Southern Living never lets me down.  Well, hardly ever.  They recommended I go to Mr. Fish if I was ever in Myrtle Beach (here’s my proof:  South Carolina’s 10 Best Seafood Restaurants) and Mr. Fish let me down.  But Southern Living, you better listen up and maybe print a retraction.

My family and I along with a friend’s family headed to the Grand Strand for a little Spring Break fun.  I’d had Mr. Fish on my wishlist (yes, I have a restaurant wishlist, don’t you?) since I read the above article.  We arrived in Myrtle Beach at 4:45pm and were at Mr. Fish by about 7pm.  Along with everyone else in Myrtle Beach.  Telling us we’d have to wait 1 1/2 hours to be seated, we opted to come back.  As we drove to another restaurant, I called them and made a reservation for Monday evening at 7pm.  Smart girl.

Monday comes, I’m so excited!  We arrive and are told that we would still have to wait 20 minutes past our reservation time since they had a big party.  Wait, what?  We agreed to wait at the table, knowing that no one would come by for 20 minutes.  This seemed odd since all around us were empty tables.  I counted 15 empty tables, more empty than not.  And a lobby full of people.  Any new people coming in were ushered only to tables that previously had patrons, the empties stayed empty.  So odd.  That would be the theme for the night.

The harried waiter arrived, and brought us drinks and took our order.  I was promised homemade dressing with my salad.  My side salad arrived not long after, but the dressing was clearly bottled.  Yuck.  No biggie.  I ate it, and did not complain.  We waited on for the appetizers, with the kids starving.  They apologetically brought us hushpuppies, but said the kitchen was so backed up.  On we waited. My husband’s sushi that he ordered for his entree arrives first.  Over an hour after we arrived, appetizers were delivered to our table.  Our friend’s shrimp was cold.  My kid’s calamari was undercooked and you could taste the raw batter.  My crab dip was piping hot and amazingly delicious.  The drinks, however, stayed empty. Two minutes after our hour late apps get to the table, our friend’s entrees arrive.  So, this left the 2 children and myself without our entrees.  Our waiter was nowhere to be found, but when we did manage to flag him down, he was sweating and out of breath…so somewhere he must have been busy?  I told him our problems and said “Either get the manager or take care of this yourself.”  He got the manager.

The manager is flustered, tired and in way over his head.  We tell him the above, he promises to get our remaining dinners up absolutely next.  We see 2 tables get their food that were seated an hour after us.  I make a deal with my children that I will run through McDonald’s for them and we see our food coming out.  The manager, clearly befuddled, tries to give our food to 2 tables before finally settling on us.  Clearly, we were not the priority we thought.  I told him to take his food back, we were past hungry by this time, and all of our dinner companions were finished!  I also told him I’d wait another 5 minutes for my check, and no longer.  He’d have to chase me down in the parking lot if he mucked that up, too.  To his credit, he comped the meals we did receive and we left.  We were stopped twice on the way out by people hearing our plight to share their stories.

I’m told this place was amazing until they moved into their new huge building.  The staff says it is growing pains.  Because the manager made it right at the end, I would give this place another chance, but…not any time soon.