Critic's Review
Another year, another new name. An effort to avoid the bad online reviews?
Why do people keep going to this place?
BE WARNED
411 South Bar and Grill / Beach Bunnies / Beach Boys / Ocean Bleau - Same Operators with a Different Sign
They now call themselves Ocean Bleu
Review 7/29/2010
I created a new category today, Places to Avoid. And Beach Bunnies is the first establishment to get the tag.
Why? Not just because I got the worst breakfast I've ever had here. Mainly it's because they're dishonest.
This place was the Beach Boys deli; they took over the Greek Express next door and re-branded this as Beach Bunnies, creating a complete fantasy of a description on their web site and claiming from Day 1 that they were "Voted #1 Best Burger in Fort Lauderdale". The #1 burger claim was part of the branding, not an actual vote or contest of any kind. Here's a picture of the sign 3 weeks after they opened:
While such things may be commonplace in Armenia or where ever the owner of this place is from, It's called False Advertising in the US. You can't put up a sign with a false claim to lure people into your establishment.
Now, they're doubling down on their false claim, by having some additional signs made up.
Some other things:
1) They have no phone number on their facebook page or web site. They don't want to hear from you.
2) They add 18% tip to your bill.
We wrote to them several times asking them to provide a reference for their #1 burger claim, without response. They have an email on their facebook page, but I doubt that it's a real address.
What I'd like to see is for government to do something good for a change, and make them take down the signs with the false claims. This kind of thing is bad for the community; while everyone who lives in Fort Lauderdale knows that they've never been voted best of anything; these signs are designed to deceive tourists. The entire point of false advertising laws is to protect people from such things. So how about doing some protecting, for the good of the community?
Review: 7/29/2010 for Beach Boys Deli
When you're down at the beach, there are a limited number of choices for food, and if you don't know your way around you can make some bad choices. Hopefully we can save you from making one here.
The sign says Beach Boys Cafe, but legally and in every other way they are really the Beach Boys Deli. It shares an address with the Greek Express; I guess it was one big place at one point in time.
I checked out the breakfast menu for Beach Boys and I was surprised that it was so expensive. Not that its hotel kind of expensive, but its more expensive than Cafe Del Mar a block away which is actually a nice place. This place is picnic benches in a strip mall. Being that I don't get to decide its not a good deal before I do a review, I was sort of stuck. I wasn't going to go with anything exotic. So just the usual 2 eggs over easy with sausage. My server didn't understand English very well; another Euro server on the beach. I kept saying Rye Bread, and she kept saying Rye. Rye. It comes with toast. Ok, toast is good.
When the food was ready, just imagine my reaction.
First of all, let me give some advice to all purveyors out there who serve breakfast; when someone orders eggs over-easy, and you break the yolk, you throw it out and make them another one. This is the epitome of amateurishness. What's an egg, 16 cents? I also received white toast with some sort of non-butter spread. I queried my server as to whether they had Rye bread, and after tilting her head she finally acknowledged that they only have white or wheat. Ok, so we have a deli that doesn't have rye bread. A closer look at the menu and you can see they sell Deli sandwiches, including pastrami. But they don't have rye bread.
Also, the home fries are more like french fries, and coffee comes in a styrofoam cup and there are no refills. Breakfast is served on plastic plates with a plastic fork and knife. And they charge $2.50 extra for breakfast sausage that is your basic store bought frozen sausage.
Adding insult to injury here, they add an 18% gratuity to the bill.
So here's the summary of this place. There's no question that this is the worst breakfast I've had in Fort Lauderdale. The way they operate, its very clear that they not only don't care if you never come back, but they know for certain that you never will. Why would you pay $13.45 to eat a bad breakfast on a picnic bench with no coffee refills when you can eat for less at Cafe Del Mar in a real restaurant with much better food? This is a place where they hope tourists come to once; and they rely on a steady stream of tourists to continue to exist. Either that or they are the dumbest restaurant owners on Earth. One or the other.
