I love southern comfort food, so when I heard of this new(ish) place, I had to try it out! We went on a double date with some friends on a Saturday night. We knew they'd be busy so we tried to make online reservations on Friday but were unsuccessful. We called on Saturday morning to try again as well but no luck there either. We decided we'd just try to walk in and see if they could seat us.
Our friends arrived around 7:30pm and the restaurant was as packed (as expected), but they (it might've been the owner) was kind enough to offer them a spot on the counter area in the side/back corner facing the window. There were 6 total seats in that counter and 4 other people were already there. They were told that the couple on the very end was leaving soon, and once they did, the couple in the middle would be able to move over and we could take that middle spot. We arrived around 7:55pm and were led to the area they sat at, with the same assurance that the couple in the end would get up soon and we'd have a seat. By the time we got there that couple had been long done with their food, but were just sitting behind to chat, which was fine. Luckily there was a small chair at the very back corner that I could sit down at (see pictured) next to my friends, but unfortunately my bf had to stand and wait the whole time. We'd only expected to wait for a few minutes, but ended up waiting for over 15 minutes in this corner, which definitely was the beginning of it becoming a negative experience for me. I get that the staff couldn't do anything about the couple not wanting to leave, but they also never made any effort to check in or acknowledge us and how we were just awkwardly crammed in the corner. Multiple people passed by many times (as this was also their working corner), would see us, say nothing and just continue on with their work. I didn't expect them to outright tell that couple to leave, but they could've found other creative ways to encourage them to move to the bar or elsewhere, or at the very least accommodated for our situation. We had to flag down someone to even take our drink order while we waited and they had to call our server over. We got our drinks while still sitting in the corner, with nowhere to even put our drinks (see pictured).
When that couple finally got up and left, the couple in the middle kindly moved over as they'd promised, but the staff didn't even come to clean up the food and leftover plates that had been left behind. Once again many people passed by but no one did anything. We had to ask for someone to take away the dirty plates, then asked again for someone else to wipe down the table (they only wiped down one area so we again had to ask for them to wipe down the other area as well). I didn't like feeling that I had to ask for every little thing to be done every time which made me feel like I was being a difficult customer, but these were all very fair things that they should've just done without me having to ask. Once the table was cleaned we didn't receive any plates, utensils, or waters either, which again had to ask for.
As far as food, it was decent but nothing special in my opinion. The fried chicken dinner had huge portions which was nice, but I wished the chicken was more flavorful. It had a sweet honey taste to it, which it nice, but all I was tasting was the honey and no other flavors or seasonings. I also didn't receive a chicken leg but instead got a giant piece of chicken tender? Not a big deal, just thought it was odd and also I was disappointed because the leg/drumstick is my favorite part. My bf got the chicken sandwich which I tried as well, but the chicken was quite soft and not crispy as I'd expected a chicken sandwich to be. One of my friends ordered a steak and was asking for a red wine to go with his steak, which he mentioned seeing something on the menu for a $15 glass. The waitress responded in a bit of a rude tone saying something along the lines of "I don't know these wines by their prices". I don't expect her to memorize prices on the whole menu, but she could've maybe just taken a look or provided a reco without sounding so condescending. To top things off, she ended up completely forgetting about the wine and he basically finished 90% of his steak before she showed back up for him to ask about where his wine was.
Overall, I think the whole seating situation just completely dampened my mood and made the entire experience less enjoyable. I appreciate the restaurant for accommodating our walk in and trying to make it work, but there's just so many things they could've done differently to make this situation more bearable. However, I'm inclined to believe this was just a one-off experience and would like to maybe give this place another try, with reservations this time. read more