The Ugly Tuna Saloona is a Fun Place for Lunch in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

The owners of the Adobe Gilas and Lulu's Bait Shack have decided to take fun one step further. The result is Ugly Tuna Saloona. This is located in the over-hyped Las Olas Riverfront tourist trap in Ft Lauderdale. Ugly Tuna Saloona is almost reason enough by itself to grab the Water Taxi and head on over to this silly spot.

Ugly Tuna sits up on the second floor of the Riverfront structure and is all open to the wonderful warm air of Southern Florida, and overlooks the New River portion of the Intracoastal. Decent view, that. The platform is sorta roundish with the big bar in the center of it all, and very cool swings on the outer perimeter. These swings are where you eat. No. Really. See, they're like these booths on gliders kinda thingies. Fun! They aren't the first place to use this concept, but it doesn't matter. I'm glad they went with them.

Things are all in a kinda Tiki decor at the Ugly Tuna, and the feel is touristy-casual. It is a bar, first and foremost, yet I would not feel odd at all bringing the kids here for lunch... nightfall would bring a totally different feel though.

The service is laid back and friendly here. Smiles are frequent, but do be understanding when they get busy. They'll get to you. Enjoy the view and the weather.

The menu is not extensive, but it is much better food than you normally expect from a bar-central place. It's all about the fish here, as the name would imply. Fish with a bit of an island bent.

You can start with the Lauderdale staple of Conch Fritters or Fried Calamari if you like, or just dig straight in to a Mahi Mahi sandwich with a nice tropical coating. My friend was on a Conch Fritter spree one fall and sampled them from just about every Lauderdale location he could find. The ones at Ugly Tuna stacked up well, he says, coming into the top 5 at least. His Mahi Mahi was perfect.

I went with some Fried Grouper and was pretty impressed with it. I expected passable food, what I got was much better. This did come with fries and was very reasonable at around 8 dollars. the spices they used were unusual for grouper, but worked very well with it.

As far as prices go, I seem to recall that there wasn't anything over about $10 here. It was very reasonable for a tourist trap location, that's for sure. If you start drinking then that will sky rocket in a real hurry... and the Steak & Lobster or Crab Legs are of course in the 20 dollar range. I can tell you they make a mean Shirley Temple (bite me already) too. Our final bill for 2 people for lunch was under $30.

One thing that was unusual and kept us amused was the wacky ice machines. It's hard to describe, but they were like up high and came down these tubes-like into the ice holders... oh you just have to go see them. Funky fun idea, that.

So yeah, if you must listen to the promos and waste your time at the Las Olas Riverfront, then do stop in to the Ugly Tuna Saloona for lunch. At least that's one part of the place you won't be disappointed with...

300 SW 1st Ave.
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

954-467-8862

**Fresh Fish, Ugly Owners is their own hook-line, I've never even seen the owners myself... heh