"Pros: great location, beachside dining; great service. Cons: food and drink are just meh, especially considering the prices Everything about the restaurant is great, except for the food and drink, so, having said that, is great service and location really enough? Apparently for some it is. Obviously they’ve not dined at either of the upscale Mexican restaurants (El Palomar and Cilantro’s which are within a 10 minute drive of this spot, or they would feel as I do, that the food and drink quality and taste just doesn’t measure up. Not by a long shot. Admittedly this establishment suffered greatly at the hands of the disastrous Winter 2023 and 2024 storms, which flooded the buildings and required significant storm damage to be repaired. I’m glad they’re back, but that’s not an excuse for poor execution. To the specifics… we ordered cocktails and chips and guacamole. Everything came quickly with super service. However, the guac was extremely bland, definitely a nice mash of avocado, but lacking any panache with spicing and flavor. Sometimes your avocados are somewhat bland, and you need to adjust with augmenting spices like chili, garlic, enough salt … but not this time. As for the chips, they were thick and slightly greasy; clearly house made, but not from house made thin tortillas, but rather from commercial, thicker corn tortillas. Chevy’s sets the standard for thin crispy light chips, and Margaritaville missed by a mile. Moving on to the cocktails… we ordered Mai tais and the El Ultimo margarita. Both drinks were very bottled juice forward and tart, with no hint of the premium liquors nor really of any liquor at all. Go to the Crows Nest and if you order a Mai Tai, you can taste the rum. Nope, not here. Hugely disappointing. For dinner, we were conservative and split the Ultimo Blackened Shrimp buritto. How does a blackened shrimp item with beans and rice end up tasting sweet and not spicy at all? Blackened is a Cajun preparation: “I give you one guarantee” it should be spicy and garlicky! This one was not. It was supposed to be “smothered” in some kind of crema; it was NOT. Dry as the Texas sands to quote Jerry Jeff. : You can do much better elsewhere, especially considering the $16 per drink price tag for bottled dour juice and pricy burritos with no promised cream sauce."
