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Last Update: Jun 19th, 2020
Good Spirits Fifth and Fed

Good Spirits aka Fifth and Fed

476 N Federal Hwy
Fort Lauderdale FL, 33301
954 523-2580
Overall Rating
2.7
Food
Service
Ambiance
Value
Last Review
02/22/2018

Details

Hours: Sun-Thu 4pm-12am, Fri-Sat 4pm-2am
Parking: Free Garage
CC: Yes
Alcohol: Full Bar
Has WiFi: Yes
Outside Dining: Open Air

Pros

Handsome restaurant

Cons

Smallish, Probably a bad choice in inclement weather.
Awful Menus
Awkward Checkout
Parking Garage is a Hike

Critic's Review

Good Spirits opened for lunch this week, which is an opportunity to try it out. Their "launch" was so weak I figured that nobody would know they were open, so I expected a sparse crowd, which is how I like it.

I initially was going to park in Fresh Market; they've installed signs that "suggest" that restaurant customers should park in the "free garage". They don't have the security guard watching anymore and I could have parked here, but I decided to check out the garage.

Up the ramp and there were a couple of spots on level 1. Unfortunately none of them were available for regular people.

Fifth and Fed Reserved Spaces

One more level and I found a spot between the 2nd and 3rd levels. the garage is normal sized; not a disaster like the garage across the street behind the Mellow Mushroom

Fifth and Fed Parking Garage

From where I was, I could see no signs about where the elevator or exits where. I ended up going through a door at the top of the ramp and found some stairs there. At level 1 there was a door; I opened it and it was at the top of the entrance ramp; a good long walk. I figured there might be a better entrance at the bottom of the stairs. But No.

Fifth and Fed Stairway Exit

The stairway exited to the rear of the building, no-where near anywhere than anyone would actually want to go. Nice Design.

I made my way to the restaurant; adding to the annoyance is that the hostess stand is at the far side of the building across from Doc B's, so I had to walk even further from the garage.

There were 2 smokers outside; you know the people who drink cocktails at 2pm, but only 1 table of 2 inside and it was a beautiful day. "Outside away from the smokers" I suggested, and I got a table on the other side.

Good Sprits Outside Table

As I sat down JoJo Parsons walked by; I'd heard that he was working here. JoJo is known for operating Jojo's Tacos, the place that sold the same 8 tacos for 6 years in Lauderdale By The Sea. No Tacos on the menu, surprisingly.

A server came up behind me and took my iced tea order. The lunch menu here is perhaps the worst I've encountered in over 1600 reviews. 1 burger, 1 chicken sandwich, 2 salads under $20. 2 $9 soups. completely obligatory and uninteresting. I ended up going with one of the sushi plates, which is what I surmised most would do when I initially saw their dinner menu.

The tea came out with plenty of lemon and some low-sodium soy sauce. I asked if they had some high sodium soy sauce, since sodium is the entire point of soy sauce. But they only have the green stuff.

Good Spirits Table

The music here is single genre, crooning, with Michael Buble and Etta James filling the air. The music was very loud; it turns out my table was right under the speakers, which are cleverly hidden in the column.j

Gs speakers

Good Sprits also has their own chopsticks brand, which I can't recall ever seeing in any Chinese or Asian restaurant.

Good Sprits Chopsticks

For the record, I didn't like the chopsticks; they're too wide on one side and they're flattened on the other end; chopsticks are difficult enough for most people to use without having to worry about the orientation of the flat end. Round and narrow is the way to go.

The food came out in 10 minutes.

Good Spirits Sushi and Sashimi lunch plate

Pretty standard for $15 in this town. There are a bunch of choices that are all fairly similar. 4 pieces of this and 4 pieces of that. I liked the sashimi sliced thinner than this; they could have given me 9 slices of thinner slices and it would have sounded like more on the menu.

Good Spirits Sashimi

Decent quality stuff. I like the slices on the nigiri better. I ate one and stripped off the fish from the other 2. Sushi rice doesnt do much for me.

