I gave it four stars based on overall experience. The service was good and the casual but intimate ambience is nice. Our appetizer of grilled eggplant was too heavy and more like eggplant.parm, but it was okay. The salads that come with the dinners are small and uninspiring, but the cilantro dressing was good. The star of the show was my husband's seared ahi tuna. Done perfectly! The accompanying rice and vegetables were not. My shrimp pasta dish had tasty and plentiful shrimp but the dish as a whole was clunky and heavy. All that said, I would go back and give them another try. I want to like this place. read more

This place has a fantastic cheese plate! They don't skimp on the cheese like most places. It's a really nice, tasty selection of artisanal cheeses. And the candied walnuts on the side are addictive and mind-blowingly delicious...and really taste great with the cheeses. The olives and seasoning mixture they bring before the meal are also delicious and unique. I wish I could reproduce the seasoning mixture at home. Oh also, I'm not really into meat, but my husband says the fish and chicken dishes are really good too. This is one of my go-to places....I love it! Very high quality! read more

We had the BOBO - Pork and Chicken Marsala. Pork was overcooked to the point of not being able to chew and the Chicken was very salty; however, the desserts were good. With a tea and beer, the dinner was 40$. For what we had this was very over priced. Possibly went on an off night for the cook. Disappointed. Expected more. read more

We have eaten here a number of times over the last few years. Food has been good, service is good, average noise level, come early as usually busy. read more

5 out of 6 people in our party were dissatisfied with the food. That's pretty bad because we aren't picky. Mom's eggplant was bland as ever, and I got the caesar salad as my meal, and since they stuck the romanie on the grill, the lettuce came to me wilted and brown. Yikes..My dad's fish was burnt. Next, our waitress didn't seem to have a clue what was on the menu. Made no suggestions and didn't speak clearly or loudly enough for anyone to make out what she was saying. I felt bad but some people joked "I think she doesn't like talking to people". Not good. The decor had no continuity and was haphazarldy just thrown up on the wall. Someone needs to help these folks out. Only person happy with the food was my sisters boyfriend (he'll eat anything). Saved the grossest thing for last. My mom watched the cook exit the bathroom and go into the kitchen to then pick up salad toppings out of the containers with no cloves and no hand washing. Nasty stuff! Wish I could say I was lying. Won't ever be back. read more

Had an outstanding dinner with hubby and kiddos! Don't let the outside fool you. The food is spot on! The bread fresh and light, lobster bisque two thumbs up! Salmon was fresh and cooked to perfection. Kids really enjoyed the chicken parm. Great early bird specials. A MUST try! read more

The food is absolutely delicious! I had the Gorgonzola encrusted steak which was cooked to perfection! I had the pecan encrusted chocolate ganache pie for dessert,which was a little bit of heaven. The hostess, Lela was a crackerjack employee! I was so impressed with how she multitasked well with a smile ; seating guests,busing tables,bringing food out,etc. We actually gave the waiters tip to her because she provided top notch service to us ,although that was not her job. I would have given this restaurant 5 stars,if it wasn't for the waiter assigned to us. His service was subpar, He did not reappear after taking our order to check on us during the course of our meal until dessert time. Other staff cleared our table brought our meal,refilled our drinks.,etc. I would definitely recommend the food,but be prepared to dine ..service is not timely and is a little pricey. read more

Ordered the filet mignon, which arrived with a small salad and a side of angel hair. All of it was delicious, service was great, one of the best restaurants we've found in the area. The dining area was a bit chilly but nothing to dock points for. read more

Had great reviews but must have been there on an off night. Macadamia Crusted Salmon was bland at best. The Blackened Mahi was good but better with the pineapple salsa. We may have had our expectations set too high based on previous reviews. Much better seafood in the area. read more

Excellent meal and service! Highly recommend the filet mignon with the blue cheese and garlic butter sauce.

Fabulous Crab bisque and the sesame seed blackened scallops are amazing! A must stop place!

