Shepards Restaurant

I scheduled my daughter's High School Graduation dinner here. I grew up in Clearwater so I am aware of how Shephards is known for ripping of tourist however, since I am a local I thought they would be forthright. WRONG. I should have immedicately known they were dishonest when I looked on the webiste and saw the buffet per person was 24.95 but when I spoke with Georgie to see if we could receive a group discount 21 people. He told me the buffet was 35.00 pp. After I called him out on this he recanted and told me his offer would be 24.95pp, two drinks pp, 10%off the bill, he would not charge the standard 18% gratuity and he would give us access to the night club. I explained AGAIN to him that this is a HIGH SCHOOL graduation dinner. They are underage to drink and get in the club. We agreed on the drinks, 10%, and gratuity. They took my credit card to hold the reservation. Upon arrival I check in and NO RESERVATION. After dinner and drinks I receive the bill for 700+ for 21 people an ... more

I scheduled my daughter's High School Graduation dinner here. I grew up in Clearwater so I am aware of how Shephards is known for ripping of tourist however, since I am a local I thought they would be forthright. WRONG. I should have immedicately known they were dishonest when I looked on the webiste and saw the buffet per person was 24.95 but when I spoke with Georgie to see if we could receive a group discount 21 people. He told me the buffet was 35.00 pp. After I called him out on this he recanted and told me his offer would be 24.95pp, two drinks pp, 10%off the bill, he would not charge the standard 18% gratuity and he would give us access to the night club. I explained AGAIN to him that this is a HIGH SCHOOL graduation dinner. They are underage to drink and get in the club. We agreed on the drinks, 10%, and gratuity. They took my credit card to hold the reservation. Upon arrival I check in and NO RESERVATION. After dinner and drinks I receive the bill for 700+ for 21 people and only 5 had 2 drinks each. Long story short he said he never agreed to any of this except the 10% and that the drinks were only well drinks. NEVER TOLD ME THIS ON THE PHONE. Yes I should have gotten this in writing... live and learn but I called my credit card company before leaving the parking lot and they said they would dispute it. Fortunately I had two witnesses to the phone conversation because I had him on speaker phone. Last but not least three out of my party got food poisoning. Two ending up in the hospital and one not. How embarrassing. From now on I will stick with the nicer restaurants in the areas like Island Way Grill, Rumba, and Ceviche. less