers at dinner in high season adds a certain depressing aspect to the otherwise sensational ambiance. Limited menu of largely pre-cooked or frozen items. Only two desserts: the ubiquitous key lime pie and strawberry shortcake, and they were out of both right from the start of dinner hour. Â Owners since 1972 appear to have given up. Â They should sell to new owners who could really make something of the gorgeous setting. Â Until they do, come for a drink to see this place, but don't stay to eat.
Review Source:After driving from Marco Island we had to seat ourselves as they do not have a hostess. Â We sat for 15 minutes with a dirty table until we asked a waitress to clean it. Â Poor girl, it was only her 2nd day on the job.
We ordered our food at 1 PM on a Tuesday and after many promises of "5 minutes" we walked out at 2:35. Â An hour and 35 minutes waiting for our meals which consisted of 1 cheeseburger and 3 shrimp dishes. Â No bread, no 2nd drinks (2 water, 1 lemonade, 1 beer), nothing. Â And the manager of the kitchen, a lady, was not available to answer our questions about where is our food.
We headed back to Marco and went to the Snook Inn. Â We should have gone there in the beginning.
The Rod and Gun Club does not deserve to call themselves a restaurant.
They boast an illustrious resume of prior visitors: movie stars and Presidents. The building was impressive, and in a beautiful setting. The food, or at least the fried stuff we tried, was pretty bad though. Tough, chewy calamari, and off-tasting fried oysters. The fried gator was better, but still not good.
Review Source:This place is probably the most memorable restaurant I've ever been to just based on the decor, history and vibe of the place. The walls are adorned with hundreds of old rifles and fishing poles, mounted fish and taxidermy. Newspaper clippings in the entranceway attest to the long history of both the hotel/restaurant and Everglades City itself. Many famous and long-dead US Presidents used to come here on fishing getaways.
The food is less than great, unless you go for the fried seafood, which is very tasty!
Still, I would recommend this place to everyone as it is just one of those places that everyone should visit when in the Everglades. It's long history and incredible atmosphere has earned it's spot in the list of "must visit" places :-)
...... but don't forget to bring cash - they don't accept credit or debit.
What a great building, a reminder of what "Florida" is all about. Stepping through the front door you are transported back 75 years to Florida before land development. There are not many places like this left in the entire state.
See it while it still exists but don't eat there.
Like one of the earlier reviewers, my wife got sick after eating there. I didn't because I have a cast iron stomach (so far) but a lot of what I had was bad, I just realized it before I swallowed it.
My wife had the grilled chicken sandwich, trying to get the most inocuous thing on the menu turned out to be quite a gamble. She said the chicken was slimey and off-tasting and ended up feeling sick for two days after eating some of it.
Trying to relive old of car trips with my family through Florida, I thought I would try the Captains Platter of fried seafood. The shrimp were ok, sort of like I remember from Howard Johnsons, although it wasn't local shrimp, probably South Asian, and it was frozen, just like everything else on the menu. That was the only good part of the Captains Platter, the oysters were off, the scallops were like little rocks, the frogs legs were rubbery, the fish was probably frozen cod from the North Atlantic, the crab cake was all bread and the fries were so bad they were inedible.
To add insult to injury, they only had Bud, Bud lite and Miller Lite. Seems like they didnt get any beer deliveries that weekend. Too bad you can't freeze beer, this place would be set.
The building that houses this restaurant is situated in is gorgeous. I would have rated this better except that two of the three of us got a little sick after eating here. I suspect it was the fries because it's the only thing I didn't eat--and I didn't get sick.
Food sickness aside, the fried oysters were really tasty. I also really enjoyed their cole slaw. The most enjoyable thing about The Rod & Gun Club, however, was having lunch out by the water. It was very peaceful and quiet.
Oh, no credit cards accepted here!
I ate alligator!
Should I keep writing, or is that enough? Well, the Rod and Gun Club will transport you to another time. It's an incredibly beautiful old set of buildings along the river where you'll see air boats whir by as you eat.
And eat I did: Alligator nuggets. Like an Everglades version of chicken nuggets, these were moist and tender bites o' gator. I was reminded of what people say about frog: tastes like chicken. So I guess I'd say that alligator tastes like frog.
And the jumbo gulf shrimp were the biggest I've ever seen. Grotesquely large, and oh-so-good.
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