Love this place! It may be tucked into a shopping center but don't let the location fool you. It's worth the trip. The food is delicious! Crab bisque was creamy with chunks of crab and nice seasoning. Fresh baked bread with olive oil. My husband and I had chef specials. I had salmon with soy ginger sauce and nicely grilled zucchini and green beans. Hubby had blackened grouper with garlic lemon sauce and spinach. Fish were well cooked and seasoned. Attentive server too! Will go back next time we're in town. read more

We love this little place. Excellent food and service. It gets very busy at certain holidays. No place to wait. You can call in advance which helps a bit. read more

Drinks (Corona and Michelob Light), appetizer (gorgonzola truffled beef tip flat bread) and seared catch (snapper) over angel hair and seared tuna with jasmine rice and veggies. Everything was absolutely delicious, well cooked and seasoned to perfection. The pace of the meal was perfect. Will definitely be back to try more menu items. read more

My boyfriend and I heard great things about this restaurant and went in with expectations that were too high. Our waiter was named Jeff and was a nice enough man, didn't offer to fill our drinks throughout the two hour course of us being in the restaurant. We ordered the tomato and basil flatbread which was so-so. Each of us got a soup with our entrees which were also so-so. We then waited another 50 or so minutes for the actual meal when a table of six that ordered 20 min after the two of us got their meals first. My boyfriend got the espresso rubbed pork loin which was cooked well, but flavorless and cold. I got the blackened ahi tuna which was decent, but it's sad when the best part of a meal is the sauce. The hostess was a very nice woman, though and did offer to give us refills. read more

This is one of my favorite places to eat. It is a small restaurant a little south of Saint Augustine. The staff is very professional and friendly. The owner is also the chef. He prepares sesame shrimp for me, rather than sesame scallops that are on the menu. They are to die for and the sauce is excellent. The Asian stir fry vegies are little salty for me, so he reduces the salt upon request. They offer tasty home made bread at the start of the meal with olive oil and spices. Mmm, I am getting hungry. read more

My daughter and I wanted to try a "new-to-us" restaurant in St. Augustine and decided to go with The Purple Olive...seriously, the best seafood dishes that I have ever had! We ordered the mussels in white wine broth as an appetizer...soooo good! My 14 year old daughter and I could have just had these and been full and very happy. We each ordered a soup with our entrees...she had the Tuscan bean and vegetable soup, and I barely got one taste of hers...it was gone that fast! I ordered the Minorcan fish chowder (now let me say, that I only get to eat Minorcan chowder while in St. Augustine, so I will order it at every restaurant we visit on week long vacation...that's at least 4 bowls during the week) and this one was by far the best I've tasted! Now, onto the entrees...by this point, we are already full, but can't wait to try more! My daughter ordered the Vegetarian Coconut Curry...she is in love with this! Perfectly spicy and creamy with tons of various veggies...I ordered the Sesame Sweet Chili glazed Scallops (as suggested by our server) and they were amazing! The waiters were very attentive...the atmosphere was quirky, yet inviting... I can't wait for our next trip to St. Augustine! I'll be bringing the entire family here! read more

Our server Michelle, was friendly, prompt, & knowledgeable. Food was wonderful. I had the Macadamia Crusted Salmon, husband had the Beef Bourginon both cooked perfectly. read more

One of my favorites in St Augustine. Always delicious, consistent, with great vegetarian options. Service is always top notch! The owners are just very nice people to boot! read more

Have been there a number of times, they never disappoint! Service and food excellent, great value. Also they have early bird specials not to be missed! read more

We've never been to a restaurant of this caliber where everything is cooked to order! And it was delicious! Blackened Sea Bass came with sauce of my choice on the side which it did not need. The sauces were good to taste, but I didn't need it, the fish melted in my mouth. Ahi tuna, pork tenderloin and filet also excellent as everyone agreed that their dishes melted as well. My review description is lacking, the sides, veggies, salads, soup and desserts were off the chart. Excellent coffee and service engraved the experience to a solid 5 read more

Amazing gem that we found. We were looking for seafood the last night of our vacation. All of the seafood places were packed since it's Friday night. Pulled in off a recommendation on the yelp app. So glad we did. Highlight of our trip food wise. The salmon was excellent, sesame scallops were amazing. The award winning dessert cake was out of this world delicious. A little pricey on the kids menu. $7 for angel hair pasta with butter. Great atmosphere, server and food. We didn't feel rushed to leave and will visit again if we are in the area. read more

