Coast Seafood and Raw Bar

Coast, the latest Tom Catherall/Here to Serve Restaurants venture, has stepped up to provide Atlanta with year-round beachside novelty. Tropical cocktails, oysters on the half shell, and cuts of fish are served in a room that’s been painted sky blue and adorned with beachy tchotchkes. When steaming-hot hushpuppies arrive at the table, you hope the food will have a modicum of honesty and freshness. Unfortunately, the hushpuppies may well be the best thing on the menu. Prices at Coast are also in line with a casual beachfront eatery — most entrées fall in the $15 range. The idea is simple, inexpensive fun. But more care needs to be taken and fewer shortcuts if the experience is worth having at all. Coast is forced; it looks — and tastes — like it came out of a box, rather than from the mind or heart of an actual human.