the island fish company & tiki bar

best seafood wish is at island fish!. i'll start by saying that this is the type of place you hope to find when on vacation! island fish distinguishes itself from all the local joints offering food, booze and music, not to mention the great view and ambience in the keys and island tradition. i looked them up on yelp before traveling and was even more enticed after having lunch there, deciding to come back a few days later for new year's dinner! the moment you walk in, it reeks of laid back fun and relaxation. while at the furthest point of the u.s., on water and in the sun, who wants anything but fresh fish, seafood and drink, so for lunch we had the fresh catch mahi mahi sandwich on toasted bun, with remoulade sauce, lettuce, tomato and banana pepper, and excellent choice as the remoulade is good enough to write home about; also had the fried dolphin (incredibly tender) lightly dusted with flour, sautéed with sherry, lemon and butter wrap; and the baja fresh tacos consisting of soft tacos, lightly fried mahi mahi, cabbage, tomato, cilantro, jalopenos, and sour cream salsa, served with white rice and black beans; we also had their taco salad consisting of a fried tortilla bowl, refried beans, iceburg lettuce, tomato, monterrey jack and cheddar cheeses, black olives, scallions and a side of tomatillo sauce topped with a blend of ground beef with sour cream and tomatoes; we washed it all down with lemonade; coors lite; stella; virgin pina colada; cuervo margarita... here at the beach i was expecting beach-bum names of my servers to be buffy or gidget, maybe boom boom or wave-runner, but i had to settle for yani, more musical than beachy... anyway, service was extraordinary as was thefoodand ambience. a few days later for new year's dinner we enjoyed: caesar salad; macho chicken nachos grilled with tomatoes, olives, black beans, jalapenos, scallions and smothered in cheese with salsa, sour cream and guacamole; stuffed shrimp of key west pink gold shrimp, stuffed with mango crab meat stuffing, baked and topped with key lime mustard sauce served with white rice and black beans; hogfish fried, topped with creamy sherry sauce, shrimp served with rice and veggie special; absolute & soda; irish rum coffee; sierra nevada; grapefruit crush of absoulute ruby red, cointreau, grapefruit juice and sprite; blue lagoon with coconut rum and blue curacao. ahoy and bon apetit!

tourist trap. how does a fish restaurant in the keys serve frozen mahi??? maybe they figure by giving it to the kids as fish fingers , they would get away with it, even though i specifically asked if it was fresh or frozen. the clams were fishy (not fresh), popcorn shrimp had no shrimp inside. nachos had no flavor; chicken, dry overcooked cheeseburger, wings were old. salad was soggy and old. pasta sauce was from a jar, soup was from a can. and to top it off, waitress attitude was poor. at best,foodwas less than ok. thumbs down. this place thrives on out of towers who unfortunately don't know any better.

average food. key lime pie was a small portion for $4. waitress ignored us and went outside to play with a puppy that another waitstaff had brought by restaurant. finally came back in to bring us our check but did not wash her hands after playing with the animal! manager saw the whole thing and ignored it. great location and view, avgfood& poor service. typical for the keys.

my wife and i ate here for breakfast and dinner on a recent visit to the fl keys. thefoodand service was very good. the give you ample portions at a reasonable price. they also have a good variety of local beers to choose from. there is a great view of florida bay, with awesome sunsets and you can feed the fish, right there at the dock.

