Catfish Campus Restaurant — Restaurant in Columbia

My parents came from out of town and chose to go here for me to treat my step dad to lunch for his birthday. A man came to take our orders after waiting a bit that brought us hush puppies and bowls of something odd looking without any explanation, then he got sidetracked, and disappeared. When we saw him again, he was servicing another table.

When we had a different waitress (she was really kind and friendly; the best part of the service) come to take our order, we placed orders for the appetizers, our entrees, and asked for more hush puppies because we were already out. He came back to bring us something and that's when my step dad asked what came with the hush puppies and found out then, about 15 mins after he brought it to us, what it was pickled green tomatoes "from Louisiana".

My mom ordered the popcorn shrimp, my step dad ordered the seafood platter, and I ordered the 3 catfish plate. When it came out, we also got the hushpuppies. Even though the food was heavily breaded, it was not seasoned very well.

All of the fillets I ate were on the dry side but one of my catfish filets had something stringy in it and when I pulled it out, it looked like a parasitic worm. I can't blame this on the restaurant, but ended up taking a lot of leftovers home, including my mom's shrimp. I just now popped it in the microwave for dinner and it was so heavily breaded that I couldn't taste the shrimp. So when I started peeling the breading back, it was not deveined at all. As I peeled all of the breading off to give them to my cat and dog, all of the remaining 10 or so pieces still had poop in the shrimp. That's disgusting.

Fish can really make you sick if it's not prepared properly or cooked properly. I would highly advise eating here with caution if you care about the quality of your food. I won't be going back after spending $71 here and I will not be suggesting anyone eat here either. If anything, do not order any shrimp that you cannot clearly see the shrimp in the meal (covered in breading).

Their hush puppies, fried mushrooms, mozarella sticks, onion rings, and mac and cheese were the only things that we liked, but none of...

Myself and members of our Church (party of 7) went in Wednesday night March 23rd. The server was good and most all the food was great.

My problem was that I ordered a combo of Catfish & Clams and my boyfriend commented that they over cook their clams. So the server had not left our table, I said to her to ask the cook to not over cook the clams she said ok. My clams were the worst I had ever eaten, they were very hard almost burnt. I got to enjoy a quarter of the order. Only the bigger strips of clams were edible. The server asked when I was done if I wanted a box. I said no that the clams were the worst I had ever had, they were over cooked. She said I will tell the manager.....

I wasn't looking for free food, because everything else was great. But as a former restaurant manager I was looking for acknowledgement that "hey we messed up, even after you requested we not over cook. We are sorry." The month before 2 family members went in. One of them got pork chops the were not edible, hard as a rock. It was mentioned to the server who was getting the manager. Again the manager never came over. They got tired of waiting so they left and will never go back.

Note to the owners or management: there are too many other options out there for dining out...how you handle customers is the key to survival. You're the only place I know of in Columbia for catfish, but if my next visit is like this I will travel...

Appetizers and main meal came out at the same time. Fried pickles we're good. Poppers and Mozzarella sticks were like from the grocier's freezer but more 'industrial' tasting. Fries were already cold, and catfish were chewy outside and soggy inside--as if reheated lunch leftovers. Maybe they were. Tartar sauce was scary--came out in condiment cups, congealed over the top like they had been exposed for hours, hopefully in a fridge, but we weren't brave enough to try it. Naked soggy chewy catfish for us... Hush puppies, shrimp, and pickled green tomatoes were surprisingly good. We used "flavor of Maury" vouchers, so a decent value for us at $4, but if we had paid the menu price of $20, it would have been a poor value indeed. Wait staff were polite, even kind. So, nothing against them. This was our second poor experience, so I doubt we will try again, outside the annual "flavor of Maury" visit.

On the way out, he asked us how everything was, and we said, "well... [pregnant pause] the hush puppies, pickles, shrimp, and pickled green tomatoes were pretty good..." -- and that was the end of that, no inquiry into how the rest of it was or why we said it that way, so we just left it alone. Ironically, they have stacks of cards by the checkout asking for good google and...