The Galley on the River — Restaurant in Alabama

It has potential… But they need to up the flavor quotient a lot. The blackening seasoning is pretty bland, and so are the batters used for the fried fish/shrimp entrées. The barbecue pork that's available on the sandwich and sampler platter is tender, but lacks a good smoky flavor.

I tried a lot of different items on my initial visit and nothign really put a smile on my face. Boudin balls are a welcome app on any restaurant menu, and these are OK, but they lack the deep flavor that true boudin has thanks to all the offal used. This seems to be pork-flavored and that's about it. Again, not bad, but not great.

Onion rings are definitely 'home made': thin cut and lightly battered, they're crispy and tender, but also greasy and not very flavorful. The baked potato skin with pork were almost good, but tough skins were a letdown.

For a main meal I had the shrimp plate (1 lb for $18) and there were… Decent but nothing to write home about. The shrimp were high quality gulf shrimp, medium in size, but the blackening spices were too light on flavor. The server said to ask for extra seasoning if you like it spicy, and I might do that in the future.

Of all the things I sampled, the best might be the standard fish and chips. It was a nice big piece of whitefish, fresh and lightly battered, with decent fries. Like the onion rings, though, it was too oily and didn't have enough seasoning in the dredge.

Sides were interesting. BBQ beans sounded promising but were exceedingly plain, as if someone started to come up with a killer barbecue bean recipe and then stopped halfway through. Coleslaw was terrible. It was bitter and needed something sweet to offset the sour cabbage taste. (I think it's a work in progress so it may change for the better at some point.)

Sweet tea was OK but kind of institutional, service was super friendly and quite helpful. Overall, a fairly average experience, especially for the price. I applaud them for using fresh quality fish and shrimp, and reopening this place after it sat closed for so many years after the oil spill. But to survive in the increasingly corporate and cutthroat local restaurant scene, they're going to have to improve on the basics to be the kind of place locals love and tourists love...

We received the worst service here tonight! We used to love this restaurant but tonight was just unbelievable. We usually don’t complain and just let things go but the disrespect and unprofessionalism that was shown to us was not easy to let go. First of all, I was asked if I have a DUI because I don’t have a hard copy of my license from renewing it, no big deal, but not a good start. Our waitress Savannah told us they’re out of sweet and unsweet tea when I asked for a refill because they don’t want to brew and waste the whole batch (it was 3 hours before closing time) and people around our table were asking for it too, not the end of the world but I felt like the crew tonight didn’t even try to make sure customers leave happy. We came to the Galley to spend a lot on drinks and have a good time like we always do when we get together with friends but we had to get our waitress’ attention to order more drinks because she didn’t want to check on our table. My friend ordered Dr. Pepper and 2 shots of Jim beam on the side, the bartender mixed it up in a whiskey glass and when my friend asks to fix it, they just transferred it to a little bigger glass, added more Dr.Pepper and asked him to try it and if he wants it redone then he will be charged twice because they don’t want to waste alcohol! I can keep going. This whole experience was off the chart because not once have I experienced this bad of a service considering it wasn’t even a busy night. Management really need to look into this and teach their crew how to act...

We decided to take our family that had just drove 5 hours from out of town to The Galley this past saturday. We all ordered from Taylor. We ordered the mozzerella sticks and my father in law ordered onion rings for appetizers so the whole table could share. When they were brought the baskets were sat on the table and they walked off so no one received any plates. When we ordered our food, The ONLY thing I asked for is no mayo or onion on my burger everyone else had no special requests. After about 40 min we all got our food when I received my burger there was absolutely nothing on it EXCEPT mayo the one thing I asked not to have. When I told taylor I asked for it without mayo she told me that's the only thing you did order. Ummm no I know what I'm allergic to hence why I said I didnt want it. We all ate our meal meanwhile my side of the table never received refills (which is a big strike if i go somewhere to eat because i kind of need a drink while I'm eating) when we got our ticket our ticket had the mozzarella sticks and the onions on it. When I told taylor the onion rings were what my father in law ordered she told me my son ordered them. Ummm no he doesnt eat onions and since when does a child get to order? She had already ran my card before I noticed then instead of fixing it went outside where my father in law was telling him you didnt pay for your whole meal when it was her screw up. I was absolutely livid this girl needs more training before dealing...