Overall GrubGrade C+
The Breakdown:
Atmosphere: Grade B: Well, if you look up the word debacle in the dictionary, there just might be a picture of the restaurant known as Mr. Fish. We visited as a second option (there was an hour long wait to give your name for the wait list, which was probably at least an hour long at our first option). From the outside, Mr. Fish kind of resembled a warehouse, but we don’t prejudge, right? Inside, we’re not sure if you could call the decor nautical. Usually seafood shops like this one will have some oil paintings of oceans scenes or boats, and maybe a spyglass mounted on the wall next to a couple of large fish. Again, not real sure what theme you’d call the décor at Mr. Fish, but nautical might be stretching it. Otherwise, the interior was huge and clean, and tables were spaced widely apart, which was good since every one of them was full when we arrived.
High marks: Large, clean, well-spaced tables
Low marks: Confusing décor
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Service: Grade C+: You all know that we’re pretty picky with respect to service. Lots of restaurants drop a letter grade because of a perceived fault in this category. The service at Mr. Fish started bad, and then proceeded to get worse. If you’re going to be successful in a tourist town like Myrtle Beach, your hostess or host should at least know how to run a semi-accurate wait. We were told a half hour wair upon arrival, and after 1 hour and 15 minutes we were shown to a table. No apologies offered for the delay. With two hungry kids in tow, an inaccurate wait time is inexcusable. Our server’s name was Lindsay, and it was a dude. I’m sure the fact that he was a dude named Lindsay just added to a frustrating evening of being super busy with an inaccurate kitchen, but Lindsay had a bit of an attitude (but I really don’t think it was directed at us). The wait for our first drinks was two days short of forever. Once drinks did arrive, we should have paced ourselves, because it was quite a while before our server arrived again to take our order. The food took an eternity, and my beard had a hell of a lot more gray in it when I left than when I arrived. All in all, this was very close to an utter disaster. We did give credit because our server did make an effort to correct the mistakes made with our order, and we do appreciate that.
High marks: Mistakes corrected in a somewhat timely fashion
Low marks: Ummm—everything else!
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Food/Spirits: Grade C+: Because of the delay with our seating, we had to get something in our kids quickly before the rioting started, so we asked for a basket of hush puppies to start out. Our daughter usually digs hush puppies, but these did not impress her–nor Katina or me, for that matter. The hush puppies weren’t terrible, they just weren’t anything special, either. By this time, Katina and I both needed a drink. She ordered a cocktail called “Tasty Tentacle” and I ordered a beer called New South White Ale. Unfortunately, the drinks were the highlight of the meal. Our daughter ordered the Asian stir fry (at a seafood restaurant?) and our son sat and stared at some chicken tenders. Neither entrée is really worthy of comment. Katina and I both ordered seafood combos for our entrees. Hers included flounder, tilapia, and crab balls (think miniature crab cakes) and mine consisted of shrimp, haddock, and calamari. I think Katina got the better deal. While her food did not knock her socks off, it was average, and she found the crab balls tasty. My combo, on the other hand, initially came out cold (probably because it sat for an hour while the other food cooked. The calamari was too thick and rubbery, the shrimp were bland, but the haddock was a decent piece of fish. On the second attempt at it, my food came out nice and warm with huge pieces of haddock, but the other selections were still flawed. I actually wished we’d have waited the two hours at the other place.
High marks: Drinks, crab balls, and haddock all pretty good
Low marks: Rest of offering below what we’d expect from a restaurant located near the OCEAN!
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Value: Grade C-: Honestly, if you are a seafood restaurant on the coast and cannot impress some average food critics from Ohio (go Bucks!), then you have a lot of work to do. Maybe it was a bad night because they were so busy and a return visit would yield different results. We’ll never know, since we have absolutely no plans on revisiting. After tip, we spent a little over $100 for mediocre (that might be generous) seafood. We got much better food and service at Margaritas and spent half of that. We advise you to sail past this one.
High marks: They didn’t lock us in, so at least we were able to escape
Low marks: Way too expensive for level of service and quality of food. Long John Silver’s is a better option.
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