RDP Wednesday: sloppy

Written for RDP where segoil asks us
to get creative with the word “sloppy”.
Thanks, Heather!

I’ve written many times about our 30+ years vacationing in Montauk; it was our paradise …. but not all of it was good. For example, take the Sloppy Tuna bar/restaurant …. a dive if there ever was one.

I never really wanted to go there; the name alone was disgusting and a real turn-off, but somehow, we got roped into going. So, against our better judgement and not to be downers, we went. I don’t have many regrets in my life but I do regret going there.

The minute we walked in and I felt the bottoms of my sandals sticking to the floor, I knew it was a bad idea. God only knows when the place was last cleaned; there was a sticky residue on everything. There was also no AC so it was hot and humid, especially when the place started filling up. It was crowded, hot, noisy, smelly, and sticky but the beer on tap served in large red plastic cups was cheap, ice cold, and surprisingly good, so we decided to overlooked the lack of ambiance and try to enjoy ourselves.

After a while, we started feeling hungry and decided to order something to eat. The specialty of the house was fish tacos, specifically the Sloppy Tuna Taco. I’ve eaten in a lot of restaurants and have had some wonderful fish tacos made with delicate, fresh white fish and perfectly seasoned pico de gallo. The Sloppy Tuna Tacos were nasty blobs of dark canned tuna chunks smothered in mayo and too many onions, unappetizingly plopped inside a mushy taco shell …. definitely one of the worst thing I’ve ever eaten. One bite was all it took. My husband and I looked at each other over our tacos and I nodded in the direction of the door, which he knew meant “Let’s get the F out of here!” He slipped the bartender some money and we were gone …. heading straight to John’s Drive-In for ice cream to get the awful taco taste out of our mouths.

Surprisingly, the Sloppy Tuna was always crowded and a staple for the Montauk party crowd for many years before finally shutting its doors. Even more surprising, the tacos were always the biggest selling food item on the menu, which reinforces what I have always believed: if people are drunk enough, they’ll eat just about anything.

NAR©2026

This is “Red Solo Cup” by Toby Keith

RDP Wednesday: SLOPPY

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