Circle M Crawfish — Restaurant in Big Sandy

I finally had the absolute pleasure of trying the food at Circle M Crawfish - Big Sandy, TX, as well as staying in one of the their beautiful Airbnbs across the street from the restaurant.

I’ve heard many good things about this place over the years, but I’ve never made the short drive to actually try their food.

Shortly after sitting down, a very kind waitress came by and introduced herself. Unfortunately I don’t remember her name🤦🏼‍♂️. She took our drink order and we all started looking over the menu. I knew I wanted to order multiple things. A few minutes went by and out came our drinks. We ordered the triple dipper and the bacon wrapped jalapeños and shrimp for our appetizers and got right back to looking at the menus for our entrees.

The triple dipper came out first and it was delicious. The chips were hot and fresh. The guacamole was perfectly made and the queso had a unique, but very good flavor to it. The salsa looked rather intimidating, but it wasn’t even remotely spicy. It also had a great flavor to it. The bacon wrapped jalapeños and shrimp came out shortly after. It came with a sweet and spicy dipping sauce, although it wasn’t too spicy at all. The shrimp were incredible by themselves, but even better dipped in the sauce. In between eating both appetizers, we ordered our entrees.

I decided on the 14oz ribeye and I chose mashed potatoes and gravy and mac & cheese as my 2 sides. I also ordered 3lbs of crawfish. My wife wanted some fried fish, so she ordered the kids fish with coleslaw (she can’t eat too much). One of my twins ordered the chicken fried steak with mac & cheese and corn on the cob and the other twin ordered their signature burger and fries.

I’ll start with the steak. The compound butter on top added such a nice flavor, although the steak itself was already nicely seasoned. It was a perfect medium rare, so I was happy 😃. The mashed potatoes and gravy were good, but the mac & cheese was really good. Even the roll was delicious. It was slightly crispy on the outside and nice and soft on the inside.

The crawfish was the next thing I tried. They had an amazing flavor to them, but they were definitely a bit more on the spicy side. I still ate quite a few, but my tongue was burning afterwards. It was worth it.

I then went down the list of trying everyone’s food. There’s a reason why it’s called the “cover the plate chicken fried steak” on the menu. It was absolutely massive. Typically with quantity, you sacrifice quality. That wasn’t the case. The batter was nice and crunchy, but not too much and the steak itself was very tender. I then took a bite of my son’s burger and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Even their fries were excellent. I tried a bite of my wife’s fish and thought it was also good. It was a bit on the thinner side, but still very good. I didn’t try the coleslaw, because it’s coleslaw lol.

We ended up ordering their 3 main desserts. Tres leches, homemade peach cobbler, and the chocolate lava cake. All 3 were excellent, especially the tres leches.

I can honestly see why this place was incredibly packed. They had stuff for everyone inside, including multiple pool tables, an arcade, 2 different covered playgrounds, a nice sized stage for karaoke, a huge bar area, and enough seating for hundreds of people (not even exaggerating).

After an amazing dinner, we made our way across the street to our cabin. It was located right on the water. The inside was nice and cozy. They seem to be fairly new because everything looked very up to date. My kids really liked the spiral staircase leading up to their loft lol. There were TV’s everywhere and they all had satellite cable, as well as Roku for all your streaming needs. The most important thing was the beds actually being comfortable and the gorgeous view over looking the water.

If you’ve never been, I highly recommend making the 30 minute or less drive from Tyler and experiencing some amazing food, a nice little getaway in one of their cabins, or...

Update: Second visit because we loved the food during our last visit. Unlike last time we had a great server and she was on top of her game. Non pretentious and available when we needed her for drinks and side items.

We tried Fish Byte appetizer and it was absolutely fantastic. Also Surf and Turf had shrimps that were out of this world. The Shrimps by the Pound had little potatoes that were tasty and delicious. Fantastic experience.

We were seated at the first table by the stage. The live band with Rick Brown wad awesome with great country music vibe. Check out the pics and videos.

I loved the vibe at Circle-M as soon as I entered the place. This is my kind of place... a place with active vibe.. its a conglomeration of added spaces as the place expanded. Seating is open seating with picnic tables with no back rest. High chairs with back rest are available in the bar area though but this area is away from the main stage. This is the area you would want to be in if you plan to spend some time visiting with your party. Food was great. We ordered crawfish and surf and turf steak. Shrimps were awesome and very tasty and NOT overcooked like so many other places. Although my steak was well done instead of medium as I had ordered I still enjoyed it. The crawfish was exactly as I had expected... spicy and juicy (don't forget to suck the head for a full-on Cajun/bayou experience) Live band was group called Teasurs (with a u) and they played all top of the charts songs. We loved it although they were not taking any requests. Service was fast and furious and detatched. May have missed a beat or two in the process. I wish we had friendlier server. Menu here is extensive and calls for multiple visits to get the full flavor of the place. The full plate chicken fried chicken and double steak burger is on my list of dishes to try next time. Of course the crawfish remains the star and name sake of this...

Just not what it used to be.

When we came a couple months ago on a Saturday night, the place was packed and the live band was so loud you couldn't talk to your tablemates. The service was minimal.

We thought we would try again on a Sunday afternoon because my mom had seen an ad for fried oysters. She drove 40 minutes to get here, and we drove 20.

The restaurant wasn't so busy, but the service and food were still not great. The server got my mom's order wrong twice.

First they brought her fried avocado with pico when she asked for none. They took it back, scraped it off, and brought it back out, but then we noticed they gave her fries when it was supposed to come with mac and cheese. My mom let the waitress know, but didn't send the plate back because she didn't want to send a plate back twice out of graciousness to the kitchen staff.

However, at the end of the meal, not only did the waitress not give us the offered discount she had mentioned, but they tacked on an upcharge for the fries my mom didn't even order.

We had to request them take it off, and the waitress didn't do anything to make up for the repeat mistakes on both our food and our bill. She was a pleasant young lady, but under-trained.

Also, don't order the oyster nachos. All they bring you is a huge plate with about 9 friend oysters on chips floating in a vast empty space with a little spicy pico thrown about haphazardly and some spicy remoulade/maybe cheesy base gluing the fried oyster to the lonely chips. Your plate will not look like their ad my mom saw. Don't order it.

Years ago this place used to be fun and worth the drive. These days, save your money and gas mileage and find somewhere...