what is worse than one? i want that option. have been to the island fish company many times and, although nothing spectacular, we never had a bad experience however that all changed tonight. our 2 year old daughter said she didn't like the kids spaghetti but we figured she was just being picky like every other 2 year old. we had just receive our entrees. two seconds later she is projectile vomiting all over the table, my 7 month pregnant wife, the floor...anyone with children understands. the waiter comes by to check on us and sees what is going on. he doesn't offer napkins, a towel, a hand...nothing. so, i get up and run over to the waitress station and get napkins and then run out to the car and get a pack of baby wipes. finally, i asked the waiter if he had a garbage bag for my wife who was cleaning the entire booth....7 months pregnant!!! not once, did anyone ask if they could help, could we maybe warm yourfoodup, make you something fresh, no, instead i got the check. i asked to speak to the manager and andy, the manager on duty, came over and told me that we made a mess of his booth....what??? i bit my tongue and explained to him that we can't exactly eat ourfoodand that my daughter said the spaghetti was bad. what did andy say you ask, "i have served 15 of those tonight and they have been spot on". he then continued with the "mess" we had made. finally, i could take no more. i informed andy that we would be happy to pay for what we ate and nothing more. what next you ask, andy called the police!!!! three cop cars pull up and my wife goes over to speak with them. andy says that we were walking out on our bill. what? we waiting for 30 minutes for the police. our other two kids were on the restaurant dock feeding the fish. walking out?!?!?! the monroe county sheriffs office could not have been nicer. andy spoke to the police horribly! they explained to andy that they could not make us pay. after listening to this "manager" go on and on for 15 minutes, my wife just said she would pay the bill to get out of there. the police explained they could not force her to do so but with a crying baby in the car full of puke, my wife did the right thing and chose our kids over andy. the police offered to escort my wife back into the restaurant so that andy could not be mean to her anymore. the police said they would write up a police report even though that was uncommon in this type of situation so that if we chose to fight this, there was a record of it. thank you monroe county sheriff's office for making this horrible experience a little better. finally, we spoke with the concierge at our hotel on arrival back and they said, "these guys treat tourists terribly". lesson learned, speak with locals first!

fast, friendly service and delicious food!. visited this restaurant on 3/12/15 and it was, by far, the best place i have eaten at in the keys. sparky's landing and burdine's were tourist traps; this place was a gem. ordered the coconut shrimp, hogfish flatbread sandwich and fries and my date ordered the peel and eat shrimp and grouper sandwich. everything was fresh and tasted amazing. we were seated immediately and thefoodcame quickly. our server, nikolai, was very attentive and friendly. wish i would have come here sooner! after lunch, i stopped by the pier to take a few photos. the whole experience was wonderful and i would definitely return here again the next time i visit the keys.

great place!!!. we enjoyed thefoodand the location on the water. our kids really enjoyed watching the fish as they ate.

great service and huge servings. we drove by this place and thought it was a great location and looked nice, read some reviews and decided to try it. parking is limited but we were there early so we were all good. the hostess sat us in what we normally would think would be a great table...but we just got back from a 10 hour fishing trip and the sun seemed to be killing us. our waitress was very concerned and continued to ask if we wanted to move tables but we didn't want to be a burden for something that wasn't their fault. we ordered the lobster rolls for an ap... i was expecting a tiny egg roll... holy cow they were huge... different and very tasty!! we both ordered soup and pasta. the soup was very good, it was the island style she crab soup.. now if you are expecting she crab soup.... be warned... it's not traditional..but still good. the pasta bowls came out and they were huge. the prices are a little higher, but for the amount we got, it wasn't bad. because the sun was making us uncomfortable we asked for ourfoodto go somewhat quickly, but we had read a review about the deep fried key lime pie so we ordered a slice to go! it didn't last long back at the resort, and our left over pasta warmed up great the next day. will go back next time when we can spend time and enjoy the atmosphere.

the service is horrible. the waitresses are slow and rude. management is incompetent, and the place smells like raw sewage. do yourself a favor, and stay away from this place. thefoodisn't worth the hassle.

food is overpriced for breakfast, and the quality offoodis not good. also ordered a bloody mary that was served warm and was definitely not good. biscuits and gravy were horrible and tasted like it was out of a can. eggs benedict were decent but the build your own breakfast sandwich was way too pricy.

