Critic's Review
The former Bimini Boatyard was remodeled and is now called Boatyard, mainly because they couldn't come up with a different name. It's still owned by the same people, but it's now being managed and run by Tim Petrillo's Restaurant People group, who also own YOLO, S3, Fork and Balls and Tarpon Bend. I've avoided coming here because its the same modal as all of their other restaurants with the same corporate chef, so I know what it is without having to spend any money. But it's been slow lately, so I could get a $16 lunch at some dump or a $25 lunch here.
A portion of the parking lot is allocated for valet, but there's plenty of self parking with a short walk. $3 plus tip for the valet.
Anyone who would rather valet than walk 30 yards on a sunny day needs a serious reality check. I figured I'd check out the back patio before I went in. The side patio is minimalist; not designated as a gathering place.
The rear has largely the same layout as before, with everything upgraded.
Inside, the layout is the same also, with the bar in the front.
The bar area is the typical misguided Petrillo design; uncomfortable stools and an ugly pattern accent that completely clashes with the otherwise pleasant bare wood. There's also a totally out of place canoe hanging like they used to have at TGI Fridays. Yachts and canoes. Get it?
I give the hostess credit for not asking me if I wanted to sit at the bar. Nobody wants to each lunch at that bar. I got a pretty good table with a view of the back patio. On a nice day there were more people outside than inside.
My server took my drink order and started with the hard sell; pointing out the specialty drinks and wine on the back of the menu. They had some bad specials that I don't remember. Something that you need to know is that they've already raised their prices, and the menu they have up is not the current menu. Salmon is now $26. It's a bad menu, with fish choices that are largely the same as you can get anywhere else. I decided I wasn't willing to pay their prices; not buying the line to table nonsense. I went with the octopus appetizer, which is now $17.
The drink came out with 2 lemon wedges. You could feel the bean-counting, which isn't unexpected in a Petrillo run restaurant. It was also flavored; they should really tell you when the iced tea is flavored; flavored iced tea requires sugar.
I was initially facing outside, but the sun was bright and I didn't want to wear my sunglasses, so I moved to get a view of the dining room.
They have the obligatory open kitchen and nice furniture. the booths are low, which I dislike, and have a garish green material that makes no sense. There's no privacy in the entire restaurant,and the place is loud. No bread service, of course. High prices, minimal perks. Music is YOLO-like with Ulf Nilsson and Calvin Harris detected.
The octopus came out with some pretty ugly-looking kale.
This is advertised as "Chorizo Vinaigrette", which seems totally contrived to me. I didn't like the recipe on the menu, but I didn't have any other choices. Potatoes and Chorizo generally work together, but this didn't. It seems that they use the wrong kind of chorizo; this was more Mexican chorizo; it didn't have any good flavors. Probably just ground pork and chile powder. Not spicy, not garlicky.
The potatoes were also ineptly prepared; SALT THE WATER people; potatoes need salt. What a waste of nice fingerling potatoes.
The Kale was inedible; chewy with a bad dressing.
The Garbanzo beans were roasted (or fried), but they forgot the flavoring. Roasted garbanzos are kind of a Spanish thing, but they're usually either spicy (cayenne and paprika) or salty. These had no taste at all. I would have rather had beans right out of a can than these.
What's interesting is that there is only 1 similar recipe on the 'net, at millys-kitchen.com. Milly makes it correctly with Spanish Chorizo, although the dish is still too busy with octopus. Octopus is delicate; it just needs some good olive oil and good salt. I'm so tired of these guys trying so hard to prove they're a chef that they ruin the food. The octopus itself was cooked properly, but there was no flavor that complimented it.
Just as I was finishing up, my server swooped in with a refill.
Notice that the refill had 1 lemon wedge. If I wanted extra lemon with the first one and you were bringing me a fresh glass, why wouldn't you think I wanted extra lemon for the second one?
I had trouble flagging down my server to get my check. At least I had the iced tea.
