Johnny’s Dock Restaurant & Marina

This is my favorite Tacoma Restaurant. The staff is 100% sterling. One can tell that they are treated fairly by their employer and truly like what they are doing. Can’t say enough about the fantastic view and watching boats float by as well as the best part of the Tacoma downtown skyline. The chefs notably pay close attention to detail and the portions are nice sized. I have found I get more than what I pay for. The coffee cake on Saturday and Sunday morning breakfasts is JUST DIVINE !!! One sure sign of a good restaurant is returning customers. Every time I go (which is a lot) I see regulars which, I guess, makes me a regular too.

Food was acceptable. Nice outdoor seating.
Waitress was terrible. No interest in service. Needed silverware. No coasters for drinks. Dropped bread plates and silverware on table and walked away. Ordered coffee and came back and said «it’s going to a minute, do you still want it?

We hadn’t been to Johnny’s for years. it’s back in our date night rotation! Always loved the table side Caesar salad. Wish they still offered escargot, but it’s great to be back! Service was outstanding, and the ambience of years gone by. Love it!

They don’t make ‘em like Johnny’s anymore. The service was great — personable, fun, energetic. The oyster shooters were fine. But more horseradish in the cocktail sauce, please!
There isn’t a dish on the menu that you couldn’t have ordered in 1982. The prime rib was criminally overcooked, and the chicken pasta was probably fabulous in the day, but tastes have changed, and now it’s an over-​salted, nearly inedible glutinous blob.
The salads are beautiful. The Louies, the cocktails — wonderful. Great chowder. Very nice salmon. You probably eat here because mom and dad and grandma and grandpa had their date nights here. Long may it live, but may the food improve.

All the women in family do Mothers Day brunch every year for the past 5years. We all look forward to it because the Buffet is wonderful and HUGE. The only male in group is grandson who told us this year that it was his favorite thing to eat «good stuff» and spend the day with his LADIES, 2 grandmas, 2aunts, 2cousins a sister and his mom. The food is great and all the staff are so nice and helpful.

So I had a reservation for 8 on Mother’s Day for the brunch and was really excited about this place and never had been. Sadly I was disappointed with outcome of our visit. A lot of the staff didn’t know what was going on and who served who. We got placed In a separate room with other groups and it was so tight that my chair was hitting the guys chair behind me and it wasn’t comfortable at all. I just expected so much more out of this place especially for a special brunch as this.

Mothers Day menu was shockingly concise, until you order and they ask you for sides. Food was edible but somewhat prepared slapdash according to the dish. Bruschetta was almost on the burned side, greens on Caesars salad seemed like pre-​mixed with dressing (not much crunch on the lettuce) and food was ok, but overpriced. Great view but I hope the owners would staff special occasions like Mothers Day better. Weather turned out spectacular, so that helped. Get a grip and get your act together!

Maybe Johnny’s was having an off day today… you would think, or at least as a consumer, I would think, that on Mother’s day weekend a restaurant would be properly staffed. Not even close.
We took mom to Johnny’s for breakfast/​brunch, arriving at 11am. There were two waitresses, one of whom was clearly running, working, and making every attempt to deliver a satisfying dining experience to her guests. And then there was the server we were stuck with… slow, not concerned about us or her other tables, exuding arrogance, constantly disappearing, and quite simply just rude. (Upon our arrival, there were a total of six tables seated, not exactly busy) After an Extremely long wait time, our order was taken… and following an equally excruciating period, the food was brought out… which would be the last time we would see our server until it was time to pay the bill. No refills, no checking on how everything tasted, nothing… no service, period.
Apparently this establishment prides itself on a secret recipe coffee cake, which is supposedly served with each breakfast… Nope. Not today. We had to ask, after paying our bill, and boxing our leftovers, for this prized cake, which our son was chanting for, and being ignored. (Normally we wouldn’t allow him to chant, but we weren’t exactly sure how else to get our server’s attention… all other efforts had failed, and as mentioned, she walked by and completely ignored him, along with the rest of us)
I can not sum up how terrible the ‘service’ was, or the impact it had on our overall experience. This girl was rude, and how she landed and holds a position as the face of customer service for what we anticipated to be a pleasant meal, is beyond my comprehension.
Three of us ordered the Blueberry French toast. Not sure what I expected for $ 13, but certainly three halved slices of toast, topped with blueberry preserves and coolwhip was not it. To be fair, my brother’s Monte Cristo did look a little more appetizing, but ultimately for the price, this experience was utterly disappointing. Our bills totaled $ 120+, which bought us six plates, three cups of coffee, two glasses of soda, and a glass of chocolate milk. Did I mention that we received ZERO refills?
The fact that there is NO kids menu did not help, apparently if you have children, Johnny’s doesn’t need your business.
Unbelievable. I hate to leave a negative review, and I hate that this was the experience myself and my brother gave to our mom for the meal we shared on Mother’s Day weekend, following his commute down from Bellingham. After reading other reviews, I have to wonder what went wrong today. Nice view, high prices, and a complete waste of 2+ hours, most of which was spent sitting, pondering, where did our server go? What could she possibly be doing? Will we ever get more coffee? Did I really pay $ 4 for one glass of diet soda? WHY did we bring our mom here today? What Went Wrong???

Great service and great food. The view is amazing too! The only issue I had was with my steak being too rare. Once we told the waiter he got it corrected immediately and then gave us extra desserts to apologize for the inconvenience. I’ll be back for sure!

