Sunset Bar and Grill opened on 8/1/08 at the ground floor of Den Laman. My wife and I went there for dinner on 8/2/08 for her birthday.

As any new place, Sunset deserves quite a bit of a slack. It takes a while for things to get sorted out and patrons should be aware of the little imperfections that are present during the first days of a new restaurant.

With that said, Sunset has a long way to go. There are failures that have nothing to do with the fact that the place is new. These failures reflect, in my opinion, a rather amateurish approach to the business.

First, let's take a look at the menu. This is a restaurant on a Caribbean island. The menu claims that the dishes are made with the freshest ingredients available on Bonaire. And the first entree on the menu is ... salmon!

Furthermore, the only truly local entree on the menu (goat chops) is not available. They can find salmon in Bonaire but not goat meat?

Waitress comes to take our order. While my wife is telling her what she would like another waiter comes, interrupts my wife, and starts chatting with our waitress. Nice! We shrug it off; after all it's the Caribbean, right? What we consider rude they may consider casual.

Wife orders a glass of wine, I order a beer. Forty minutes and 3 reminders later, our drinks arrive. At room temperature. Evidently they were sitting at the bar counter for 40 minutes. I simply took them back to the bar and asked for new drinks.

Food comes, waiter disappears. Second trip to the bar for drinks. People at other tables get frustrated waiting for someone to take their orders and leave after 30 minutes. Four requests for water will get you one glass half-full. Waitress then disappears again.

People at the table to our left complain because they gave their credit car to their waitress half an hour ago and worry a bit.

Someone from a nearby table gets up and confronts the manager.

Manager comes to our table asking how everything was. "Do you really want to know or are you just asking?" I reply. "I'll get you a comments card" he says and he turns away. Comment card arrives half an hour later, has 1 square inch of space for comments.

I left the following comment: see my review on bonairetalk.com.

What I liked at the Sunset:

Location: right on the water. Great sunset view, very convenient for Den Laman residents. Sound of air let out of tanks at nearby dock, was music to our ears.

What I did not like at the Sunset:

Service (rude, inconsiderate, chaotic); menu (lacks local character); wine list (non existent; house wine by the glass or the bottle; one choice of each: red, white, pink).

Try it again Leo the next time you come to Bonaire, it will improve in time.


Here is another view.

http://www.bonaireinsider.com/

Leo, I know for a fact that one of the most popular restaurants on Bonaire, and oft mentioned on BT serves tuna direct from Miami, NOT local caught due to his conviction that over fishing is happening in the area. MANY restaurants no longer serve local reef fish for this reason. I DO NOT want to start a debate about fishing but this might be why you see salmon instead of grouper. The tuna was excellent last time I had it btw.

I would hope the service issue gets better, the owner as many know has an excellent reputation on the island. Lame trucks, lame meal, hope you catch a break on the flight home.

Q - Did you try the restaurant at SD for lunch?

Patrick

I sure hope everything gets smoothed out and the restaurant is successful and open next year when we're back on Bonaire. One of our biggest disappointments was not having an on-sight restaurant (The Reef closed 2 days after we arrived) for meals when we didn't feel like driving.

Unfortunately, we never tried the restaurant at the SD and didn't realize it was a regular restaurant until we got home. We will definitely try it next year.

In defense of Kirk and Staff, I would like to remind everyone that the second night if an opening is no way to judge a restaurant. I have known the principals and many of the staff for more than a decade and they appreciate constructive criticism...rude remarks will just fall on deaf ears, I have always learned. I do think that once the kinks are ironed out, they will be a first rate operation..I would expect no less. Pa Bien

Jerry, I am glad that someone else enjoyed their meal at the Sunset. We certainly came away quite a bit disappointed.

Mike, I am all for cutting some slack to new restaurants. Some of the things we experienced at Sunset were due to the fact it's a new restaurant. But then again, we are talking about a seasoned restaurant operator here, so how come so many things were wrong?

We had three outstanding dinners at Bonaire (3 out of 4 is not a bad score).

