beaches at vilano

a must for anyone in st augustine. i have been living in st. augustine for the past 3 years and this place is a must everytimea family member visits. :) the specialty drinks are amazing, and so is the food. it's such a bright, fun restaurant. love it! and oh by the way,..the view is the best around.

love it. great place, great food, great drinks, great staff, great service. all around good time! being able to pull your boat right up to the place is also a plus! looking forward to spending sometimethere this summer.

been here a handful of times, all my waitresses where attentive and nice..food is good never had to send anything back. lemonade is fresh it is not packaged junk. mojitos are always made just the way i like them. i do enjoy their chowder on a cool evening its not canned junk either...my fish cooked nicely and perfect...lasttimei went we waited an hour but it was mothers day so its expected. had a nice table on the sand and a good meal...this place is reasonably priced for fresh caught fish. i have spent way more money in st augustine for a meal and i am always pleased going here.

much better than the 2013 reviews say. my wife and i went to beaches about 5:30 on 2/28/14. my firsttimesince the place was under another name several years ago. i had the fish sandwich catch of the day with grilled red fish--three other fish options were available, including salmon and two that i can't remember. my wife had fish and chips with a white fish.

even though it was happy hour, the service was excellent. kally was our waitress, and she immediately took our drink orders and answered a couple menu questions. while she was getting the drinks another waitress stopped at the table to ask if someone had already been at the table.

we were in no hurry, but after we placed our order, the meals came in a completely reasonable time. one minor problem was that my wife got fries with her fish when she'd asked for tater tots (but that's a natural error chips are fries). anyway, we flagged down another wait staff and explained the problem. the tater tots showed up in a couple minutes. we both enjoyed our meals, though my wife didn't finish, so she took home one of her fish fillets and the fries she received by mistake. i thought the service was so good that i asked to see the manager to let him know. he turned out to be the same person who took care of the tater tots. i'll certainly go back.

carl @ the tiki bar. my lady friends and i went to the tiki bar on tuesday and had the besttimewith carl! he was entertaining and kept up with our crazy cocktail concoctions. he's a keeper! hope the nexttimewe are there, which will be often, that carl will be there to wait on us!!

great place!. visited beaches at vilano saturday evening for the first time. great laid back atmosphere. our waitress amber was terrific, great sense of humor and very attentive! we will be back nexttimewe are in town.

yummy. we made a quick stop for a bite to eat.....our firsttimethere.
we were seated quickly and waited on right away..our waitress, amber, was a delight....she was very helpful with knowing everything on the menu and making suggestions. the food was great, and the service was great....i give both 5 stars !!!

pulled up on the boat. should have known by the look of the bathrooms...dirty. then to the table we sit and wait...and wait...and wait . waiter was mia most of the visit. i ordered a side dish. it didn't come out . i asked about it and was told it was "somewhere?" then was told it could be "coming out? never know? oh well" and he
walked away. ??? it amazes me the lack of ethics in business owners and their employees. is it this bad all over america or just this area. nexttimewe will go w/ my idea of picnic on the boat or a sand bar :) wouldn't recommend to anyone i like.

firsttimethere, great atmosphere, great food and great service

great location, ok food, terrible service. loved beaches when it first opened. beautiful location. was never overly impressed by the food, but it was never bad. the service, however, is so sketchy. we were told on our last few visits (may and june 2013) that the wait would be an hour when there were clearly many tables available. the hostess said that they were expecting a party of 20. then we were seated after about 10 minutes, not the hour we were told to expect. the party of 20 never showed up during ourtimeat beaches. on our last visit, we were told to expect over an hour wait; after about 1/2 hour of waiting we were told to add another hour to the wait because the grill had caught fire. we asked if we could sit at a table and have a drink and the answer was unbelievably no! there were many tables open and other folks sitting and drinking. very disappointed that we will not return to beaches because the location is so great.

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? what restaurant worth 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 longtimeto 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.

meh.... my husband and i went to beaches for the firsttimelast week & were pleasantly surprised by the restaurant's atmosphere. it was a friday night but not crowded. we were promptly seated on the deck with a beautiful view. our friendly server was young but didn't seem well trained. we ordered a margarita and a vodka martini. the margarita came in a plastic cup and tasted like koolade. the martini was not much better and had no olive. also we noticed the server carried the glasses by the rim in an effort not to spill them when she brought them to our table. we felt the need to 'clean' the rims before drinking. i asked for an olive & the server said she would bring one but she never did. we ordered shrimp & grits and fish tacos. the tacos were very tasty but skimpy on the fish. the creamy sauce of the shrimp & grits was nicely seasoned with plump shrimp but under the sauce was a hard, dry clump of grits that i couldn't eat. taste & textured lead me to believe they had been cooked hours before and kept warm. as locals, we try to eat out at least twice a week to support restaurants in the area. we may try beaches again in hopes it was just an off night. for the price, we have gotten much better at many other places in st. augustine. wish we could give high marks but it was just ok.

what happened to beaches??. i was really excited to return to beaches today for a little chilltimewith the hubby. considering we moved it was quite a bit of a drive but i thought it would be worth it....wrong. the weather today was beautiful which made for a little crowd but not crowded enough that we received our first drink promptly...then we waited and waited and waited for our server to come and take our order. she passed us by several times but no order. finally when we did order we had another wait. not sure if our food "sat" in the window but it arrived soggy and cold and greasy. my husband ordered the island reuben..it was cold, mushy and had a very odd flavor. the onion rings were greasy and limp at best. i ordered the fish tacos....the tortillas were straight out of the package...not warmed and stiff. being hispanic i know my fish tacos and have had them from california to florida to baja and on the islands....these were the worst!. a little piece of fish on top of some shredded lettuce and a sprinkle of cheese....thats it. we have been to beaches several times for lunch and cocktails and with friends for dinner and it was always worth the money and the drive. sad to say i have always recommended beaches to family, friends and co-workers but not anymore. if you want really good fish tacos and prompt service try harry's....have never been disappointed there with any menu item or the service~

the worst!!!. this restaurant provided 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 anytimethroughout 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 yourtimeat beaches....we're sorry that we did!

much better .... this place has changed ownership quite a few times in 10 years. the acoustics led to excessive noise and this was addressed with the addition of sailcloth on the ceilings. the a/c is cooler, but still not cold cold. the food is much better ... the service has improved. the location is excellent ... as is the sunsets and music. i hope they make it work thistime...