Kingfisher

Reviews 6

GR

Greg Campbell

Won a $25 gift certificate at a christmas exchange. Stopped by at ~2pm on a weekday and went with the Fish and Chips and an Iced Tea. Service was very good. The waitress was professional and attentive without being intrusive. Food was good enough - ~ 8/10. Classic Fish and Chips with malt vinegar and lemon. Fish was fairly tasty and not overly oily. Good crisp batter. Tartar sauce a bit bland but better with black pepper and lemon. Fries quite good, slaw too. Tea nice and strong. Portion side was OK - enough for lunch - but... My only reservation is the overall value. (I dont eat out much, so this may represent normal sticker shock.) For $20+ out the door, Id appreciate larger portions. Another piece or two of fish, and 50% to twice the fries and slaw is more along the lines of what I was hoping for. That or knock 3~4 bucks off the price... OTOH, if youre the sort who thinks nothing of a $20~30 lunch, youll probably like this place. Also, after fishing for a tip, only to discover a lone dollar in my wallet, I was reduced to tipping the waitress with the certificate - now valued at $4 and change. If the owner happens to read this, "Why the bleep cant this be cashed out? You are targeting a high-end clientele - please provide appropriate service." Your waitress took it well, but it is still an awkward situation to impose on customer and employee. The atmosphere was a tad clinical, but not at all objectionable. (As a Card Carrying Introvert, I find this FAR preferable to the opposite extreme - having nets and harpoons hanging from every rafter and blowing a fake foghorn in my ear every 3 minutes!) There was music at a very low, nearly-subconscious level, just enough to drown out traffic. Perfect. The walls had some nice pictures that were also utterly generic. (I suppose Seafood in the Desert doesnt have much mythology to draw from.) Overall, a little more character wouldnt hurt, IMO.

---

CH

Chas Pal

Tonight my wife and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. We decided to do so at the Kingfisher and brought our 17 year old son with us to enjoy the night with us. I made reservations to ensure we would have a table. We arrived promptly at 6:30 and we were seated. Once we were seated our waitress came over, took our drink order. When our drinks arrived she took our appetizer order and entree order. That is when things went wrong. My son said that the waitress gave him a derisive look. I also noticed that she seemed to give me a less than pleasant look as well. We are assuming he received it because of his age and I received it because of the full sleeve of ink on my left arm. Regardless during our stay, my sons drink sat empty for most of his meal and was only refilled after I asked two different busboys to ask the waitress to get him a refill. My wifes wine glass sat empty for half her meal and never was refilled. At no point during our meal did the waitress stop to check on how the meal was going or if we needed anything. Meanwhile she was checking all the other patrons around us frequently, refilling their beverages and checking on them on a regular basis. She blatantly IGNORED my wife who was sitting patiently waiting for her to finish with another patron while staring at her. My wife and I both earn a nice living in high end white collar jobs, the Kingfisher is not what we would consider a upscale dining experience for us. To be judged and treated like this based off my sons age and my ink is just stupid and asinine. The food was mediocre at best with small portion sizes and just not good enough to support the rudeness of this staff member. Oysters were fresh and fried calamari was good. Staff needs some serious retraining if they are going to have bigoted behavior like this.

---

PI

Piggie Pete

Popped in for what we hoped would be a quick and easy lunch with my wife. We are in town for the gemshow and Kingfisher had good reviews so we decided to stop in. We always try to support the local businesses when possible, being in one ourselves back home. First off, the smell of the place should have been the sign to leave. Fishy and musty. Ive been in a lot of seafood restaurants and whenever theres a fishy smell walking in, it rarely turns out well. But whatever, we were starving! So we both ordered a cup of the lobster bisque to start, and a burger for our entrée. After 10 minutes of our waitress walking past us without a word, I finally had to follow her to the bar to ask her where our cups of soup was. Usually those are pretty fast, right? Well not the bisque apparently! Another almost 10 minutes passed, and we finally get our soup. It was piping hot, almost as if it was microwaved. It had a fishy smell to it and had 1 tiny piece of lobster in each bowl. It actually tasted off, almost sour. At this point it was 25 minutes into our Kingfisher experience and we decided not to wait for our burgers. We got up and left. Based on the other reviews here, lots of people have great experiences at this place. We just werent lucky enough to be one of them.

---

JU

Juli Dean

Came in around 10:30pm for a Saturday night date, we thought it was going to be busy. It was quiet and there were very few people. From the outside it looks like a dive bar, and we have dismissed it several times because of that. However we decided to give it a try and Im so glad we did! The inside atmosphere is wonderful, the hostess seated us right away and the wait staff were all wonderful and polite. Our waiter was Wyatt and he took excellent care of us, never let a glass get below half full and consistently checked on us. The food was fantastic! We were very pleased with our choices. Everything was fresh and perfectly cooked. Prices were not bad, especially for the portions size and the quality of food. We also ordered drinks, which were delicious (especially if you like them strong) but slightly overpriced, but they also use better quality liquor than most restaurants. All in all we had a wonderful experience there and cant wait to go back, thinking of trying around lunch time next.

---

R3

r3al P

I had a bad experience here and would not go back. The waiter was very good and he did know his stuff. The wait time was the longest I have ever experienced; yet this would not have bothered me if the food had been better. I had the worst, and most expensive, fish and chips. You would actually be better off picking up a bag of Gordon’s frozen fish fillets and a bag of frozen fries. I am not sure why they also have a burger on their menu, also priced very high, when it is subpar. I understand it is a seafood restaurant, but if you are going to put a hamburger on your menu, above standard restaurant price, it better be delicious. All in all, I do not care about the price when the flavor of the food matches in value, yet this is not the case at King Fisher. Others seem to have enjoyed it, but maybe they have never had real seafood in a state that has a coast.

---

A

A Private User

Several of my fellow graduate students and a professor gathered at Kingfisher to celebrate the end of our semester together with drinks and seafood - only to have plates thrown at us and a curt bartender treat us like children. After several of us, including the professor demanded to speak to a manager, they claimed that none was working that night and continued to abuse us even after being confronted by members of our party, none of whom had ever been treated this way - especially at what purports to be a high-class establishment. Tucson is full of restaurants with great food and a great atmosphere. Kingfisher represents the nadir of the towns high dollar offerings in terms of both, and with service this poor, I can happily say I will never set foot in its door again.

---

---