It also took quite a while to get the check.
On my way out, I hit the men's room and this is the first one I've seen where they have personal TVs for the urinals. You can't change the channel; they're on ESPN; it seems like overkill to me.
Conclusion
Boatyard is everything I expected it to be; an improved space with poorly conceived, overpriced food. This is a place for people who know nothing about food and who don't care about now much things cost. I think the fact that they raised their already too high prices within 3 months of opening tells you all you need to know about the place. Another nice place to hang out that encourages me to cook at home.
Previous Musings
In the Kitchen is Doug Reiss, a Petrillo retread who used to man the kitchen at their Riverhouse restaurant before it closed. Reiss has been working in some dumpy restaurants owned by bad restauranteur Tim Burke and his brother Randy in Hampton Bays, Long Island. Hampton Bays is sort of the Fort Lauderdale of Long Island from Memorial Day to Labor Day, so you're basically feeding inebriated kids. I had a house out there one year and I can hardly remember any of it.
Related Articles
Where Are the Boatyard Permits?
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The Restaurant People have taken over the Bimini Boatyard and will be opening a refurbished restaurant called "Boatyard", which is a better name than their other restaurants.
The logo is in
Time for me to weigh in on this. I don't see the point of changing the name, as if the 95% of us aren't going to know it's the same place. The brand, Bimini Boatyard, had value. The reason people stopped going was:
1) The food sucked
2) It was overpriced
3) Their "theme" was misguided.
The people running it had no vision; "Caribbean" isn't enough of a theme to draw interest; not at their price point. On my last visit there, the food was downright awful.
These restaurants need to stop hiring 23yo PR recent grads to do their promotions. There was nothing wrong with the Brand. The problem was that they had a bad product.
Review 1/2/14 of Bimini Boatyard
I was thinking about going to Fresh First, but I couldn't pull the trigger. On a beautiful day, I turned left and went into Bimini Boatyard instead. I heard that they had a new "chef"; the lousy wings I had last time are off the menu, so I thought I'd check it out.
Interestingly, the 2 hostesses are both Caribbean, while all of the servers are white folk. The Bimini Boatyard is faux Caribbean; we all know that, but it's interesting how they try hard to pretend.
I got seated in one of the semi-booths that have big pillows that serve no purpose other than as decorations.
There are a surprising number of people here; maybe unsuspecting tourists, or maybe people trying to re-live the past. Back in the day, the Bimini Boatyard was the hottest spot south of Mangos.
My server was a low-talking mumbler, which is always a problem. They had a seafood pot pie as special, which seemed like a bad idea to me. I ordered an iced tea while I pondered the menu.
They have skinny glasses that don't hold enough tea. Service isn't good enough here to keep this from being constantly empty, which is was.
I thought about the seafood chowder, but decided to try the gumbo. I also ordered the Shrimp and Lobster Mac and Cheese. The soup came out first.
Clearly, this isn't a gumbo; gumbos are supposed to have gravy-like texture. This tasted like a bisque. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't anything like what I expected or hoped for. As a gumbo, this soup is a complete failure. Zero spiciness.
When they brought out the Mac and Cheese, I had to hide my displeasure on an overall basis.
The sprig of Italian Parsley shows that they have no idea how to do presentation, so they shouldn't make fools of themselves by trying. The issue here was the portion; this isi $16? This is a $5 side dish that they charge $11 extra for 2 medium shrimp and some "lobster", if it was lobster. And you'd think that a Caribbean restaurant would at least make the shrimp interesting and a bit spicy instead of just letting them curl up on the grill.
The lobster didn't taste like lobster and it was chewy; probably garbage warm-water lobster.
So for $28 I got about $11 worth of food and an iced tea. Another restaurant in Fort Lauderdale where you leave feeling like someone stole your wallet.
