Nick's Bar-B-Q & Catfish — Restaurant in Carlisle

Oh my gosh, where do I begin? I have never been so misled by Google reviews 4.5 rating AND 7,000+ reviews! I had such high expectations. I wish I had eaten at Captain D's and really I don't like Captain D's at all.

First, let me say that our server Dakota, was a lovely person, soft-spoken, and a good , attentive server. My salad was good but ordinary.

However, and I really don't like saying this but, it was the worst restaurant meal I've had in about six years since I ate Chinese food in Hobbs, NM. (Read that review!)

My husband and I both ordered the catfish plates, his with sweet potato fries, and my meal with a side salad and turnip greens. I will admit the turnip greens were the best thing on my plate; they were good.

Everything deep-fried had problems. The catfish was plentiful but very flavorless. It needed a better cornmeal breading with more salt and some spice to take the flavor up...way up! After salting it was better but still no stand-out. I had to set the fish on four napkins to soak up the grease.

The tarter sauce. So awful we couldn't eat it. I'm not sure what base mayonaise they started with but it was so offputting, I tried to chop the pickle and onion that garnished the plate to add to the sauce to make it palatable. I also squeezed lemon and added pepper. It was still inedible. We had to use ketsup on our fish which killed any slight flavor we wanted to glean from the fish. We finally gave up on the ketsup and ate our underwhelmingly seasoned fish plain.

The sweet potato fries were equally dripping in grease. And wow! The hush puppies were unlike any I've ever tasted.

On a 2" diameter hush puppy, there was 1" of crust. The center was no larger than my thumbnail. The only thing I can figure is that the batter is so lacking in flour and too much cornmeal that the grease permeated the batter almost to the center making a crumbly, crunchy crust, again dripping in grease. I think they are made with just cornmeal, flour (a tiny bit), an egg, some milk, and very little flavoring (salt?). There was no onion or seasoning - so little flavor, so greasy, so crumbly, so disappointing. I set them on a napkin in the middle of the table, and after my meal, I set them on my plate. When I lifted the napkin, there was a pool of grease on the table.

I believe the greasiness of the deep fried items were cooked at a too-low temp causing the grease to saturate the food.

I'm not sure if this restaurant realizes their food it not good, or, in an effort to keep their prices low, have severely cut the quality of their product to save money and they just don't care? And, I wonder if their fry cooks have been properly trained.

I usually don't write such sad reviews and try to be positive, but as I said, this is so bad I want you to save your money and go elsewhere for catfish plates.  Maybe the...

Nick's has been in the same family hands, since it opened in 1972. The Ferguson family has kept this a popular place to dine for more than 40 years. This was our first time to dine in the new, remodeled building. It's really quirky inside with the signage on the walls and tables. Most of the decor is nostalgic fare, with vintage automobile signs, Americana, vintage license plates, and pig pictures thrown in to remind visitors that you are in a barbecue restaurant! The entrance still has the photos of all the famous people who have dropped in for a meal as they traveled I-40, getting off at the Carlisle exit. The old building is being used as 18 wheeler parking. The new building also has a sports bar,opposite the dining area. They are allowed to serve alcohol in the sports bar. I don't know the details of this arrangement, considering that ours is a 'dry' county. But I suppose it's allowed due to the dining. The food was just as awesome, delicious and perfectly done, as it ever has been! I was very happy with everything that we ordered! I began with my personal weakness: Fried Green Tomatoes as an appetizer with Ranch Dressing! Yummm! Our Iced Tea was sheer, Southern perfection!! We both ordered the Regular Catfish Platter, with different sides. The regular fish plate gives you 5, good sized catfish fillets, and 2 sides, plus 2 hush puppies, pickle spears, & tarter sauce. There are about a dozen sides to pick from- fries, Cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans, fried okra, and more. We ordered extra hush puppies and raw onions. Their barbecue pork is also excellent. Whether you get a barbecue sandwich or a barbecue dinner with chopped pork and sides. I enjoy everything we have gotten here to eat. The table staff are all girls from around Carlisle or Lonoke. They're all young with endless energy, lots of smiles, and they don't get upset if you ask them to bring you something! Dining is still casual as is dress. Pricing is a little higher than that of most small town food places, but it's clean, good food, and great service! If you want to watch a game on TV, you can watch it in the bar. Still a great, not so secret, place to take yourself, your sweetheart, your family, kids, and to impress out of town family members with some good...

Stopped for lunch while passing through town. Was a little concerned at first because there was no visible hand sanitizer and I watched the waitresses clean off tables but they didn't wipe any of the condiment bottles or the chairs. Ordered our food, between the table we ordered nicks ultimate combo and the catfish,shrimp and BBQ plate. We tried the sliced pork, brisket (lean and fatty, chicken leg quarters) catfish, shrimp, ribs, potato salad, turnip greens, mac and cheese, hush puppies and fried peach pie..they were out of sausage. all of the meats were great! They weren't overly seasoned and didn't require sauce. The catfish was hot and cooked fresh and was fried perfectly. The hush puppies and fried pickles were great. The fried pickles are bread and butter pickles and not the regular sour dill that most restaurants serve. The downside of the visit was the sides, fried pie and fact that they don't serve white meat chicken. I don't eat legs and thighs so unfortunately I couldn't taste the chicken which I was looking forward to. None of the sides were homemade, they were all canned or pre made. The potato salad was horrible for something that the south is famous for. It literally contained potatoes, mustard and mayo. The baked beans were definitely from a can and only had beans. There were no other ingredients like traditional baked beans (onions, bell peppers, ground beef) the turnip greens were decent, but could have used seasoning.They were very bland but after adding salt, pepper and hot sauce they were edible. The fried peach pie left a lot to be desired. There was no sugar and cinnamon as in traditional peach cobbler/pie, it was simply canned peaches and folded pie crust.The mac n cheese was lukewarm and was just basic boxed mac n cheese. The service was good..receiving our food was slow, but the meats made up for the wait. The servers were very friendly and the establishment was fairly clean. The portions are huge and are great for the menu prices. They would do very well to get more flavorful sides to match their meats. I docked two stars because the sides are a major part of the meal but were lacking flavor, but gave an extra star...