UYE Happy Holidays Happy Hour at Sea Bar

5 Stars for my fellow Unilocalers that braved this place, the one star only applies to the place… not the UYE itself.
So, I arrived a little late & it took almost 40 minutes for anyone to come by & even see if I wanted anything. Even then the guy practically ran away before I could ask for something. Then, he didn’t even come back for a while & when he did he looked at us like he didn’t know what we were talking about when we asked where are drinks were. Honestly, from the look on the other Unilocalers faces, I had no interest in even trying the food… plus I just felt bad juju vibes from the place. Why you ask? Things like this — they had a crab dish & the crab meat was brown. It is not supposed to look how it looked, not appetizing, I did not want to eat it. So, I can’t evaluate the food other than it didn’t look good & nobody seemed to jump for joy about any of the items. Additionally, they kept forgetting to bring food to the brave souls that actually ordered some & to top it off they brought the wrong food (things no one ordered & did not bring things they did order).
So, they get a one star. I have no intention of going back to this place unless I see reviews that it has improved or is better — from real Unilocalers, not Flepers. Sorry Sea Bar. Totally not impressed. The tequila offering was a nice gesture, I just felt the rest was beyond being repaired by a shot, which I did not take.

A nice evening with fellow Unilocalers, happy hour drinks and menu and finally, a working heater… Sound like good times, right? Well, almost but certainly not quite.
I wanted so much to like the restaurant. Really and truly. I wanted to have a great experience so I’d be able to recommend people to this new place. The staff seemed so eager to please and see their business succeed. Unfortunately, there’s just too much wrong to make it right, .
Being the first to arrive, I grabbed a seat at the bar and got excited as I eyed the bartender unwrapping a brand new bottle of Gran Sierpe Pisco. Yum! Short story very quick, after suggesting I have a Pisco Sour or Pisco Punch, he asked me how to make both. *sigh* The rest of the evening went pretty much in the same direction.
In all, I definitely had a good time drinking and talking with Unilocalers, both familiar and new (to me). I was glad I got to hang out with those who came. But as far as the restaurant, I won’t be back. I can’t. The food is too expensive and nothing I tasted warrants a second try. Drinks were okay but I’d rather go somewhere where I can drink AND eat and be satisfied.

Any event involving fellow Unilocalers is automatically 5-​stars, so it’s a testament to our truly dreadful experience at Sea Bar that this UYE gets bumped all the way down to 2-​stars.
Well perhaps «dreadful» is too strong a word, but this Happy Hour did not happy Unilocalers make.
I used to work in the building, and my co-​workers and I would frequent Luna Café (the previous tenant) most Fridays (and sometimes a Wednesday or Thursday) for Happy Hour. So to say I had high hopes for Sea Bar is an understatement.
Everyone had heard about the «pour till you say stop» cocktails, but what they didn’t hear is that the liquor is super-​watered down, so even a drink filled to the brim with Ketel One tasted very much like the club soda it was mixed with. Oh, and at $ 10.50 a pop, these «drinks» don’t come cheap!
The food was very underwhelming as well. I nibbled on some shrimp «chalupas» which were crispy (cause they were deep-​fried), but tasted super-​stale. The calamari was nothing special, and the guac was so-​so. I didn’t try the fish tacos knowing they were oozing beans and cheese (not okay for fish tacos) or the tuna burritos (which I heard were the best things there). I did try the crab tostada, which was crab meat piled high on a corn chip, with a little sauce on top. Let me just say that I’ve never seen crab meat that color before, but I took a bite and lived to tell the tale, so maybe it was just me…
Don’t get me wrong, hanging out with Unilocalers on a random Wednesday was a great end to an otherwise unspectacular day. We just gotta pick a better location next time!
Overall Sea Bar did not deliver, and unless I hear about vast improvements in food, drinks, and service, I will most likely not be returning.

This UYE is getting two stars because of the really awesome Unilocalers that I shared the evening with, and because my Pisco Punch was yummy, 2−4−1, and around 6 or 7 bucks.
The décor is nice, and the place has potential. It’s south of the MiMo and north of the Design District. If it capitalized on its location, there could be a great place here. I was still full from lunch, so I just took little bites here and there from what everyone else ordered. The food wasn’t good, and service wasn’t much better. The calamari was okay, as was the guacamole. Neither were spectacular or set this place apart from any other mediocre restaurant serving those items. The fish tacos tasted like someone took beans, cheese, and fish and threw them in a blender… with cream cheese or something. It just wasn’t good. Ick. The crab croquettes had a similar gooey consistency with a nasty garlic aftertaste. My bite was okay at first, but after that flavor stuck around a while, I wasn’t feeling it. The free shot of tequila helped a bit though. Prices were a little high across the board considering the quality of food and the overall experience.
I feel like this place should just become a really great bar because food is certainly not their strong point. They should work on the service while they’re at it. The waiters were nice, and tried their best to get the heaters working outside; but, service was slow. I waited a long time to get my second drink, and they weren’t crowded. Three or four tables were filled inside with more than a few employees, so there really isn’t any excuse for how long everyone waited for their orders.
I had really only been to Unilocal events where lots of people attended, so this was really great. I enjoyed chatting with everyone, and meeting a few new people! Can’t wait for the next event. We could be drinking crappy coffee on a street corner and still share some laughs!

