The Blue Parrot

All I have to say is that the service is terrible. Half an hour to get a pitcher of margarita on a wednesday when its half empty.

Who manages this place??? Service is always poor. Even for OB standards this place has no customer service skills — none. And I love OB! I get dragged here because some friends smoke and it’s allowed on the patio, along with dogs, which is all fine with me in general.
So on Street Fair day, two idiot kids get in a fight at the outside bar/​patio. A slew of customers break it up, it starts again, words and stares continue on for 20 minutes. And they didn’t kick these idiots out??? What the???
I cannot respect any establishment that does not 86 anyone involved in a fight, at least for that day if not for life. Lame.
Again, who manages this place?

My personal opinion, «The parrot» is the armpit of Ocean Beach. I wouldn’t dare call it a restaurant. It smells like homeless people, even the outdoor patio stinks. I have probably tried a dish or two here in the 5 years I’ve lived in Ocean Beach, very slow service and the quality of the food is terrible… has always seemed to me like a bunch of scum bum locals meet here to get drunk off $ 1 beers and hang out all day. If you’re looking for tasty food and good drinks, try again.
Not my style or preference.

Came here during happy hour during the day on a Saturday. They had $ 3 bloody marys. I took a sip of Bf’s and thought it was pretty well done. They also have a reasonable selection of beers. I had the Stone Self-​Righteous. We had some chips and salsa on the side and the salsa was bomb and the guac was yums. Service was very friendly. We sat out in the covered patio area and had a good time.

The Blue Parrot is a pretty good dive bar in OB, I’ve been here a handful of times and enjoyed the atmosphere and drinks. The place is partially outside which is nice since San Diego tends to frown upon any such schenanigans.
I think they have food too but I’ve never eaten here, it’s been good service and good drinks though which is what counts in my opinion. They used to have hermit crab races too but I think that has since stopped, fun times overall though.

I can only comment on the bar as we didn’t eat. I was happily surprised with a $ 10 pitcher of beer, gorgeous weather and friendly service. We sat outside with our dog and there were a bunch of other pooches with their owners.
The bartender came over with bacon for the dogs and they each very much appreciated the gesture. I would certainly return again for drinks.

Go here if you want to go to your ordinary local bar with some friends. It’s not too crowded and the bartender apparently thought we looked honest enough and just told us to pay for drinks at the end of the night (what?).
Crab races! Is that legal? Did I legally win a coffee mug and my friend some sunglasses? Not a bad time for a random work night.

If I owned a bar… and my liquor license allowed for me to serve liquor until say 1?..2? …and my employees closed down the bar with last call at 10… I would be pretty pissed… especially if that bar was PACKED??/
Any way… no ambiance really… nice place to get away from Newport if its gets to busy… and you wanna sit down and eat. Other than that not sure why you’d wanna go back… food is good (and reasonable)…sevice is not so good.
Atmosphere is between dive and cool… not sure if they are going for island style laid back… but it isn’t that IMO.

My friend K said that this place had the absolute worst customer service and wanted to prove it to me.
K was right.
We ordered a round of drinks, intending to buy food but the service was so awful, I paid our tab and walked out without even finishing our drinks.
Don’t make the same mistake and allow one of your friends to drag you here to «test» how terrible the service is… take my word for it, go to Raglan where the service is awesome.

This place sucks ass. What kind of bar doesn’t have proper shot glasses AND advertises Irish car bombs? I’m supposes to pour in my «shot» then chug. um ok no thanks. Go across the street to Raglans, best bar and best food joint in Ob, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Beautiful waitresses, bar tenders are always cool and Mike the owner is often there and saying hello. I would give no stars if possible to the Blue Parrot!
Additional Tips?
Attire: Dress like a bum.
Ambience: Dumpster
Alcohol: They say they have a bar? HA!
Leave this place for the tourists and other suckers.

Went with a group of eight. We’re not a picky group (we’re from ob) but when we got our food we all looked around and had the same look on our face. Honestly, i think they need to TRY to make food that bad.
Good thing they have good drink specials… our server was pretty cool too

I have lived in the neighborhood for 2 years, and have only been to this place once, and once was enough!
Although they have a cheap happy hour menu, the food quality was pretty terrible.