Casablanca sets the tone for customer service. Ultra nice staff, friendly, and engaging. Food was good too.

Louise, had the best Rijsttafel I had west of Amsterdam. Nice staff, friendly, good service.

Cactus Blues, also great service and good food. We tried their seafood platter and it was great.

Not every restaurant is perfect all the time. 2 of the 3 other locations you had great meals at, I have had several bad ones. One location I will no longer go back to, the other I still enjoy. I use a 3 strike rule. 3 bad meals or expreriences, and they are off the list. There are so many other good restaurants to eat at.
However, I did break this rule this past winter. We ate at a location that we hadn't in 4 years. We were pleasently surprised, and ate there 2 more times.

I agree with Michael.

If The Lion's Den is anything to go by, Kirk will pull the new restaurant together and make it into a great dining experience.

I wouldn't expect him to tarnish his reputation by doing anything less. The guy works like a dog and deserves some encouragement.

I feel Kirk will make it great as well. We met Kirk at the old Den Laman Rest. in 2000 before it was condos. It was our first of many fine meals on Bonaire. We later followed him to Lions Den where we also had some fine meals.

Things happen when you open. One thing snowballs into another and it can be unpleasant to be there.

I cooked at a summer beach restaurant for 5 years in the 70's and even though it was a reopening each year, Memorial Day Weekend was an adventure. Then by July 4 th all was ironed out.

I will be there next time I am on the island.

We had dinner last night at Sunset Grill. I'd like to warn people that if they consider taking a special of the day, ask for the price first! We had a very unpleasant experiece, Naf 90 for a veal chop is exorbitant, and completely out of order if you compare it to the prices on the menu.

Wendy, welcome to Bonaire Talk. It's ALWAYS wise to ask the price of the special anywhere you are. I always assume the special price will be at least 1-1/2 times the highest priced entree on the menu as a rule of thumb, YMMV. If it's less than that it's a pleasant surprise. Sometimes things are special because they need to get rid of them, and sometimes things are special because they are rare and hard to obtain. Sometimes it's both at the same time!

Chat up your waitron!

Wendi, welcome to BT. Yea, what Seb said. I have to ask, was it good?

Years ago when Lion's Den was still Lion's Den, I had dinner there and had the special...it was lobster ravioli...no price of course listed. I didn't ask, it was 70naf...well worth the price as it was delicious. I've never been able to get it again at Lion's...timing, but I'd sure order it again.

I usually always ask what the special price is just in case it's something I don't want to spend that much money on, because it is always more than the prices on the menu.

On the other hand, when my friends and I had dinner there on opening night, the total cost was $125.00, which included two appetizers, 3 entrees, 4 alcoholic beverages (beer and wine) and a 20% tip. So that works out to be about USD $42.00 or FL 75.00 for each dinner, including tip, which is a very normal price for Bonaire.

We had dinner there on one of our last days.
We will not go back there.
We had the special of the day, 3 kinds of fish.
Just 1 kind was nicely prepared.
We also noticed that our sidedishes were standing under the heatinglamp for 20 minutes before the fish was ready.
Nice an open kitchen....you can see everything...even the things that are better not seen by the customer.
I believe we were there 15th august.
The service was bad and the food not very good.
They have a lot to improve.
The Location is fantastic, hopefully it gets better in time.

Anyone know if is there a way to make an email reservation at Sunset? We're going there in February. Is the Sunset Bar and Grill close to Harbour Village? Are the food and service still good?

The restaurant is no more than 1/2 mile from the Harbour Village if you were to walk by the main road and depending where you stay at the Village.

I don't know about email reservations though I guess that the folks at Den Laman may be able to help you with this.

I've been to the restaurant only once and did not have a pleasant experience.

When was that? Recently? The early posts sound positive but I noticed there were no posts after August so wondered. Thanks for answering.

We ate there twice in October and were delighted with the food and the service. Kirk and his staff also worked hard to feed folk after OMAR.

Kelly, look at the first post in this threat for an answer to your question.