And the only thing worse than sitting in a restaurant that you feel is ripping you off is when you can't get your check. My server disappeared, leaving me with a table with an empty glass and an empty bowl. You'd think one of the other servers who walked by with pitchers of iced tea would notice and at least pour me a refill, but that doesn't happen here.
The Bimini Boatyard. It was probably never much good, but it's much worse now.
Review 7/10/12
There was a time when the Bimini Boatyard was THE place to be, particularly on Friday nights. They have a nice patio on the water, and it's still a nice place to go on weekend afternoons and happy hour, but the crowd is nowhere near the same as it once was. There were fewer choices back then, and more people who were born locals rather than transplants.
I'd had lunch at Bimini before; I got the simply grilled fish and it was a very small portion. It was before I had this site fully figured out. But I wasn't all that impressed. They've had a change in the kitchen since then, and although their menu is largely the same, there are a lot of compelling choices. Their jerk wings are one of the few I hadn't tried, so I thought I'd give it a try.
While the bar and patio are the big pull of this place, I opt'ed to eat in the dining room to get the full experience. They have a lot of booths with big, squishy cushions and big throw pillows that serve only as decorations; a bit too squishy for me. The dining room is busy even though there are few customers; there are people flying all over. It's hard to get a picture without them.
I knew that I was ordering wings; I could take them home for a snack if I didn't eat them all, so I needed something else. While this place isn't all that inexpensive (they have no lunch menu, so you're paying dinner prices), they do offer a dozen oysters for $10, which is less than a buck a pop. Some places offer oysters for $1.50 apiece as a special, so this a good deal. A real low-carb lunch.
While all of the runners are teenage kids, servers are professional. Little bits of paper on the table disappeared whenever she stopped by. Iced tea was filled before it was empty.
The oysters and the wings came out at the same time. I usually order 1/2 dozen oysters; this was a pretty big plate.
They give you a mild cocktail sauce and plenty of horseradish to kick it up. Enough lemons, and the oysters were nicely shucked. Only a few bits of shell in the whole lot. The oysters are a winner; a great deal for $10. too.
The wings, however were disappointing. The disappointing part was that they had no spice at all. They were more sweet than spicy, with a clear, sticky sauce. This is certainly not close to the standard Jerk with fresh thyme, scallions and scotch bonnet peppers. To make matters worse, the sauce included was terrible. If it was supposed to be blue cheese, it was the worst I can remember having. After eating 3 wings I decided to bring the rest home, where I could at least have the wings with a good blue cheese dressing. They also shouldn't serve them on the lettuce, which was sticking to the sticky wings and I constantly had to pick it off.
I'd have to say that this is an ok lunch place; the wings weren't bad; they just weren't what I was hoping for. They have some other interesting dishes that you can't get elsewhere, and prices are moderate. They didn't charge me for the iced tea, either.
Review 2/18/2010
There was a time when the Bimini Boatyard was THE place to be, particularly on Friday nights. Those days are long gone, and the extremely large space now draws a more modest crowd. The crowd here is 40s-50s with a sprinkling of younger folks; they have a nice patio with a marina view. Inside, there are large booths and 2 large bar areas. The decor: blue canvas.
They have a Caribbean themed menu, and the menu is quite extensive. For lunch, the salads are pretty big, and they give you a good portion of fries, but the "fresh grilled" fish is a smaller portion than expected. Black Grouper ($18 with 2 sides) is about a 4oz piece. The vegetables here are properly cooked; make sure you try the very cheesy Mac and Cheese, which is served in a ramekin with the cheeses baked in. Karen's sandwich is a winner; a thinly sliced chicken with bacon, lettuce and tomato on toasted sourdough bread.
They have live music on Fridays. They also have a Sunday brunch from 11am -3pm. Cost is $32.95pp and includes one Mimosa or Bloody Mary.
I'm glad he liked it but anyone who actually knew the point of a paella would be insulted by the soupy mess they serve here. Paellas are extremely difficult to make in a restaurant setting and the only reason they have it on the menu is because they know their customers are culinary morons.
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