Based on the reviews on this site I chose Boss Oyster for our party. Being a native Floridian and a seafood lover some reviews led me to believe this place had potential...not so much. Party of four adults and toddler. Tuesday evening after Labor Day around 6:45 pm, rather slow...

Noticing the nice view of the riverfront and that it wasn't crowded, we asked to sit "outside" but some fire code issue with high chairs and dock-side seating forced us into the corner farthest away from everything and up against the wall...it was still a bit warm without a ceiing fan in that area (like there was in the section we thought we were going to sit in), so we tried to ask the hostess to reseat us inside, but our waitress arrived quickly (usually a good thing). Apparently she had a case of laryngitis, because she didn't say a word and walked past us to the new table she thought we should sit at. We figured out her body language and carted our party into this other dining area (newer, but with spider webs on the light fixtures, I guess to make it more Old Florida-like). The seating policy was strange here as the place was maybe 25% full but had people in all areas of the restaurant and spread out evenly in the different sections...

Waitress turned out to be competent and cured of laryngitis...Drinks came and my iced-tea was syrupy sweet, more like Georgia sweet tea than Florida. Knew I should have had a beer. Plastic plates/cups and paper napkins here...okay for the style restaurant but not for the prices. Tiny, ordinary dinner salads were delivered with my appetizer (raw oysters-very good) and my toddler's hot-dog ($6) and cold fries. Since the salads were so homey you would think they'd carry the basic dressings, such as Thousand Island, but they don't. My wife ordered crabcakes which were sizeable and good tasting. My senior parents ordered the fried seafood platter and shared (a plus here, no charge for the extra plate). It was okay-to-good, but definitely not anywhere near my top ten of fried seafood places. The batter got tough as the food cooled and became chewy. Fairly greasy (now, now...fried and greasy don't necessarily go hand-in-hand). Both my wife and parents had hush puppies which were very likely the kind you can get in the freezer section...with little kernels of corn in them. Terrible, amazing that they aren't ashamed to serve them! I think the last time I saw anything like them was in the dorm cafeteria in college. I had a caesar salad with buffalo-style fried oysters on top. Good except the romaine was kind of tough and it had too much dressing when mixed with the buffalo sauce...

Overall, the food was average to good, service was average to poor, but they are overreaching with the prices. More like you'd expect in a place with linen tablecloths, glassware, and cloth napkins. I travel for a living and eat out many times a month and this was just another one that I'll forget...hopefully.