We ordered the menus special, Family of 5 and all were happy and satisfied with the food. Service was great and food was amazing good. I highly recommend, won't be disappointed. read more

This is a great restaurant. I ordered the Garlic Shrimp dish. It was awesome. The shrimp were clean and fresh....and were large to jumbo in size. The sauce of whit wine and lemon butter was very tasty. Thoroughly enjoyed this place. Wish I lived here to visit here more often! read more

Absolutely delicious. Not one complaint. Michael was our waiter. He was tentative and polite. This was our first visit and will become regulars each time we visit. We live in Lake City FL and visit often. Looking forward to the next visit in the near future. Quaint and casual - perfect. Nice to have fresh non-fried food options. Keep up the great work, Purple Olive. read more

What a nice find. We we're here for the weekend and a neighbor gave us this recommendation. We started with the butternut squash soup and my husband had the crab bisque. Both great..the grilled caeser salad was also lightly Smoky and tasty. We had 6 different dinners including 2 rib eye specials and everyone was happy. All in all, the group was pleasantly surprised.. read more

We have been coming to St. Augustine for 40 years and never dined at the Purple Olive. There are so many great restaurants in the area, it is hard to visit all of our favorites. Last night we could not get into one of our favorites, Collage, so we tried the Purple Olive. We have a new favorite. Mussels, soup, salad, blackened grouper, and pan seared scallops.....a fantastic meal. Also a pretty good wine list for this area. Great service and very welcoming, a good beach vibe. If you want one of the best meals on the island or area, try Purple Olive. read more

I actually work at another popular restaurant on the beach and I always offer Purple Olive as a suggestion as another restaurant that would really show how good St. Augustine cuisine is. We ARE a tourist run economy and by showing them to where the locals favorites are will encourage people to come back, hence my recommendations to this great place. The seafood is amazing, the steaks are truly the best in town, and they always have perfectly awesome specials. I once worked my restaurants booth next to purple olive's booth at the Greater Chowder Debate and they had an awesome gator chowder, which placed in the top three, maybe even winning, and I don't think they even have it on their menu regularly. If they have award winning recipes not even making it on there nightly menu they are doing something right. I know this sounds too good to be true, but I take my guests here to impress before any other restaurant in saint augustine, hands down! read more

We've travelled to St. Augustine a number of times. We have relatives who live there and we've dined at Purple Olive serveral times over the year. The food is genuinely fine. Interesting and varied. Not gourmet but fine. We were to be a party of 5 including two people in their eighties. We called and asked for "priority seating" as PO doesn't accept reservations. We accepted and arrived on time for 7:30. I spoke to the hostess who informed me that the wait would be anywhere between 20-40 minutes. "How could that be", I said to myself. There were at leastt wo table in the back that just needed to be reset. She said: "those table are being held for a party of eight who were on their way." "I don't understand" I said, "we're here" and according to priority seating "as you explained it, we should get prority." She then rationalized that the party of eight was "already on their way so that wouldn't be fair[to them]". I pled that "we were already here" to no avail. So we left. Not to return. PO has the right to make its own rules of operation. But those rules should be applied consistently. An alternative would be to take a CC number and impose a penalty for a no-show. PO lost 5 dinners and drinks that would likely repeat every couple of months as we have a home about 1/2 mile away and our guests also maintain separate year round homes not far away. read more

The best food we had in St. Augustine. The mussels are awesome and the pistachio crusted lamb chops were even better. They also have a half bottle of champagne that I enjoyed a lot. read more

Although the food was good, it was overall a 3 star experience. Appetizer bread was tasty; olives OK. I had the snapper special with a roasted red pepper sauce; companion had duck. Neither were outstanding. The kale, garlic, golden raisin salad was not particularly good. Upon recommendation by previous reviewers, we ordered the Creme brûlée. It too was small and just okay and certainly not worth $8. The service was great, loved the purple decor. I doubt if I will return. read more

