Brophy Bros. Restauraunt Clam - Ventura

After asking multiple locals for recommendations on the best seafood spot in town, the overwhelming answer was Brophy's. The restaurant offers a variety of cocktails and local beers on tap. The bar is great for a drink before dinner or for relaxing. For a meal, it's best to sit on the patio with a view of the harbor. It's recommended to call ahead for reservations as it gets busy during dinner time. The oysters at Brophy's were the best I've ever had, and the ceviche was also delicious. If you're in a hurry, you can grab a quick bite at their sister restaurant downstairs. The bathrooms have separate stalls for men and women.

The food is not terrible, but it's not the most outstanding seafood either. The service, on the other hand, was fantastic and all the waiters were great. I gave the atmosphere a rating of 4 out of 5 because if you don't sit outside on the deck with a view of the water, it's not particularly special. It's a reliable place where you can count on getting a certain type of food and decent quality.

I ordered the sea bass and seafood pasta, and the food was delicious! The server was friendly, and I enjoyed the view of the marina.

Come for the Happy Hour 3-630pm (inside only), and the free parking. Pros and Cons... The bread, by far, steals the show. It's fresh, airy, chewy, has a delicious chewy crust. Thirsty? Do NOT drink the tap water, water with ice, water with lemon. It tastes like it came straight out of a 1950s lead pipe. And it probably did. Lol. The Taste is just terrible. Which means now you have another good excuse to come during happy hour, and order an actual beverage. Ceviche was good. If they add a drop of oil, some cilantro, maybe a pinch more salt, it would be great. The portion size is okay, probably about 8 oz of ceviche, planted over about 12 oz of lettuce/salad. There's a lot of salad underneath that you don't realize until you start digging in. Steamed Clams were a bit rubbery. Overcooked by like 2 minutes too long. The butter sauce served on the side needed salt though. Ironic, since usually most places are over salted. Lol. But you can always pour some salt to your liking I guess. Steamed Mussels... they are large and fresh. You can definitely taste the freshness. I prefer the Mussels over The Clams. Atmosphere... HUMID inside the bar area. I would say the outside temperature was probably 75. There was a slight breeze going on the outside patio. The minute you stepped inside though, it felt like you were walking into a mild sauna. Hot and steamy for sure. What saved us was sitting on a corner booth, right in front of a huge Industrial fan. So pick and choose your agenda. If you want a temperate environment, sit outside, but you won't be able to get the happy hour. If you sit inside, you get happy hour pricing, but you do have to suffer through a little bit of humidity. Service... one of the downsides unfortunately. So we were seated, Hostess didn't even ask us if she could take our drink order or anything. What irks me the most was that I saw two tables that were wide open on the outside patio. But the hostess insisted on seating us inside, saying that the two tables outside were reserved. After the hostess sat us down, it was at least 10 or 15 minutes before either one of those parties at the two outside tables showed up. I call b . I think the hostess should have set us outside, and made the other two tables wait when they showed up. So... sitting in a booth meant for 6 people. We were only 2. Hello? Talk about a waste of seating space. Oh, our waitress took about 5-6 minutes to come over, to take our order. Then it was like another 20 minutes of us just sitting there. The place was not busy at all. Please keep that in mind. I can understand if this place was swamped or something. But there were a lot of Empty Tables around us, and also a lot of empty seats at the bar. Food finally got delivered, but then no recheck by the service staff to see if we were doing okay. Whatever. One thing that got me was that I was seeing other waiters and waitresses walking around us, and not one of them bothered to check in. I was actually able to flag down a different waitress who added to our tab with another food item. After about 8 to 10 more minutes, our last dish came out. Then about another 10 minutes went by before our original waitress came by to check on us. Then she checked on us one more time about 5 minutes after that. A little too late if you asked me. My thought here is that she took our order, and then went on a break, but didn't bother to tell another server/waiter to check on us. Whatever. Would I come back here again? Probably, if I was in the area, on a date, with some people visiting from out of town maybe. One thing for sure though, I would definitely sit at the bar, because the service Sitting AT the Bar is way better, and I would only come during the happy hour time frame Monday through friday, 3:00 to 6:30.

We tried the beer buttered shrimps and they were amazing but we expected a bit more than 6 shrimps on a lettuce leaf. View is great and you can refill your drink with plenty different soft drinks so that's cool