Catfish Corner — Restaurant in Abilene

Full Disclosure: came on an off night (Thursday) near closing time (8:00 PM), so I'm sure that will be blamed for the following review. I'm of the mind that, if you're open, you should have a standard of service however, so I was very disappointed tonight regardless.

The good: customer service and front of house was excellent — friendly, prompt service and very accommodating wait staff. As usual they were impressive, and our waitress did so well that she earned a tip that far exceeded what the quality of the meal deserved.

The bad: the food was cold. Worse, it seems like when it was made it had been overcooked — dark, hard shrimp and overdone/chewy fish. The baked potato felt as though it had been sitting out for a few hours and the fries were lifeless. The food was a far, far call from the quality my wife and I experienced a few months prior which made this all the worse — we expected something great and got really bland, cold, chewy food.

The worse: the music coming from the kitchen area about 15-30 minutes before close. It was an annoyance on its own (the music loudly played over the music that was already playing over the intercom system, causing a mix of multiple songs in the dining area), but the music being played by the back of house was filled with profanity and cursing, not something I was very happy to have my children exposed to without some kind of warning.

Overall, the many years of prior quality will probably bring me back into the restaurant one more time to see if this one night was a fluke, but my expectations have been greatly lowered and another experience like this will leave me in the unfortunate position of telling people not to even bother.

Keep the wait staff, make sure the food is actually freshly made, and keep the post-work cleanup jams quiet enough that my 4-year-old doesn't...

I really have difficulty rating this restaurant. I enjoy their food. Both times that we’ve eaten there, the food was delicious. A young lady wearing a blue knitted hat is a sweet, well-mannered, efficient, and cheerful waitress. I haven’t enough lovely adjectives to praise her. Her name may be Abrianna -that is the name on one ticket. However, a different person started to wait on us until she discovered that we wanted tea and appetizer while we waited for a “to go” order. At that point, she unpleasantly informed us we had to order everything at once and snapped, “Do you know what you want?” We’re from out-of-town and had been in a doctor’s office. So we asked for a menu. She brought menus and left without a word. This was a little after 2pm. There were 2 other couples so it wasn’t as if they were extremely busy. Several people came in for takeout orders that they had phoned in. This same person brought their food and took their money. Later, those customers left. Then, a couple came in. All laughs, joking, and welcoming by this short waitress and cashier. Seated and waited on. Later, another couple comes in and same routine. This was after we had waited and waited. At this point, I had decided to walk out and eat elsewhere but the short, dark headed waitress pointed at us and said to the young lady that just came in to work, “You can wait on them.” Using a very derogatory tone. And bless her heart, the beautiful lady with the blue knitted hat did wait on us. I was so frustrated and angry with the short, dark haired lady who was also acting as the cashier. We did have 6 orders, so I expected it to take some time cooking but mostly due to that woman refusing to wait on us, it was 5pm. before we left with our food. My daughter and I will be eating elsewhere from now on. Sorry...

I’m hoping sharing my honest non-Abilene native opinion might help someone. I dined here with my family recently. I will tell you, I’ll never be back. The food? I feel like I was scammed. We waited so long for it to come out I thought it had to be fresh/made to order.. The plates my family received were all cold. My son’s grilled cheese still had non-melted shredded cheese between the bread, not even warm to the touch. The food was NOT crispy and hot. The catfish has a mealy texture (think frozen cafeteria fish) I was stunned. First bite and I literally said, is this really catfish? The pieces of fish were so small they were like fish nuggets. No flavor to the tartar sauce, straight mayonnaise. I mean we wasted $90+ on this food with everyone having regular drinks across the table (5 people). I honestly felt bamboozled. I’m stunned a place can charge so much for what could be the equivalent of cafeteria food….. It’s r o b b e r y. Luckily my server was really nice through the visit.

The teas were delicious and sweet enough. The fried mushrooms are amazing. But other than that? I will not be back and I will not recommend this place to any of our (many) associates new to the area. I hopeeeee any non-native Abilene resident sees my review and it saves them a $90 lesson. Idk about these other reviews, maybe people who have never left Abilene, but pleaseeeee be warned. I definitely ate at a different restaurant than the...