Cobb’s Landing
200 North Indian River Dr.
Fort Pierce, FL
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a pretty low maintenance person.
Give me a vacant bar stool, the game on the flat screen, something interesting to eat — and keep the beer coming.
That’s it.
In fact, how many times have I complained about service in my restaurant reviews? Pretty much never.
But the bald and heavily tattooed idiot who was waiting tables at the outdoor tiki bar at Cobb’s Landing got on my last nerve.
He must have been hired off the reject list for the TSA, or the DMV, or United Airlines Customer Service. Maybe all three.
Because I’ve seen even DMV employees work with more sense of urgency than this guy.
Twenty minutes later, I had to practically grab the dude by the throat to get him to finally take my order.
So since I had so much idle time, I spent it admiring the rather eclectic crowd gathered around the outdoor tiki bar on this balmy March evening.
Kind of the like a tropical version of the cantina scene from Star Wars, it was a motley crew of shaggy surfer dudes, bulging meatheads in tight shirts, grey haired Yankee ex-pats, and weathered divorcees looking for love in all the wrong places.
Everyone was enjoying the steel-drum beats of a local Caribbean music band.
For what used to be a hard-scrabble, gritty, citrus-exporting waterfront, the City Marina in Fort Pierce has since been transformed into your typical public-private partnership of mediocrity after Hurricane Jeanne wiped the place out in 2005.
It’s amazing what $19 million in taxpayer money and corrupt Congressional earmarks can do.
But just like any other government subsidized enterprise, Cobb’s Landing comes up short.
I ordered the blackened grouper sandwich. Or so I thought. Blackened fish normally means it comes seared with a generous rub of Cajun spices.
But the fish I was served had no seasoning at all.
And if that scrawny piece of fish is what you call grouper, then I’m a world famous underwear model.
But I’ve been suspicious of Florida’s ubiquitous “grouper” ever since the Daytona Beach News Journal did an investigative report on local fish camps.
It was discovered that 40% of the restaurants in that part of Florida were serving something else entirely other than grouper!
Every sunburned Yankee who comes to Florida demands grouper. Never mind that snapper, red fish, striper and wahoo are just as tasty.
The tourists want grouper.
As a result, you can’t buy a filet of grouper straight off the boat for less than $16 per pound. That’s double the price for filet mignon!
No wonder half the waterfront restaurants in the Sunshine State don’t use grouper in their grouper sandwiches.
Nevertheless, I don’t take too kindly to being lied to.
Or ignored.
Thank God one of the female bartenders noticed my empty beer and offered me another one.
I’d probably still be sitting there if she hadn’t also offered to bring me my tab.
Mr. Clean was too busy admiring his tattoos and watching the Miami Heat game to be bothered with any paying customers like me.
Doesn’t he get paid in tips?! You know, you take care of me, and I take care of you?
Maybe not.
Half the employees hired for this government enterprise were probably required to already be on welfare. Or with a union.
Or maybe they had to hire a certain quota of bald guys with at least 30% of their body visibly tattooed.
Besides, who cares if these ridiculous mandates make turning a profit impossible! The taxpayers subsidize the losses!
And that’s how big government works my friends.
So just consider this review to be another wise rule to live by.
Just like I’ve told you before not to eat at chain restaurants, or order the food at an Irish Pub, and definitely don’t get behind the guy wearing a turban in the TSA line…
We now have Proud American Travel rule #83: Only eat at places subject to the consequences of the free market.
You’re welcome.
Rating: Would Clean Grill With Free Shirt.