Tupelo Honey Southern Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Frisco

After hearing much hype about this vaunted location we decided to try it for our triple Birthday dinner! That is I, my wife and my step daughter all have our birthdays in the same week. Unfortunately I cannot in good conscience provide good marks nor endorse this place as a favorite 😒. I can only assume from our poor experience and the other wise high ratings they have scored in the past that something has changed drastically and not for the better. 1) It was after peak time on a Saturday night and we had reservations already. We where a party of 6 four adults and my 2 grandchildren. 2) It seemed to take a abnormally long time to get the first drinks. Something close to 20 minutes from the time we ordered them, to when they arrived?! Our Appetizers arrived to our table before our first drinks did! (SORRY NOT A GOOD START) Infact we where done with our appetizer ( we selected The fried Green Tomatos which where the only thing that actually impressed us here) The Fried Green Tomatoes where very good. It took almost another 10 minutes and flagging down our waiter again to remind him we where dying of thirst before they finally showed up. Very disappointing. We also ordered our food then when our drinks arrived. It took approximately 40 more minutes for our orders to arrive and my glass sat empty on the table for atleast another 20 minutes of that time even though I had ordered another drink( Went with just beer this time to make it quicker and easier on the obviouly over taxed bar staff, made no difference). We even made a few joking comments to our waiter who looked like Patrick Swayze when he was in high school.. instead of apologizing for their lackluster service he just solemnly agreed and joked back. 3) I had their original honey dusted chicken dinner. Now the flavor and the recipe I can give kudos for the chicken was perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked, however the peices of which their where a thigh and 2 legs where so small I can say I have had Quail and Pheasent which where nearly as large and plump. For the price I really expected more. The Bacon glazed Collard greens where delicious and perfectly cooked. (Maybe I should have went vegetarian 🤔 here?) Also the Pecan Pie we had as a dessert was delicious, probably the highest point of the night besides the Fried Green Tomato appetizer that we had at least a hour and a half earlier. After this lackluster experience I can't recommend this location until some significant changes are made. Our tables tab was around $230, in these trying economic times I would not spend my hard earned money for something like this again. Better options avaliable...

This is the third Tupelo Honey location that I've been to in the past few months (Chattanooga & Denver were the other areas.) I'm very disappointed that lunch and dinner have the exact same menu from Spring into Summer when their three cookbooks (which I have) have about a zillion recipes in each.

I have Celiac disease and have to eat gluten free and there are only two lunch / dinner entrees and three salads (as long as you don't add a protein) that are gluten free. You're either getting the pork or the shrimp and grits.

Went here tonight because my in-laws had never been and heard my husband say great things about it.

WHAT MY FAMILY ORDERED

My in-laws ordered beers and:

FAMOUS FRIED GREEN TOMATOES panko crusted fried green tomatoes, basil, roasted red pepper sauce, over heirloom grits with goat cheese $10.50

CRISPY BRUSSELS with garlic buttermilk ranch dipping sauce $9.50

TUPELO'S FAMOUS BONE-IN FRIED CHICKEN, 1/2 bird. Original honey dusted. $21.95 with side of collard greens.

TUPELO SHRIMP & GRITS (GF) sustainable & wild-caught white gulf shrimp, chorizo pork sausage, peperonata, creole sauce, scallions, over heirloom grits with goat cheese. $19.95

My husband ordered the TUPELO'S FAMOUS BONE-IN FRIED CHICKEN, sweet and spicy flavor for $21.95. He asked for no cilantro. It came with cilantro on the top.

My husband left a chunk of the chicken breast on his plate because he said it was very dry.

WHAT I ORDERED

I initially ordered the cobb salad with chicken until I was told that the chicken for the gluten free salad couldn't be made gluten free due to cross contamination on the grill. I reluctantly had the CAST IRON PORK (GF) for $17.95, which I've also had at another location.

My pork was DRY. I gave 1/3 to my in-laws and they said that they were glad they didn't order it because it was so dry. I left half of the remaining pork on my plate until my husband asked for a to-go box. If our waitress had asked how my meal was, I would have complained about it being bone dry.

SERVICE

We never got a single water refill during the entire meal and we had to flag down plates when my in-laws ordered two appetizers (none of the appetizers are gluten free.)

ALSO

There were SO many flies in the restaurant that we were constantly swatting them during our meal inside. It was so bad that a neighboring table was swatting them and we made comments about it to our neighboring table. Get a bug zapper please!

The meal just didn't taste good. As someone with Celiac, I'll just cook from their...

We arrived as a group of twelve, Sunday brunch-time, and we were seated at an elevated bar table up front. Our server was great, the times we saw him.

Let me say, I get it. Sunday. Frisco by The Star. It's gonna be busy.

Here's the kicker - it wasn't. The French place across the way was easily at capacity, and were plenty of empty tables, well before we settled the bill.

Start off with drinks -- no problems there.

This is when the insanely slow service times start to kick in. We arrived at around 1220pm.

It took almost 25min before he even started asking about starters, or mains. We stuck with cathead biscuits (for god's sake PLEASE change the name - those are not cathead biscuits. Period.) Delicious. A savory spread rather than a sweet one, but whatever. This is Dallas County. It gets weird over there.

1pm rolls by. 130pm rolls by. I finally corral the server for orders, as he had ZERO motivation to help us. We got there at 1220pm and it was NOT capacity. Remember this. 2pm rolls by. 215 rolls by. We have survived on biscuits-only at this point. We FINALLY get our food. 45min after putting the order in. 115min after we walked in the doors. Two. Hours. Below capacity.

On to the food. I had hoped it would be the saving grace. It was not. I tried shrimp and grits, chicken tenders, a chicken thigh, and the chicken BLT sandwich. There was simply almost no flavor. Seasoning is just not used, unless, I'm assuming, you get their hot and spicy items, which we did not. The chicken is the most uninspired chicken I believe I have ever eaten. My grandmother would have marched it back to the kitchen and found a salt shaker, then yelled at the kitchen crew. I assumed that as it was clearly supposed to be a new Southern cuisine experience, I'd experience something new, other than new flavorless. Mac and cheese, same thing. Just ZERO flavor. Throw some bread crumbs on top, charge way too much for them, and call it a day. Grits were fine. Just fine. Green beans were fine. Just fine. The french fries were HEAVENLY, and I could eat my body weight in them, easily.

We all agreed that dessert would simply be a waste of our money, so we all skipped it.

Bottom line is this: come to Fort Worth and eat at Mash'd if you want this cuisine, done right. Tupelo Honey is the kind of restaurant that "idea men" come up with. All idea, very little proper execution in the kitchen, and that's why we all go to...