for the keys, the price is too bad, but thefoodis definitely delicious!!! my family really enjoyed our dishes and the atmosphere of this marine side restaurant. you have the option or sitting either inside a vast open tiki hut or at covered tables on a dock/platform by the sea. overall, i highly recommend this charming place to any one in the area!! (also, you can bring your catch to this restaurant and they will prepare it for you any way for around $20)

greatfoodgood atmosphere and good service you can't ask for more

had to eat slow to savor it all. my wife and i dined there on a monday night.foodwas fresh and tasty. good portions and attentive wait staff.

just bad. we arrived about 7pm tonight (sunday). it is off-season, but it looked pretty crowded. the first warning sign was being told it was at least a 25-minute wait, with several visibly empty tables. we were seated casually (the hostess pointed to a table behind the station and said "that is your table, it is already set up." hey, its the keys, it is supposed to be laid back, and she was nice about it. maybe 5 minutes later, the waitress comes by to take our drink order. not bad, but not great. we could see it was busy. because it was so busy, we had already looked at the menus and knew what we wanted to eat, but she dashed off without taking our orders after getting our drinks. she said she would be right back, but 10 minutes passed. she finally arrived, started taking orders, apparently unfamiliar with the menu (my wife's entree was supposed to include bread and salad, but the waitress said it came with bread, no salad). our drinks were empty and no server visit for about 20 minutes. she came back, refilled the drinks incorrectly (water in sweet tea glass), and we begged her to bring us something, going so far as to order a side of bread (we were told it was not complementary for the table). we saw the bread when ourfoodfinally came out! some of it was cold, having apparently been sitting in the kitchen for some time, and some was just plain bad. i ordered the island steak, which was to be a 7oz steak, rice, and "chef's vegetables". the steak was correct (medium rare) and was decent flavor, and the rice was good, but nothing special. the "chef's vegetable", however, was literally *3* slices of raw, unseasoned, unanything tomato. so i paid $18 for a steak, plain rice, and half of a tomato. i am sorry, but a chef who doesn't know how to do the simplest thing with a tomato is not worthy of the name. throw it on the grill, shake a little salt in its direction, something! my brother-in-law had the bbq shrimp, which the menu lists as "bacon-wrapped shrimp". it was a skewer of grilled shrimp, in bbq sauce, laid on one strip of bacon! not bacon "wrapped" by any stretch.

bottom line, almost 2 hours (by which point others had been complaining loudly, one man even yelling about how it was taking 45 minutes for someone to take his card for him to pay and leave!), mediocre to decentfood(my wife's pasta dish was very good), poor service (the waitress was nice when she showed up, but that was not often, perhaps because she was getting yelled at by others for the kitchen being so slow), and the apparent manager (a female in a green dress) and multiple hostesses doing nothing that i could see to alleviate the problems. my advice to them: when things are going that bad, have the hostesses and anyone else refilling drinks and getting every loaf of bread you can out to the tables. it was a great location, but i just really cannot recommend any aspect of it to anyone. first and last experience here.

mediocre food, poor service. save your money!!. our family vacations in marathon every year, and the island is located less than a mile from where we stay; however, i will not give this place another chance! the first time we visited (2009) thefoodwas great, so we came back again in 2010…we had actually saved it until our last night, but on that visit the service was slow and thefoodwas mediocre at best not to mention way overpriced. we skipped it in 2011, but decided to give it another shot this year…big mistake. we were seated by the host/hostesses and pretty much forgotten. we sat there for about 15 minutes and no one ever greeted us—they weren’t even that busy! many employees walked by our table and not one noticed that we had not been greeted. we decided to leave, so my husband mentioned to the host staff that we were leaving because we hadn’t been waited on…they just looked at him like he had 2 heads. my husband runs 2 restaurants and has been in the restaurant business for 20+ years, so when he is treated poorly in a restaurant it makes him crazy. we will not be coming back to the island…fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice, shame on me. i am sure they will still do business because tourists don’t know any better, but a word of advice to anyone going there for the first time, be prepared to be disappointed. don’t waste your money…head down to keys fisheries if you want goodfoodwithout the hype and crappy service.