Sadly, this happy hour proved to be quite a disappointment. We planned a little get together after work at Sea Bar and almost nothing went right when we got there.
Service was SLOW. It seemed like orders were forgotten. Drinks were poorly made. Many food items were mediocre at best.
The owner (manager?) came out and personally apologized explaining that they had some staffing problems, but that didn’t quite explain all the problems we experienced.
He sent out free tequila, which almost made up for the experience, but not quite.
The only thing I really enjoyed was the tuna burrito they served (although they overcharged me and I had to complain about even that).

Unilocalers are awesome. We are ALWAYS awesome. What wasn’t awesome was everything at Sea Bar. I showed up late and saw lots of food still on plates which is highly unusual for Unilocalers. That’s all I gotta say about the food.
So this whole concept of pouring whatever amount of liquor sounds great and all, but the problem? it’s watered down. Yeah, WATERED DOWN! WTF?! As soon as the server poured Jack Daniels in my clear glass, it was beyond obvious. I let him pour almost all the way to the top and literally added a splash of coke. As soon as I took my first sip, I laughed at what a joke this place was. It was the lightest Jack and coke I’ve ever had in my life!
I decided to starve and wait till I left to go get some actual good food. It was great seeing and hanging out with Unilocalers but I’ll never see Sea Bar again. EPIC FAIL!

The oyster martini was the high point and most memorable part of the food and beverage portion of last night’s disappointing Happy Hour at Sea Bar. The service although eager to please was slow. The food although it sounded enticing just missed the mark, the guac was just ok, the fish tacos were overpowered by cheese and black beans, crab croquettes a la crab rangoon with a creamy white saucey aspect etc. The drinks were hit or miss. They were having some staffing issues both FOH and BOH and that makes for a rough night.
I like the concept but the execution is really rough. I’d go back to the restaurant but only after others have assured me it’s improved
As for the Unilocalers, a fun, positive crowd and we shared laughs and conversation but not even a gathering of 5-​star worthy Unilocalers could salvage this sinking ship of a restaurant.

A difficult rating. I wanted to give it 3 stars, but in my calculus, 5 stars for Unilocalers, 3.5 stars for drinks, 2 stars for service, and 1 star for food still didn’t quite average out to «A-​OK.»
Let’s start with the positives — we see each other at the large Unilocal events, but it’s also lots of fun to interact in a smaller group, while trying a new place. It was a great idea, and the other disappointing aspects didn’t change the fact that I got to hang out with cool people on a Wednesday night.
The drinks were a mild positive. I started out with the Pisco Punch, which to me landed a little too sweet on the palate, but was still OK. The pisco sour had some nice tartness, but was missing an essential component of a pisco sour — the egg white. There was no frothy, whipped texture; it was more of a Pisco Lemonade. Not bad, just mislabeled. The highlight was the oyster martini — a cool idea, a very strong gin martini replete with a half-​shell raw oyster dunked inside. You HAVE to like both gin and oysters to drink something like this, but if you meet that prerequisite, it’s a winner. It tastes exactly how it sounds — piney, herbal gin with some definite brininess from the bivalve.
The food. I was fine with the chips and guacamole, and the fried calamari. Most of the rest was pointlessly heavy, however, slathered and packed with all manner of cheesy, creamy goo. What do you think of when you think of a fish taco? Food, people, get your minds out of the gutter ;) I think of plentiful grilled fish chunks, lettuce, pico, lime, maybe some light guacamole and a light dusting of jack cheese. Nothing could have prepared me for the overly cheesy, creamy, bean-​y nature of this fish taco. Not good. Worse yet were the crab croquettes that I insisted on having because I thought they’d be good. Crab? What crab? There may have been some crab, but all I could taste was cheese and some mayo-​based concoction. I might not have shown it, but I was absolutely horrified. Not at all what I was expecting.
Service-​wise, they seemed to be nice people, but they were having some issues getting drinks and food out in anything even remotely resembling a timely manner.
I hope they get it together… but the service needs fixing, and some of the recipes need some major revamping to lose the creamy heaviness.