Boomer Ruminations - Sip and Sizzle Restaurant Review
Downtown Ft Myers
We went to the Sip and Sizzle Restaurant for dinner before we went to the play Shout at the Historic Arcade Theater. Both are in downtown Ft Myers. You get free parking for the play in the parking lot close to the theater which made everything very walkable. We got to the restaurant for out 5pm reservations and the restaurant was pretty empty, but by the time we left it was packed!
Its an interesting looking place. The bar area has a moving set of shelves that have bottles of spirits on it. It probably makes it an interesting proposition for the bartender to make a drink every now and then because the spirit may have moved out of reach! Speaking of drinks, there is quite the extensive drink menu with lots of various ingredients. When it gets busy I bet that drives the bartender crazy! We ordered four different drinks off the menu and it took a while to get them.
Sorry, but I forgot to take pictures before we started to drink them, but you get the idea. So that’s the Sip part of the name, now for the Sizzle. Part of their menu is served on hot stones and the food is still sizzling when it arrives at the table. I got shrimp, tuna and a steak. The other person who ordered the sizzle sat across from me and ordered the shrimp and tuna. So our food was on the same large stone that was placed in between us. My wife ordered a shrimp appetizer as her dinner and the other guy in the group ordered surf and turf. Everybody enjoyed everything and ate it all up! They served nice bread and butter baskets. With our sizzle platters we were able to order two sides and three sauces. I ordered the ratatouille and potato gratin. The other person ordered broccoli rabe which looked delicious. My sides were ok, so I would probably order something different the next time. Check out their website here get a look at the menu. The menu is a pdf so you have to download it and look at it that way.
We had desserts. A key lime pie and a cheesecake. Both pretty good.
I would go back, but I’d probably order something other than the sizzle platters. I think its fun to order it at least one time. On the website they call themselves a chophouse, but there is only one pork chop on the menu. There is one steak on the menu. A burger, halibut, surf and turf and a cauliflower steak for the vegetarians!
My only problem with the place is the bathrooms. I seldom use the bathroom when I’m at a restaurant for just one hour, but since I was going to a play afterwards I wanted to get that event out of the way. So there are two single bathrooms, one for the ladies and one for the men. Both were occupied. There were a couple of women waiting and another guy showed up just after me. So we’re talking amongst ourselves which is good and the men’s room door opens and out comes a woman! And I think she was a worker on top of that. When my wife and I had restaurants we made sure the staff only used the staff bathroom in the back of the house. We didn’t want customers to have to wait for the bathroom because staff were in there. So anyway no big deal. I go in the bathroom and there is urine all over the toilet seat. There is no urinal. So I carefully aim and do not contribute to the mess. You know guys can be animals sometimes! I did wonder how the woman before me was able to use the bathroom. I would think that if a woman saw this they would scream, turn around and wait for the woman’s bathroom! So they need to check up on the condition of their bathrooms as the night goes on. You always have to have clean bathrooms! The guy after me probably thought I was one of those animals! Sorry! It wasn’t me!
Anyway, you should check this place out. Try the hot stone thing for something different and have one of their drinks off the menu. Its a fun place.