Newbern's Restaurant — Restaurant in Alabama

Lets just go ahead and say what everyone already knows, the fish is the only thing that keeps this place in business. Everything else here is average to below average typical country fare. Even generic, large chain places like Cracker Barrel put this place to shame.

But lately the fish has been mediocre as well. Don't order past 7 or the fish will be old and cold, I don't think I've ever had a baked potato from this place that was fresh and the last time I got one it was actually rotten inside.

My biggest gripe though is the customer service, the price and quantity. This place has went up on their prices twice in the last year. They ask $14.99 for a large catfish fillet plate that comes with THREE (small, about the size of a chicken finger from zaxbys) pieces of fish and 1 side with coleslaw or side salad. The old price, less than a year ago, was $9.75. After asking about this (thinking it was a mistake) the owner of the place told me that they had never went up on their prices, a blatant lie. Three of their menus can be found online that all have the different prices over the last year. After finding this and trying to show her, she said "we didn't do that". I asked her what she meant and she simply kept repeating herself over and over like a broken record, refusing to explain her logic. She was elderly, she was rude and she's obviously unfit to run a business.

If you want extremely over priced product, terrible service and average/mediocre food then this is the place to go. Otherwise there are other, much better options locally for fried catfish. I won't list them here at the risk of sounding biased but you can find them easily with a quick...

The Good: Service was friendly, attentive, and quick, even though the restaurant was relatively crowded at lunch, and the restrooms were clean. I got the cheeseburger and it was fine relative to the price (though be aware a side is not included). I appreciated the staff's attention to health and safety, wearing gloves and serving table condiments (ketchup) that were kept chilled, not just sitting on the table all day.

The Bad: It was painfully obvious that every meal item that wasn't catfish came from a freezer bag. Hushpuppies were large but lacked flavor. It seemed like every plate at the table had a random smear of tartar sauce and some shredded lettuce scattered on it, regardless of what was ordered. However, every town in Alabama has a place like this, and I knew coming in that I wasn't part of the target customer base. "Fine" is pretty much the ceiling. My only real gripe is that most of these places bring free baskets of hushpuppies to the table whereas this one charged 25 cents per (no, not per basket).

Ultimately this is one of those places that caters to the local 60+ year old crowd (I mean, the place opens at 10:00 for lunch), and that demographic tends to love this kind of place. For anyone else you'll probably find the food lacking and/or overpriced for what it is. To be fair, most popular chains are doing the same thing, they're just better...

Nothing super special but not a bad experience either. Sign out front said 'Home of the Catfish Dinner' so I got the large catfish filet platter: 4 nice sized fried filets that were well cooked but not much different from other catfish joints I've been to. Would've liked to see grilled or blackened options. (Yes I do try to eat somewhat healthy on occasion lol.) My plate came with fries and slaw and hush puppies, which were all about average. They also had baked potato as an option if you don't want to overload on fried. For some reason, i was craving turnip greens but didn't see that on the menu. Atmosphere inside had that 'hole-in-the-wall' feel where you sometimes find exemplary food but the food here was just okay, not great. Pricing seemed on the high side for what I got, but that may just be a sign of the times. I will say that our server was friendly and very attentive and there was other stuff on the menu to try besides catfish, but overall I'm not sure...