Oh where should I begin? Let’s start with the ambiance. The patio is nice and dog friendly. Looking at this place from the outside, the tropical themed seating area in the sun would prompt one to think this a 4 – 5 star place… but then you go inside. Floors seem to be habitually dirty and countertops sticky. I’d chalk it up to sitting before the bartender had a chance to wipe up, but this has happened repeatedly.
Proceeding to the service… The bartender is usually pretty attentive (if less than 5 people at the bar) but the servers like to gab amongst themselves rather than attending to the tables. Bottom line: if you want decent service, sit at the bar, which somewhat negates the sunny patio.
Onto the aspect that would warrant negative 5 stars if possible: the food. Every single food item that I’ve ordered seems like it was frozen and thawed right before burning (I’ve seen freezer burn on the food). I’ve even found plastic chunks in my food — obviously not edible. Each Cinco de Mayo, they have a tequila worm eating contest. The worms are actually an improvement to the normal food…
The ONE saving grace and ONLY reason for that 2^nd star is the happy hour and drink specials. Used to be ½ off but now the margaritas/​beers are reasonably priced.
Come to DRINK; NOT eat!

The bar is lively even at noon when it first opens. All I have to say about the food is… hash browns covered in gravy and cheese. I don’t even care that this has a whole week’s worth of calories and fat. SO good.

Parrot owners… what happened?!
We’ve been coming here for years and have been very excited to see the many impressive design improvements. We’ve *loved* the freshly squeezed cantaloup/​watermelon/​strawberry manmosas (sometimes a little too much) and raved to all of our friends about the delicious Mexican grub… until yesterday.
We invited two friends out to the Parrot on a sunny Sunday afternoon and were completely disappointed by these changes:
–totally different menu — no chips and salsa, but you’ll serve nachos? You had fantastic chips and salsa! Now, the menu is primarily burgers and sandwiches — totally not what we were expecting. At least you have one taco and one burrito still on the menu.
–HORRIBLY slow service. This has always been a place where you chill out, but our friends waited like 10 minutes to get their first drink after we had ours in front of us. Food and refills were slow, and so was the check. .and it was not busy.
–3 girls dancing on the bar every 30 mins. It was a Sunday and families with kids were all over the restaurant. This was during their Sunday brunch service. Bizarre event — weird all around.
— the bill was expensive! We dropped over a hundred bucks for slow service, and mediocre food delivered in plastic baskets.
My advice to the Parrot would be to get back to the basics. Greet customers upon seating and promptly serve drinks. **Never keep customers waiting!!**

Just like many others… I really, really want to like this place, and I live so close, but I’ve given it 3 or 4 chances and the food is just nothing to write on Unilocal about.
The Sunday brunch is particularly bad, but for $ 20, they do have kick ass all you can drink champagne to go along with the dried out, tasteless food. They have fresh juices to add to the bubbly, like watermelon and cantaloupe, yumm!
Somehow, the crab races seem kinda cruel, spraying those poor little hermit crabs with water bottles. If you were that small, maybe it would feel like a fire hose? I’m just sayin’…

Bargain Hunters rejoice!
The Parrot has different specials every day of the week! Sweet Tea Saturdays, Crab Race Tuesdays, Taco Thursdays, Jamaican Sundays, etc. If you don’t mind choosing from the specials you can get some really killer deals here.
Food is always great, service is laid back (read: sometimes slow), always willing to accommodate large groups and they have tater tots!

Went here yesterday for breakfast. Got to OB at around 9:30. We decided to sit outdoors. It was pretty chilly and they had heat lamps out, but check this– they weren’t working!
The breakfast menu doesn’t have much variety. The boyfriend went for the chorizo & eggs. I went for the carne asada & eggs. We ordered orange juice, but they ran out! Wtf… how are you gonna run out of orange juice on a Sunday morning?
Anyways, the food came after waiting for 30 minutes! His was really good, and mine? Well mine was CRAPPY!!! Horrible! Disgusting and not worth $ 10. I was highly disappointed but ate it anyways because I was too hungry to find another place.
Next time I find myself in OB, I WILL not be stopping by this place and WILL NOT recommend it at all.

