The Beach House Bar & Grill is Innsbrook's attempt at re-creating Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville in Richmond -- the same style of subpar food exists merely as a background for the entertainment.

Only in the Beach House's case, the entertainment isn't turquoise water and sandy beaches. It's 20 flat-screen TVs, karaoke and dueling pianos.

Not that I have a problem with any of the above, but it's harder to get away with low-grade meat and seafood when you don't have Caribbean views to distract diners' taste buds.

The Beach House is in the former home of Carytown Seafood at Innsbrook. Other than a few pairs of flip-flops tacked on the wall and some Red Bull umbrellas on the patio, it doesn't look very different décor-wise.

However, the Beach House's bar is more bumping than Carytown Seafood's ever was.

When we arrived on a Friday, we were greeted by the deafening sounds of a guitarist covering "Blister in the Sun" as the semi-rowdy crowd smoked the room into a cloudy haze.

We snagged a table in the nonsmoking back room, which also acts as the dueling-pianos bar on chosen nights.

Amid unclean tables, we perused the drink list, which pushes frozen concoctions, beach-themed cocktails and shooters, such as Dirty Bong Water.

Our waitress, a friendly yet lackadaisical young woman, took her time before she noticed us and stopped by to take our drink and appetizer orders. Unable to decide, we deferred to her suggestion of Virginia Beach Crab and Spinach Dip ($7.99).

Served with lightly salted tortilla chips, the cream-cheese-based dip was topped with melted Manchego cheese, loaded with spinach and kissed with just enough greasiness. Not too shabby.

Too bad the rest of the meal went downhill.

Main courses include everything from "Sand-wiches & Such" to dinner entrees, such asParrot Head Pork Loin ($12.99) topped with mango chutney.

Seven varieties of "Beach House Burgers" (all $8.69) are available, so we tried the Buffett Burger and added bacon. This "classic cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle" looked appealing -- hefty roll, fresh toppings and pile o' fries -- but the only flavor that stood out was the bacon we added. I didn't know a cheeseburger could be bland.

Conversely, the Surf and Turf Kabobs ($17.99) -- steak and mushroom kabob and shrimp and tuna kabob -- were so overly seasoned I couldn't help thinking it was to mask the low-quality meat and seafood.

The tuna was grayish and fishy-tasting. The shrimp were rubbery. And I could barely get a knife through the steak cubes because of the hefty line of gristle running through each piece.

"Hmm, maybe the Beach House places alcohol before edible on the weekends," I thought, so I returned with a friend the following Monday, hoping for a better experience on a less-crowded night.

Service improved -- the lad in charge of our table was extremely friendly, singing the praises of Havana Styled Shrimp with Pasta ($13.49) -- but the quality of the food did not.

We took his advice and ordered the shrimp pasta along with the Slider Trio Meal ($8.99). A half-inch of water filled the bottom of the bowl of tepid fettuccine, literally watering down what little garlic-butter flavor there was. The scrawny shrimp didn't live up to the menu's description of "large" or "mouth-watering." And the Havana part? No clue.

The sliders were a disaster. The jerk chicken version was cloyingly sweet, tasting nothing like any jerk seasoning I've come across. The cheeseburger was so overcooked it bordered on hockey puck status. The crab cake suffered the same fate as Friday night's seafood kabobs -- low-quality crab masked by a stifling dose of spices.

At least we had filled up on Cayman Chicken Fingers ($6.99), served with tangy honey mustard and spicy chipotle barbecue sauce. While they were your average pub grub -- lightly breaded, kinda greasy, inoffensively filling we were more pleased with the starter than our main courses.

After two disappointing meals, I'm not really sure what the Beach House is trying to be other than a bar that serves its wine in plastic glasses and assumes dueling pianos will be enough to keep people occupied. Food clearly doesn't top its list of priorities.