beaches at vilano

horrible service, high prices, good food, great atmosphere. my wife and i came in on our boat and sat down at the deck bar. for 20 minutes it was as if we were invisible. wait staff came past us over and over without even acknowledging us. finally i walked to the bar and begged the bartender for some (very expensive) drinks. she acted like she was doing me a big favor to serve me. ordered some appetizers which were pretty good. the tropical atmosphere and potential for some great sunsets cannot be overlooked. boat uprestaurantoptions in st. augustine are few unfortunately. this one has a lot of potential though. aunt kate's is currently a much better choice.

my wife and i had an enjoyable late afternoon dinner here. the location is excellent. beaches is located on the water overlooking the tolamato river with a view of a pier, the bridge, and st. augustine in the distance. we started with a smoked fish dip appetizer which was delicious. the flavor of the dip would have been more pronounced if it wasn't served on a seasoned pita chip. for dinner my wife had the shrimp and grits and she very much so enjoyed the dish. plentiful shrimp, excellent seasoning, and served over grit cakes. i would say the grits were very much like polenta. i had the fish tacos with the fresh catch of the day, which was red fish. the tacos were not bad but could have been better. the menu stated that they were seasoned with a bang bang sauce, but i did not really taste much of it. they were also served with cheese on the taco, which i personally don't think belongs on a fish taco. the mango salsa was delicious and balanced out the flavors. the service was not bad, but a bit inattentive considering therestaurantwas practically empty. if we make it back to vilano beach we would eat here again.

nice lunch in summer. my mom and i went out for a nice lunch. we heard to get there early because it gets busy so we did. we sat outside under an umbrella. it was a beautiful day and therestaurantfilled quickly after we got there. i noticed a lot of people didn't enjoy the wet sandy dog walking up to them but the dog never bothered us. my mom had shrimp tacos and i had nachos. we both got a pina colada, the drink we did not like but the food, we did.

i have no idea how thisrestauranthas stayed open for this long. i guess if you look at it like a bar where if someone drinks enough- a pack of crackers would be better than anything out of their kitchen. and the "beach" is disgusting. it's man made, on the icw and filled with cigarette butts. add in some really loud, really bad live music and you've got a dream date if you live under the bridge.

destined to close. well, seems like anotherrestaurantat this location is on the path to failure. don't understand why management can't get the basics down like, descent food, reasonable prices on drinks, friendly service and an accomodating attitude. they miss out on all these. you can sense the disdain the owners must have for their customers. ok place for a drink (if you like expensive and small drinks)


-----31 dec, 2012-----

local review. food pretty average which is a disappointment to the locals since there are so many good restaurants in st. aug. great location but they could put a little more effort in preparing their meals. if you're getting in the 60's in the favorability rating, something is wrong, you should at least be in the upper 80's.


-----20 oct, 2012-----

very average. food and service just average or below. vilano deserves better if you want repeat local customers. go to mango mangos and duplicate and you'll increase your approval numbers.


-----08 jan, 2012-----

seems to be improving.


-----25 dec, 2011-----

below average. they seem to have the business model where you serve below average food and hope you don't notice. a waste of a view for such poor food.


-----29 jun, 2011-----

don't take the locals for granted. tried thisrestauranta couple of times, and both times very average, especially for st. augustine. the tourists might not know any better, but the locals will be what keeps you in business.

the tattoo waitress. we heard about arestaurantby the name of beaches, and decided to give it a try. while entering the door a hostess sat the party ahead of us, and before she could even return, our soon to be waitress(haley) sat my party at table on the beach. the location was superb, the prices were a touch high, the food was great, but the service was out of this world. we tend to frequently eat out alot, and i have never had such good service from a waitress or a waiter, such as haley gave my party. the only thing that stood out more then her tattoos was her personality and attentiveness to our needs. i would definitely recommend this restaurant, not only because of the atmosphere and the food, but the service makes the trip well worth it.

great location-classless staff. if you read the top of this page you will read "takes reservations" what it doesn't say is that it honors them! i have lived in saint augustine/pv for 15yrs and have seen restaurants come and go. this is one i wish would go! had my parents 90yrs old out for dinner at the beaches. after they told us they would accommodate us they changed their mind upon our arrival. can you imagine such treatment? the so called hostess, and wait staff kept bumbling over their words like children, making no sense and not answering the situation they themselves created. they actually told us my parents would have to wait over an hour? they took people before us and they were rude.they put us in an embarrassing place, void of any concern for the elderly. totally avoiding the fact that they failed in what they promised to give us earlier in the day. the so called manager juan, ran away like a scared cat without fixing the situation? whatrestaurantworth its salt does that? this place seriously needs to be on "restaurant stakeout" whoever owns this place better get involved with their establishment soon. if they are involved, then they better get on a list for "restaurant impossible" because they are going to need it soon!
we will not be back, we will do our best to deter others from supporting such a place. do yourself a favor and go next door to 180 vilano grill & pizza, with its new clean fresh look and great menu. staff so pleasant and professional and food hot, delicious and served quickly. now that's what we want in our own backyards!
in the past few weeks i have eaten at and thoroughly enjoyed many restaurants in the area...here are a few fab places for all enjoy...black mollys (cobblestone) neds (s us1) the reef (a1a) caps (a1a) these are the kind of places that will be here for a long time to come.
also i see the owner has answered many disappointed customer reviews "new management & staff" (early june) guess what, the reviews tell you they are not working in your favor so clean house before it is too late.

no table for you!. thisrestauranthas a great location....but that is it!

when you call about reservations...juan tells you...we dont take reservations, but when we tell them we will have 12 people...he then says "let me take you name and phone, and time, and we will do our best to seat you".

when we arrived on june 23rd, the hostes "knew nothing of our request", so we asked to speak to juan who came up and said it would be 1.5 hours.

