The Dock Bar & Grill

Has new management this place improve drastically. Service is friendly now and the food had gone from average to very good.

Awkward location (to find, not placement) but great establishment! Well worth the find.
If you’ve been before you know, the sign from the main road (i.e.: Seaway Rd) isn’t an easy eye catch so you may pass right by. When you do find it there’s a short drive from the main road to the actual restaurant/​bar.
It’s a big spot next to a boat repair (?) place, but you can’t miss it. Indoor seating, outdoor seating, multiple bars, a boat dock and water view, small event stage… lots of space. Most weekends there’s a live band, but even during the week they’re playing music of some type.
For my first time I was there for an event; which with my pass, served food. I arrived early anyway and had just a quick Crab Cake app and cocktail. I thought the crab cakes were great! Seasoned and cooked very well, looked delicious, and tasted equally delicious. The event food later wasn’t bad, typical «buffet» style pub food with chicken wings, popcorn shrimp, and chips. Chicken was a tad dry from sitting on a hot plate, but aside from that it was actually very well-​seasoned and tasty.
The second time I had the Fried Crawfish app with a side of fries.
I thought the crawfish were tasty, but not very meaty. Seemed more fry breading then actual meat. Although still good overall. In hindsight I wish I had gotten the crab cakes again.
This is definitely your warm/​sunny day place to go that’s not on the beach, but I imagine the food and spirits are tasty no matter the time of year you visit. Definitely recommend you check them out.

New manager new kitchen staff new bartenders the doc has improved greatly. Just a year ago the bartenders inattentive the food horrible and the management was bad. The beer selection has improved with the addition of Mississippi Brewing Company, not the greatest and beer selection but they have drastically improved in quality. There’s still some small growing pains but all in all vastly improved and working to get better.
I personally had the blackened redfish and my friend had the shrimp tacos were both were perfectly done and brought out in a very timely fashion.
If you’ve had a bad experience in the past with them it’s time to give the doc and another try.

My best friend treated me here for my birthday. The food was outstanding and customer service was superb. Awesome location. Overall great experience!

This is the coolest place on the coast to hang out with friends. The burgers are good. Their beer selection SUCKS. Why would they not have a good craft beer selection? The service has always been pretty good. But it’s on the lake. We park the boat at their floating piers during the summer. Just get some more beer!

Well, what can I say? If you read the other reviews, it’s all true. Atmosphere and venue is great. Service needs work and food is alright. We ordered raw oysters as a starter and fish tacos. I ordered a beer and my wife a water. Beer was instantaneous from the bar. I had to go to the bar to get my wife a water. The fish tacos were great. Never got the oysters because the tacos came out first. When we asked to have the oysters removed from our bill the waitress made an excuse that they were late because they had to be shucked. Huh?! We asked again to have them removed. She got visibly frustrated with us but complied. In the end our waitress regained her professionalism. After all the reviews that I’ve seen on this site about the service, one would think the owners either don’t care or don’t read Unilocal.Every aspect of service for us that failed costs the business nothing to improve upon. What a shame for a place with such potential.

HORRIBLE customer service. Ok food. We got a cheese cake and it was five bucks and it was like an inch wide. Eat here if you hate eating

Great atmosphere. Fried shrimp basket is tasty as well. I personally love the coronaritas

Me and my girlfriend visit The Dock at least two or three times a week. Recently the service has been very good every time we visit. The food is good and the atmosphere is great. However, we came on a recent Sunday afternoon and became disappointed quickly. We love live entertainment, but this day the music was so loud you couldn’t talk to the person next to you, and could hardly understand what they were even singing! We even sat pretty much as far as you could get from the stage. It made for a bad experience.
Also, and an even bigger deal, a while back they had a designated smoking area, now, people smoke wherever they like. Next to your table, their table, the bar, pretty much everywhere but inside. It can make for a very bad experience.
And then there are the animals. Pet friendly they are, and I like dogs, but not everyone wants one sitting at the bar with them. Some people would like to eat without the smell of wet dog, or dog hair in their food. They are supposed to be on a leash, but that is not enforced. Ever.
I like this place a lot due to its location and the service we receive there, however lately we have begun to think we need a new hangout. And will probably find one. There are plenty of other places we can go. :(

Food was good and server was good but the owners didn’t value my spending money and shut down early to scare off some drinks. Turned off the TVs. Manager had to come explain. We always go out as a group and buy appetizers, drinks, food, and dessert.

The tuna dip was okay. I probably would have enjoyed it more had the band for the evening would have STOPPED! Way too loud! I would have paid them to stop. Too cold inside or we would have went inside. Totally ruined the atmosphere of eating outside. Could not hear the person sitting next to me. Could not hear the waitress! Just ridiculous! French fries were great.

I had the comeback shrimp, it was OK, but very forgettable. My buddy had the wings, they were horrible. To top it off, it took 30 minutes to get a bud light and a blue moon… outrageous considering how slow the restaurant was. Won’t be coming back again.

