Hofbräu Beer Garden

Well… I had been excited about trying out this Panama City Beach German restaurant at Pier Park for ages. Our neighbors from Atlanta were going to be down for the weekend and since one of them is German we thought what better opportunity. We’ve walked by the place many times and thought it looked really cute inside. The employees are all dressed up in their German get-ups right down to the waitresses with their tight corset thingies (think Swiss Miss girl working at Hooters). Also, if you walk by late it’s not uncommon to see everyone standing on tables and benches doing the chicken dance while an accordion player is rocking said tune. All enticements to what could be a great and fun dinner. Well…that’s not the way it went. First of all… as is so often the case at thse tourist trap type joints, it doesn’t take long to be underwhelmed by the service. First of all… they have this really ridiculous seating. Basically there are these LOoooong tables with LOoooong single benches on either side. They stick your party in at any old table where there is already another party(s) seated. Instantly uncomfortable! So we ask to be seated at an empty table…there were a few. Hostes: “No, sorry…our policy is to fill the tables.”…. Nice. So she lays out the menus next to these strangers…who immediately complain that they don’t want us at *their* table. Hey…don’t look at us…it’s the “policy”. So they start making up stories about other people coming to join them… nice one. In any case we’re not offended. Now they HAVE to give us our own table…Take that Hofbrau!!! So eventually we get a waitress who could care less about us, doesn’t really care about getting our order right, and is always put out by every minor (standard.. Can I have a straw, please?) request. So we look over the menus and my German neighbor of course recognizes all the items…named authentically. The depictions on the menu of various items also looked like they were supposed to, according to my neighbor. So we order up a few entrees and hope for the best. Well we didn’t get it. What we got was over breaded, under seasoned, and all around disappointing. It would be one thing if it just wasn’t authentic, but was still good. It wasn’t authentic and wasn’t good either. The sauce on my Jägerschnitzel may have just been some creme of mushroom soup. Well, an old expired can maybe. I could go on and on but I’ll just sum it up like this. My neighbor compared it to bad theme park food…and said it was like eating German food at Epcot center. Enough said. Avoid this place.