we were told that someone else had called at 3:00 pm and that the large table right in front of us at the door, was being held for them!

we called at noon....so when we discussed that the hostess's...kept apologizing, instead of honoring juan's promises earlier in the day.

we have eaten at this location previously, and some of the food is good, but not at the price.

we went to the vilano grill and pizza...which was formerly benitos..and the pizza and sliders were good, service was very good.

we will make it our mission in life...>to blog....blog...and blog again...about beaches.

if they are so busy..then reservations (especially for large groups) would increase their business, and would eliminate angry customers...

do the math....if 10 people tell 10 people who tell 10 people..not to frequent a reestaurant....then they will suffer...especially in the slow months....when all they really have in vilano...are the regulars from ponte vedra beach south...

lousy. we went here the last week of may. good sunset view, overprices weak drinks. the "steak" was mostly fat and looked like it had been microwaved. for 23.99 with no salad or rolls, just fries. the fried shrimp had some kind of wet batter that wouldn't stay on. but the worst part was the service. we couldn't get waited on at a table outside, even though there were only a few tables with people seated, and there must have been 10 times that many employees standing around. so we went inside where we were the only people seated. the waitress did bring us a menu and a drink. she never took our dinner order (someone else saw us looking around and came over to take our order), she never refilled our drinks or asked if we needed anything, she never even brought us a check (again someone else came over). we could see our waitress by the front, chatting and spinning (yes spinning in circles like she was playing)but we just stared at her and couldn't get her attention. finally we paid our outrageously high bill for the lousy food, and decided to leave a penny tip to show our disappointment for the horrible lack of service. the waitress then opened therestaurantdoor and screamed at us as we were leaving. then we had the misfortune of ducking the waitress the rest of our vacation, as we would walk to see the sunset, and inevitably pass her hanging out a biker dive bar sucking down beers on vilano rd., where she would scream bad tippers and those people stiffed me at us as we walked past. really we just laughed, the whole thing was so ludricous. on another note, we had good food and service and a little place called 180 villano grill. good burger, good mahi sliders, good pizza. had lunch and dinner there. watch the sunset at beaches or from the pier, but don't buy anything. and if you see that little midget with the mullet, tell her we said hi.

the worst!!!. thisrestaurantprovided the worst dining experience of my 58 years of dining out....that should say it all! to briefly sum up, our group of 13 people arrived with our reservation at 7pm and were seated on the patio overlooking the ocean. we were soon greeted by our "waiter" rob who took our drink orders....so far, so good. our drink orders then arrived about 15 minutes later....slow but excusable if not part of the rest of the disaster. he then took our food orders about 10-15 minutes later.
the wait begins....15 minutes....no appetizers.....20, 25 minutes, no appetizers....then, hope springs eternal...1 appetizer arrives....another one (1) arrives 5 minutes later....this dribble of food continued. the waiter never appeared with more than one serving dish at any time throughout the evening. after an hour and a half, we had received (for our group of 13) four appetizers and one entree.
i then asked to speak to the manager who i was told was named frank....and i waited...after 10-15 minutes somebody who called himself warren (??) heard my complaint. he then pivoted and said he would get our food immediately. that was the last we saw of anyone. i returned to the patio and after 15 minutes of no food, drinks, waiters, or managers, we left.
so we wasted 2 hours at this place.....btw, we then headed down to st. augustine where we had a terrific dinner with a great waiter at harry's that saved what was left of our night.
do not ever waste your time at beaches....we're sorry that we did!

felt like jamaica. my husband, my sister, & i went to beaches on st. patrick's day. it was very crowded. we were reluctant to go due to the bad reviews. we were pleasantly surprised. the service & food was fantastic, as was the atmosphere with the live band on the beach & the waterfront view. our waiter, robert, was top notch. we will definitely return. we've been to almost everyrestaurantin st. augustine & would rank this among the top. (our little dog ralph enjoyed it too).

nice location, horrible food and service. the location is nice, but that is about all that they have going for them. our waitress took our drink order and appetizer order, but was not to be seen again for almost 20 minutes. see apologized about the service, and stated that this was not her section. when she came back for our order we asked her if we could move inside. she took our order and then she sat down at a table with 2 customers and pretty much seemed to forget about us, until again she apologized for the wait and could not seem to give us a definite answer why we were waiting so long when the entirerestaurantwas empty for the most part. our food finely came and to say the least it was sub-par. i ordered the datil pepper shrimp and grits, which the sauce almost had the consistency of soup, with no spice from datil peppers at all. the sauce tasted more like an alfredo sauce than any other shrimp and grits that i have ever eaten. the blackened fish tacos came out barely blackened and the fries were not cooked all the way through. i was very disappointed and will not return there to eat again.

rude server!. i came here the other day and had lunch. my fish tacos were bland but my wifes fish sandwich was great. very nice atmosphere, i will be coming back to give it another try. our server however, sam wasnt the happiest camper there. she seemed to fake a smile and was short and seemingly rude with everything we had asked her. she took our food and drink order and that was the last we had seen her until we had to look inside for her to get our check. i understand if she was busy, the attentiveness would have been a little better but therestaurantwas empty. there were less than 12 customers eating lunch at this time. we had found her sitting down talking at a table inside when we asked for our check. she didnt seem eager to get us our check either. i have had my fair share of bad service (it happens) but this was ranked one of the worse. i hope the management there fixes some issues before our next trip there with friends.

my last meal before heading home was at a marina-siderestaurantcalled beaches. we missed brunch by 5 minutes (darn!), but i ordered chili shrimp with black beans and was happy with my choice.

great place. reminds me of a beef o bradys- more of a sports bar than arestaurantbut thats why i love it. have had the shrimp tacos, fish tacos and the burger-all great.