Good Spirits Speaker

The rolls were tight and didn't fall apart when I bit into it, which is a plus.

I was my server's only customer, so I could see her peeking at me now and then. An iced tea refill came out with 3 lemon slices; finally a server who realizes that you probably want the refill the same way as the first one.

I asked about the mystery salad, some sort of raw fish with mayo. A nice little extra.

Good Spirits Seafood Salad

I didn't like the shredded lettuce garnish, however. The lettuce sticks to the chopsticks and the sushi and then it gets into the soy sauce. It serves no positive purpose.

I was ready to cash out, and this is when the disaster began. My server brought out the check right away; I put my card in the dish with the check, but she didn't return for a while. Too long. She eventually came out with a tablet, which she plopped in front of me so I could select one of the pre-canned tip choices and to sign with my finger. "No Stylus?", I quipped. "People hate signing with their finger". HOW ABOUT A STYLUS, PEOPLE? It then asked for my email; like I want to type in my email into a table. As it turns out, if you don't want to give them your email, you don't get a receipt. Unless you ask for it, which I did. She then had to get a manager to print an 8x10 receipt from the POS, which took almost 10 minutes.

On the bright side, they only charged $14 for the Sushi while the menu say's $15.

Conclusion

Good Spirits is brought to us by the Quarterdeck people, which doesn't cry out "quality food" to me. This is a nice little restaurant with inconvenient parking and an open air setting that's great of perfect spring days. I wouldn't want to come here on a rainy, cold or windy day; while they have windows it will significantly reduce the seating and not be very comfortable.

The lunch menu is terrible, and why do I want to come to a restaurant like this for Sushi, when there are 5 other places nearby to get Asian food?

They've also implemented the "idea" of table side checkout in a way that defeats the purpose. It's cumbersome, annoying and awkward; it took longer than the traditional method, and how can you be open for 2 weeks and not have a receipt printer set up? Someone made a big mistake trying to be cutting edge with a very important part of the business. Checking out shouldn't ruin the experience.

Initial Musings

Imagine if I told you that the group that runs the Quarterdeck restaurants were opening a wildly overpriced restaurant in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Imagine that they served beef from a company owned by the guy who owns Charm City Burgers and a bad Mexican fast food restaurant. Imagine that the "chef" overseeing this high end endeavor was non other than "Sushi Mike", who has spent the last 6 years overseeing the menus at the Quarterdeck restaurants. Would you be excited?

No need to imagine; it's almost here. The menu is up and it's provided me hours of entertainment. $9 soups anyone? Considering the onion soup photo on their menu is stolen from sheknows.com, I wonder if they've stolen the recipe also? With the beet salad photo taken from thegirlonbloor.com, you have to wonder why a group with 6 restaurants doesn't have photos of the actual food they'll be serving. Their Oysters Rockefeller photo? From tastemade.com.

I just bought a hanger steak at Penn Dutch for $6.95/lb; here you can get one for just $33. $7 for mashed potatoes, Lobster cavatappi (basically lobster mac and cheese): $35. Grilled "beef" for $37. Add in the predictable disasters, like Oysters Rockefeller with a cheese that hardens quickly like manchego, and you have a menu that reminds me of B-Square.

They also have sushi; what's going to happen here is that all of the Millenials will order sushi. "Restaurants" like Bokampers with awful, overpriced food have found that adding sushi saves the day, because people will pay any price for sliced fish stuffed with cream cheese, because it makes them feel like they know something about food.

Comment Policy Add Comment
Administrator
Reply
This place will not re-open. It's up for an "asset sale". Rent is $20K/month.
Carol
Reply
JoJo is bringing his "no substitutions" taco policy to a fine dining restaurant! Be forewarned!
Jess
Reply
Check out the review from the couple with the kid. The woman actually wrote it while she was there. There's a limited menu for the soft opening; so they bring a kid and complain that they're not set up to deal with babies yet. Fools! They both wrote the same review!
Ron
Reply
Typical fake foodies. It's the Quarterdeck people. What do they really expect?
Tim P
Reply
But be B Square is packed w everyday!

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