Dining Out Gulf Coast: Brick Wall Sports Bar and Grille, Port St. Joe, FL

This evening, we made another short drive to Port St. Joe to dine at Brick Wall Bar & Grille.  It was very crowded when we arrived around 6:30 p.m.  We put our name on the wait list and were seated about 15 minutes later.

I will preface this blog post by stating that I know it's a sports bar.  They cater to locals who enjoy wings and burgers and watching the game while drinking a beer.  I get that.  There's no cloth napkins here.  However, some things should be whether you're a dive or a 5 star establishment.  Now on to the review.

It took a few minutes before our server arrived for our drink orders.  She was very personable and appeared to be able to be 10 places at once.

I ordered a Lemon Drop (only option was frozen) and Sweet Harold had an Apalachicola IPA.  There was no discernible lemon flavor.  None.  Even after squeezing in the large lemon slice, there was none.  After a few sips, I realized there was little to no alcohol flavor either.  After I received the check, I realized that I received the "Happy Hour" version.  I would have paid the non-Happy Hour price to have enjoyed a decent Frozen Lemon Drop.  This was a slightly lemony slushy.

On the plus side, Sweet Harold said his beer was delicious!

Here's where things began to go off the rails so to speak.  I know that some servers can take multiple orders without writing anything down and it goes off without a hitch.  I also know when you have a very crowded restaurant with an abundance of noise, AND you're waiting on a number of tables, it might, just might, be a good idea to write things down.  But I digress.

We had been looking forward to some baked oysters and placed our order for a half dozen with garlic, butter, parmesan.  

I placed my order, Sweet Harold placed his, and off went our server (without writing anything down).  About 5 minutes later, the server returns to tell us that there had been a "situation" in the kitchen and could she review our order?  We said sure and she asked if I had ordered grilled shrimp?  Nope.  Fried oysters.  Had I ordered fries?  Nope.  Baked potato.  Then, she turns to Harold and she can't attempt to remember what he ordered.  So he repeated his order again.  Still nothing written down. 

So we waited on our oysters.  And we waited.  And waited some more.  Finally, a runner comes to the table with our food.  My oysters and his shrimp.  I gently tell her to let our server know to cancel the baked oysters.  

Then, we prepare to enjoy our meal and realize there's no silverware.  We had to flag down our server and request forks.  I confirmed with her that we didn't want the baked oysters at this point.  She repeated that things had been crazy in the kitchen.  Now, I wasn't in the kitchen, but I have to admit I pondered whether that portion of our order was ever turned in to the kitchen?

I'll start with SH's meal.  He ordered the fried shrimp, slaw, and fries.  A typical "at the beach" meal.  There were 8 large shrimp which were fried nicely.  He said the slaw was one of the better ones he's had on this trip.  The fries were fries.  Nothing special here.

I had the fried oysters, a baked potato, and a petite Caesar salad.  Large, delicious oysters which were well seasoned and had a light breading.  They were perfectly fried.  I believe I counted 18 of them!  The baked potato could have stayed in the oven for about another 20 minutes and been nice and fluffy.  It was almost hot enough to melt the rock hard piece of butter which was served alongside in a plastic salad dressing cup.  The salad was fresh and crisp, but could have used a tad more dressing.  

Final verdict?  For a sport bar, it was great food.  I thoroughly enjoyed my fried oysters, but would really have enjoyed trying their baked counterparts.