Well, dammit. I could have sworn the Unilocal reviews on this place were much higher when I first bookmarked it. I should have double checked.
It’s a nice facility, on a pretty little lake, along an actual dock. And that’s the end of the good part.
We started off with fried crawfish tails. They had that past-​their-​prime flavor you usually get when you buy the frozen tails from Asia rather than the good Louisiana stuff. Or maybe they used the Louisiana stuff, but thawed them a few days earlier. The breading was crisp but otherwise poorly seasoned. The flavors didn’t blend with the crawfish tails at all. They’d be better off with Zatarain’s Seasoned Fish-​Fri.
And then there’s that much ballyhooed «comeback sauce.» I think they left off the «go away and never…» part that comes first. Tasted like Miracle Whip and ketchup with a little crab boil spice mixed in. Too sweet, too vinegary. Think remoulade from a food service foil packet. Didn’t go with the seasoning in the breading at all, much less the actual crawfish. Except it managed to hide the slightly off flavor, since I couldn’t taste the crawfish at all when I dipped it. Hey waiter, «comeback» and take this stuff away.
For dinner, I ordered the blackened redfish with the crawfish sauce over rice, and my wife ordered a plain redfish grilled. The blackened and grilled redfish were identical. Blackening, at this place, means coating the fish in so much spice it creates a reddish-​brown crust when you throw it on the flattop. I’ve had some wonderful blackened fish in the past, and this is more like what I’d expect in a «cajun» restaurant in North Dakota.
So my wife sent hers back asking why it wasn’t grilled. Eventually the manager came over and explained «some of our grilled fish is done on a flattop, and some is done on a grill.» Then he left. Um, what?
So out comes a piece of fish done exactly the same way except now it has grill lines on it. My wife doesn’t eat it. She doesn’t like blackened in any case, but especially not like this. You kind of want to taste the fish, right? Not possible here.
She didn’t eat it. The waiter told us it was comped anyway. Ok, good. But when we got the bill, the meal price was added back on. The waiter said the manager had already explained the situation to us (really?) and forced him to add it back on. I told him what the manager had told us, and offered him a simple fact to take back to the manager: when a restaurant offers a choice between grilled and blackened, the customer expects some degree of difference between the two. One certainly doesn’t expect the exact same amount of the exact same spices cooked exactly the same way, does one?
The waiter went off to argue the point, and came back with the meal re-​comped (if that’s a word). And told us how the manager had given an equally hard time to a woman earlier who wound up with a big hunk of aluminum foil in her meal. Wow.
After all that, my own meal was a bit of a mess. Overspiced fish plank on top of a bed of overspiced grease with some rice in it. It was an explosion of taste, that’s for sure, but an explosion of bad taste. Everything fought with everything else, and it tasted like they’d poured pan drippings from the blackening into the rice. If you like subtlety and balance, this ain’t your place.
Moreover, it looks like the management might be getting to that classic Kitchen Nightmares point of having so many customer complaints they decide it’s all the customers’ fault.
Bottom line: probably nothing on this menu that can’t be had much better within a few miles of the place.

Was told to come here by some coworkers as it was my last night in Gulfport and I HAD to eat here, but I was not impressed. The restaurant was near empty, no one inside and three tables (including us) outside. Our waitress was nice enough, but didn’t have knowledge of their specialty drinks (what was in them, etc), not the worst thing in the world. It took well over 40 min to get our food for a table of five, including the appetizers (which I assume would come out first, but all came out at once), so the apps were cold. My fish tacos weren’t great, the fish was good, but in little nuggets of meat instead of a good cut of fish and the combination was not tasty, plus, those too were cold. The nachos COULD have been good if they hadn’t already cooled down and the cheese congealed. My friend seemed to enjoy her cheese and bacon chicken sandwich. Tenders were fine, also cold, and could have used more sauce.
Don’t be fooled by their Tuesday Buy one app get another free sign, thinking that’s all there is to it, that’s only if you buy an entrée. Common, but should say on the advertisement. Told my waitress I didn’t like my food when she offered to get me a box, but I got a «aw, I’m sorry», not a «can I get you something else?».
Not impressed, but would go here for atmosphere and drinks, maybe apps.

What is wrong with people not loving this hidden gem? The service from Ethan was sweet and kind to my Dad and I. His excitement for our fried green tomatoes with crab & crawfish was genuine and enthusiastic as if it were the only fried green existing in town. I loved my kicked up shrimp po’boy and my dad loved the shrimp and crawfish Cajun Alfredo. Nice view and fun vibe with Jimmy Buffett tunes. I will most definitely be back when we’re in Gulfport. ;)

Our service was excellent. We ordered the grilled flounder platter and the grilled grouper sandwich. The bun on my sandwich was very good. The flounder was overcooked. The fries are really good and came out hot. My main complaint is that they charged me .93 cents for plain tap water. I could somewhat justify this if it came in a Styrofoam or disposable cup but it came in a washable/​reusable glass.

Food here is much better than their average rating. Service staff is friendly and engaging. I suggest walking over to the Brewery next door to get you beer and bring it back. Win win.

First time being at this place. LOVE the location and building. Lots of space and room and a dock for easy access. It was cold last night so ah didn’t want to go out there. The food was great! I order an appetizer cause I really wasn’t hungry. It was chicken dock nachos. Those were awesome! My friend order the fried green tomatoes for her appetizer and I tried some of them. They were awesome too. You have the option to add crab and shrimp sauce on top if you like. I suggest you do if you like crab and shrimp in a cheese style sauce. Another guest with us had the shrimp and grits. The interesting thing about this dish is the grits came in the form of square grits patty with that crab and shrimp sauce with the shrimp on top. I tried that dish and YESSSSS! Delicious! The grits patty just melted in your mouth!!! Ooooo weeee! So I would definitely be returning…

Went in for drinks and to enjoy the view. The view is great… Everything else was poor at best. Sat at the bar for 15 min waiting for a drink that never came. The TWO bar tenders were busy casually chatting with each other instead of paying attention to customers. I was at the bar with my girlfriend and 3 or 4 separate other customers. It’s not like the place was busy. I resorted to waving my hands to try and get some service that never came. I won’t be back. I left and went to a different establishment.

Thank God they are back!
When the dock first opened it was great. The food was good, the service good.
They used to have great entertainment and was a great place to go, then with several managers going through the service went down as bad as it could get and the food suffered as well.
The good news is they are under new management! The coast restaurant group has taken over and they are doing a great job.
The food is equal to what you used to find at the old «high cotton» and the service is getting better by the day.
This is a