Genna Benna’s — Restaurant in Brandon

Update, Oct 2024:

The service has deteriorated. The hostesses used to greet you at the door. In fact, if they saw you coming they'd beat you to the door and open it for you. Tonight there were four people crowded around the hostess stand. But they didn't really acknowledge us until we were standing right in front of them. They were polite, though. The service used to be a lot better. Our waiter took our order and brought our food when it was ready. Then we didn't see him again until it was time for the check. Our drinks were empty for ¾ of the meal. The restaurant wasn't busy. Over half the tables were empty.

The food was still good, though. So there's that.

Original review:

My wife and I have been to Genna Benna's a couple of times. Here's our take:

Don't let the name of The Fried Pickled Okra put you off. It is a great appetizer very similar to fried dill pickles, served with comeback sauce. The Seafood Pasta is creamy and delicious. The Pan Seared Fish With Bacon and Andouille Cream Sauce is fantastic. (The redfish is the better option vs the catfish.) If you want "light" stick with the rice. You can substitute brown butter mashed potatoes which are a little heavy but delicious. A little extra sauce makes those potatoes go down easy.

The tiki drinks are not what you'll be used to if you're a frequent drinker of chain restaurant fruity drinks. They're light on the sugary stuff. So be aware of that up front. If you're satisfying your sweet tooth when you drink, the Mai-Tai is probably your best bet.

The cocktails are Prohibition-style and depart slightly from your run of the mill pour. The GB Old Fashioned is recognizable and tasty. But the New York Sour lives up to its name. It's a little rude and very sour, as you'd imagine those d@mπ Yankees (New Yorkers) to be.

We've tried the Pecan Pie Bread Pudding for dessert. It's ok. But not good enough for me to order it again. It could use a pecan cream or caramel drizzle or something. The beignets, though, are great. Make sure you use those little French donuts to sop up the cream sauce off the plate like a biscuit with your mamaw's gravy. If you don't you're gonna look silly licking that stuff off the plate.

The wait staff is awesome. (Fletcher, most recently. We'll request her every time.) Polite, attentive without hovering, and helpful with the menu suggestions.

They have live music at least on Thursday and Friday evenings. Last time we went the musician was a young man named Wiltz playing some fantastic saxophone.

The atmosphere is modern old school. It's what I see in revitalized downtown areas all over the U.S. Ancient brick walls and old black and white photos of Brandon from some dusty archive. There's really no comparison to this restaurant in the area. It's a welcome, and long overdue, addition to our Square. You...

I loved Genna Benna's! We were shown around on a kind of historical tour. We were told how it used to be a prison & grocery store back in the 1800s and you can still see some of the old prison bars in the decorations. You can see black and white pictures on the wall as well. It was very charming.

Oh my goodness, the food...Fantastic! They had these crawfish gumbo like pockets that were fried and you dipped them in queso. Then the had these Buffalo dummies with a couple of uniquely delicious flavors I had never had before.

Now, next door is their Bakery where we started our journey. We were getting our desserts to go and they had wonderful customer service and their cheesecake was the Bomb! However, they had Petit Fours which were the size of a cupcake. Which if you know what Petit means in Petit Four you know it was WAY to big. There is an art to making them and you just can't slap icing on a square and call it a Petit Four. I tried it because they swore it was one of their best sellers and I didn't want to judge a book by it's cover. I only took one bite and that was enough to tell me it's not one of their best sellers because it was days old. I also got a chocolate cupcake (Dry, crumbly, and old) my daughter ate the icing off of it. They had these Lemon Chess squares that my husband swears by... He said they weren't made right. I'm not going to comment on the cake pops as they are not a favorite treat of mine anyway. So I don't know if I can give you an objective opinion.

I tell you what, lets go back to the cheesecake! I got a Red Velvet cheesecake which was a surprise to me because I'm used to Red Velvet cake being the crust and then the cheesecake and topping are white...not this one. There was no cake and the whole cream cheese part was RED except for the crust and sour cream topping. It was disturbing to look at but, pretty at the same time. So I got that as well...Very good! 👏👏They also had a Pumpkin Spice. I wish I had gotten it instead of the cake product. Which now that I think about it, they hardly had any cheesecake left but, they had plenty of Grande Fours and cupcakes! That would usually have been a dead give away but, it was a business trip and I was a little tired.

I would definitely got back to Genna Benna's restaurant and I would eat their...

I had high hopes for this place looking at the food pics online. Don't eat here!! No one was at the host stand for nearly 20 minutes and as we were going to walk out some young man with a long straight pony tail comes up still chewing his food and trying to seat my party with the gentleman that had been waiting longer than us, in front of us. We decided to give them a chance but should've just left. The majority of the tables were dirty with plates, dishes, glasses, food, etc all over them, but there was only 1 actively eating table in the whole place. The guy ahead of us was sat directly next to us, all of the booths had crumbs and food on them, unclean, had to wipe my own seat off. The big long tables in the center were completely full of dirty dishes everywhere. When we were halfway into our meal we saw the host guy and one other girl start to clean up a table- they used what looked like a small single wet wipe and just slapped at small areas not doing a thorough clean. We waited a long time more for a waitress and then waited on drinks and 2 bottled beers, and then our food all came at once instead of the soup first that I ordered as an appetizer. Rare steak was overcooked to a medium well. Watched a group of 4 who also waited as we had, finally get sat at the mostly dirty table the guy half cleaned, only to get up and leave when the waitress never came over. Host guy sat another couple in the same table that the 4some left from, never wiping anything and even reusing the same menus they had all touched on. This place was filthy. Food was subpar, small portions, soup was cold on arrival, and the prices were way too high for what we got. Will not return. Your cleaning practices will spread diseases and your inattentive and slow staff should...