Great Food. Lame Service.
The sister, cousin and I met for a girls brunch. The sister chose this spot, enticing us with terms such as «Man-​mosa» (a mimosa in a pint glass! hellyeah)…
It took the server a little while, but she came over and took our drink/​app order. My first drink was the Mamasita (Kahlua, vodka and horchata!!!). The sister and cousin ordered Man-mosas…1 original, 1 made with watermelon (!!). The only thing BAD about the drinks was that it took over 25min for them to reach our table. They finally showed up pretty much when we finished mackin on our appetizer: awesome ceviche. Making ladies wait for their cocktails is just rude. And mean.
When our drinks came is when she finally asked if we wanted to order some food. Ya think? Sister ordered a salad and chicken tortilla soup… it looked mighty fine. I ordered the crab-​cake eggs benedict with chipotle sauce… OMG. SOOO GOOD. They have another version on the special brunch flyer, thats more expensive and comes with carne asada and a side of potatoes instead of rice and beans. Since I wanted a side of potatoes added on (meaning: In Addition To), the server almost put the other dish down as my order. Kind of annoying. I just said I wanted the plate on the regular menu without carne asada. She then said OK and ‘substitute potatoes’ so I mentioned again that they were an add-​on, not instead-​of. TOTALLY WORTH the fuss though… because they were bomb. The cousin ordered AMAZING banana-​topped french toast with some sort of rum-​infused syrup sauce. So d-​lish.
All the food came out pretty quickly… and we had no complaints about any of it. The server came by only once– when we were almost finished eating– and asked if we wanted another round of drinks. My drink had been long gone at that point so of course we all said yes and asked to get some waters as well. Drinks came quicker than the first time, sans water. When we caught site of the server again we asked a 2^nd time for some water… and received it pretty much the same time we got the bill. Mmmk.
As we were figuring out the bill and leisurely finishing our drinks the hostess came by and asked if she could take some of the condiments off the table. Sister said something to the effect of «Oh, sure, you guys are cleaning up out here?» to which the hostess just stared and said «Oh, no.» Ummm alrighty, then. We just finished up and eventually got out of there.
Overall, I will definitely think of trying it again since the food was great, but the employees need to catch a clue.
OH! And it is DOG FRIENDLY! So, that is awesome!

You’d think in this economy restaurants would be making an effort to keep customers, not the opposite.
I called Blue Parrot last night to see if they’d have any specials for Cinco de Mayo. I was told they’d have the usual $ 10 pitchers of house margaritas (Wednesday night special from 4-​close) in addition to specials on Hornitos margaritas and shots. Perfect.
My boyfriend and I headed over there today at about 4:45, and saw the sign out in front said $ 10 house margarita pitchers and $ 4 Hornitos shots. Sweet.
We got a table, and I ordered «the $ 10 margarita pitcher.» A few moments later, our server came back and said they don’t have the $ 10 pitchers because it is a «special event.» I said I called last night to make sure they’d have it, and it has it on the sign in front. She went to ask the manager/​owner what to do.
He came over, and asked me who I talked to on the phone. Silly me, didn’t realize I was supposed to get the name of whoever it was who answered the phone and answered my simple question. I said I didn’t know the person’s name, but it was a woman. This was not enough evidence to sway him, and I was told that whoever told me there would be $ 10 margarita pitchers was wrong.
We said it also had the special on the sign in front. This also was not enough evidence. He said they don’t have their normal specials during special events (which, apparently Cinco de Mayo is, even there there were only about six tables occupied). The customer, at Blue Parrot, is wrong.
So, we took our money elsewhere.
Instead of giving us the house margarita pitcher for $ 10 instead of the $ 14 Cinco de Mayo price, Blue Parrot lost our business not only tonight, but forever. If I owned a business, and I was advertising a price, and the customer said she called and was quoted that price, and the price was a measly $ 4 different from what I wanted to charge them, I’d go with customer satisfaction every time.
With three Mexican restaurants within a block of Blue Parrot, and several others in O.B., I have no reason to ever go back to Blue Parrot again. And, yes, my O.B. friends will be hearing about this as well.