I’ve always enjoyed eating here for more than 20 years! I enjoy everything about it: the ambience, mountain and marina views, food and its portions, it’s brunches, and the staff. I’ll keep coming back because of its consistency!

Service is great!
We only go there for the professional and friendly service from Melanie!

I only had a beer and potato skins in the bar while waiting for friend. The bartender Kelly was super nice and kick ass at her job. Considering I was there on a Friday night, the bar being full with white haired grandparents finishing up the early bird special and the restaurant being virtually empty speaks volumes to the quality of their food. Potato skins were average, you could get them anywhere. Nice view and vintage décor. Too bad they dropped the ball managing and providing quality meals.

I love this place! Best Crab Louie I’ve ever had. My wife loves the prime rib! Such a great veiw and our server Rick made it so special.

Awesome food. The best salmon I have had in my life. Beautiful view and great ambiance.

LOVE, love, love Johnny’s Dock. The view, the food, but best has to be the service. Everytime we go there, we are always greeted by name. Our favorite server is Lisa, in the bar. She know what we like to drink and serves it right away without us even having to wait. Chef Steve makes an amazing Macadamia Crusted Sole. So good. We recommend this place often!!!

I have come here multiple times for work meetings. Every time the wait staff is very pleasant. The food is very good as well. The views are amazing as well! This is a great place for a nice dinner on the water!

I was really impressed with Johnny’s Dock. It is a lot more fancier than Johnny’s in Fife which is owned by the same people. Johnny’s Dock is along the waterway so you get to gaze out at downtown Tacoma and the boats.
A big group of us ate in the bar at happy hour and I really liked the happy hour deals and the food on the happy hour menu. I had some delightful egg rolls which were very memorable to me but I enjoyed all of the food that I ordered! I got two Long Island Iced Teas that I really liked too!
The regular dinner menu is quite a bit more spendier than the Johnny’s location over in Fife too. I can’t vouch one way or another if their dinners and suppers are worth the price but I did enjoy everything that was avaliable at Happy Hour and the prices were not bad from that paticular menu.

I decided to try Johnny’s today for the first time. I ordered:
Charbroiled salmon fillet $ 26
Pan fried oysters $ 23
Total bill=$ 59.20
It was order to go. I came there on time. After I came to work, I opened up containers and I was surprised how little the portions where. They also gave me big portion of bread loaf that I would never eat by myself. Salmon dish– small salmon, good rice. The biggest problem I have with them, is that the container was burned on the bottom and was leaking. I figured that they made my meal way too early and they put container in the microwave and that’s why it was burned hole on the bottom.
Pan fried oysters– oysters itself was good tasting, fries was cold and I couldn’t eat it. Salad looked like it was a day old and it’s just look old (not fresh)
I had a good feeling that one day I could go in and have a good tasty food. After today’s experience, I don’t think I want to go there again.

This is a beautiful restaurant but I must say the service was horrible. My mother and I went to eat lunch here and the waitress (Barbra) was not friendly at all in matter of fact I was tempted to get up and leave. Any question I asked I got a very rude short response, we had to ask for a refill ok water and got a very rude okay, never was asked how we were doing, and after clearly being done had to ask for our check and boxes. I would have totally understood if the restaurant was busy but it wasnt and it seemed as though we were singled out because from the looks of it the other tables were getting great service! I definitely wont be coming back that’s for sure!

After looking through other people’s photos of Johnny’s Salad, I’ve realized that my Ahi Black and Blue was even more pitiful than I had originally thought. The salad photos on this page had more stuff than my pathetic Ahi Black and Blue that was $ 26. I will now do a comparison of what I expected and what I actually got.
This is the exact description of the Ahi Black and Blue that they have on their menu: «Cajun dusted yellow fin tuna, seared on our broiler and served rare. With sliced greens, shoyu and wasabi.»
What I got: a really tiny, sliced, cold tuna that was unflavorful. Cajun was MIA, with no signs of searing on the tuna (aka the blackening). «Sliced greens» were actually a sad looking bed of iceberg lettuce that was chopped, reminding me of a mere McDonald’s McChicken’s greens. The amount of wasabi was so huge, it was enough for 10 people. The coloring of the wasabi was so old, I wondered how long this wasabi had been sitting in their fridge. Disgusting. And their «shoyu» sauce was merely a soy sauce that you can find in your local sushi restaurant, except empty (the soy sauce came in one of those bottles found in sushi restaurant). $ 26 for this pathetic dish? I’d pay $ 10.
If you’re going to make it «classy» and expensive, you should add more variety of «greens». Instead of throwing on a small, thin tuna pieces onto the dish, maybe serve a bigger tuna and actually season and sear it as promised. Or maybe, not use old wasabi that was greying on the edges, and not say «shoyu» when it was clearly a soy sauce.
So disappointing. This place is meant for people who don’t know any better. Never again will I come here.
Bonus: the plating of their dishes is really bad; my boyfriend’s father ordered their prime rib, which came in a TV dinner plate. This restaurant’s idea of «vegetables» is steamed green beans and carrots, as if they’re from a frozen bag of veggies. My boyfriend who ordered their Tenderloin Alaska was severely disappointed with the flavour of the mashed potatoes (which there were none), and the amount of crab on his steak. The harvarti cheese sauce was something they squeezed out of a bottle. Again, extremely bad plating as well.
Their fries are delicious, so I guess they have that going for them. Oh and their freshly made Caesar salad by the table, prepared by their waitress.
Never again. Never ever ever again.