I guess this is considered to be one of the finer restaurants in St. Augstine Beach. We went on a Friday night with no reservations and had no wait. I had the trigger fish, which I had never seen before, but I found it to be a bland, unmemorable fish. Even the mango salsa that I requested to accompany it (you have a choice of ways to prepare catch of the day, as well as sauces), didn't jazz it up much. My husband got the pork chop with chimichurri sauce, which he ended up scraping off because he didn't like it. His dish came with mango relish (different from my salsa) which made the pork more edible. I got a salad but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Also got a kale side dish with pine nuts and raisins. I've had a variation of this dish before and this was well-prepared although I realized I don't really like kale -- my bad. My daughter got the filet mignon with pretty tasty mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables. Probably the finest dining on St. Augustine Beach -- but still not up to my city standards. Shows more promise and originality than any other place around, however. Our waiter was Jeff and he was really sweet. read more

This was an amazing experience. The food was very good, their prices are pretty fair and our server was out of this world ! He was such a great server, I had the special Ny Steak with the Gorgonzola on top it was so delicious! I also enjoyed the black bean soup. My girlfriend had the angel hair pasta with shrimp and also the bisque which was pretty good as well, over all a great experience. Not only were we're treated well by our server the hostess was very attentive as well. We Will definitely return if we're ever in St. Augustine again. read more

My wife and I went the other night to the Purple Olive and it was not the best meal that we have had there. Started with the bread being very chewy and/or stale. Next, our entrees took a long time to come out even though we were the last ones in the restaurant at 9 on a Friday night. I had the blackened lion fish special, fish was just OK and everything else on the plate was sub-par. My wife's plate, shrimp and pasta was also just average, nothing special. We have been coming to the Purple Olive for many years, probably about a half dozen times, and it seems as though they are not keeping the place up. 15 years ago in St. Augustine there were not to many nice restaurants to choose from but now there is. It seems that they are comfortable with a restaurant that has an interior stuck in the 90's. Don't get me wrong however, we have had many great meals there, I just want them to pick up their game. This is also a locally owned business that I want to continue to support. read more

Slow service to start but well worth the wait. Tonight the grilled Caesar salad was fantastic and the Trigger fish special amazing! The warm atmosphere, welcoming and attentive wait staff, good wine list and a menu full of fantastic options all make this a dining experience well worth repeat visits! read more

The Purple Olive is a unique restaurant located on Anastasia Island. It is unique because of the variety of what is offered for dinner. I had the Roast Pork and my wife had the Duck. There is a great mixture of Fish, Pork, Beef and Fowl. The menu on the right is the Chef inspired dishes and then on the left is all the meat along with choice of spices, cooking method and sauces. So I had the Pork; Blackened, Grilled and a Cilantro Lime sauce (on the side) along with the potato al gratin (not to be missed). The wine selection is adequate and the service was quite reasonable....the waiter leaves you alone but is available if you need assistance. I don't take my wife to dinner to engage in story telling with the waiter staff...that is what she if for...conversation. read more

Pretty good. Very attentive staff. They were out of my favorite craft beers. We had ribeye special, 3 fish special and salmon. All were very good. Ok pricing. A good experience. Location is so-so (strip mall with a loser bar next door). read more

service was good. food was bland. I had blackened scallops. scallops tasted good but were soggy in texture, kale side dish had no flavor.. Hubby had shrimp pasta with white wine sauce. Shrimp had good texture but remainder of dish was tasteless read more

This place is classy but not pretentious, with a menu that is broad and unique but not overwhelming. We went to dinner early on a Fri just as they were opening and were seated quickly, but the place filled up over the next hour. I had the spinach salad with shrimp, and it was generous/filling with perfect dressing. Others in my group had scallops, blackened chicken, snapper...all raved. Also enjoyed the crab bisque - an unusual but delicious take with a slight curry flavor. And the sourdough bread...wow- I'd come here just for it alone! read more

The macademia crusted salmon and blackened red snapper were outstanding. Garlic mashed yummy. Sherry sauce was to die for. Key lime pie was also huge and delish. read more