Dining options in Key West

We decided to spend spring break in Key West visiting Mom. Not only would it be a great way to spend a week with her, but, hey, it's paradise with no lodging charges. For this trip, we have cut back on our usual dining splurges -- confining them to lunch out with dinner at home -- but Alan and I wanted to have one meal out by ourselves, a special treat, especially since the Cirque event that was his b-day present turned out to be less than stellar. So, in addition to family time with Mom, we were looking forward to a night out on the KW town.

After much thought, we decided to walk up to Mallory Square to see the sunset celebration and have dinner at Hot Tin Roof, a restaurant that's part of the Ocean Key resort. The menu looked intriguing and Mom said there had been a change of management since the last time we were there (that visit...okay). We had a lovely sunset just hanging out in front of the Westin, with a couple of mojitos, along with the traditional KW sunset cat carnival.

It's spring break here and a little crazy with the college students so we headed over to Hot Tin Roof with some mild trepidation, which increased when we got to the general area and there was a loud (and terrible) band playing in the bar immediately below HTR. Still, we were willing to give it a try. Showing up promptly at 8pm, our reservation time, we stood for 9 minutes as black-suited servers rushed back and forth, none of whom even bothered to acknowledge us. At the ten minute mark, a tepid host showed up to acknowledge our presence and without apology (or eye contact) announced that they would have to clear some tables. The vibe was bad, the sound was loud, the decor lovely. Hmmm.

After another 5 minutes of hanging about, with no attention from HTR staff, we said "no go with this show," there are plenty of other restaurants that will value our dollars and give us the kind of evening for which we were hoping. Excellent decision. We cleared the tacky end of KW, arrived at Martin's, in their new location which we'd been hoping to try and had a lovely, lovely evening served by Steven in their newly designed and evocative dining room. Wonderful summer salad with fruit and greens, the best stone crab ever, and excellent grouper and snapper, all in an elegant setting with superb service. This was what we had been wanting!

Boo Hot Tin Roof. Yay Martin's!

UPDATE: General manager of HTR called and offered free meal tonight over what he described as a "seating situation." Kudos to them. Customer service is not easy and I imagine the challenges of sunset and spring break to be hard. That said, attitude of staff walking by not acknowledging customers waiting at host station is not acceptable.