The Catch — Restaurant in Gulf Shores

My wife and I decided on dinner at The Catch for our last day in Gulf Shores/Orange Beach. This is a newer restaurant and one we had not been to before. It is located on the north side of West Beach Blvd., but you can still easily see the Gulf. The place was very busy and finding a parking space was a bit of a challenge. After a couple passes around the block, my wife got out to go in to the restaurant to put our names in for a table. I went around one more time and finally found a family just ready to pull out of a space in the main parking lot next to the restaurant. The property is nice and there is a large open area under the restaurant where customers were seated at tables and eating. This area also had a small bar taking care of the drink orders. There was also an area right next to this where people were sitting and waiting on their table I assume.

I walked upstairs to where my wife was waiting on drinks she had ordered at the bar. The regular margaritas at this restaurant are pre-made and dispensed from one of those 3 gallon drink dispensers you see in fast food restaurants. They were WAY to sweet, as is commonly found in too many of the restaurants in this area, so the very nice bartender offered to make us fresh hand-made margaritas. These were MUCH better than the limeade ones in the dispenser! They cost a little more, but worth it.

We only had to wait about 20 minutes before our table was ready and we were seated inside, as my wife had requested first available. The next time we go we will request seating OUTSIDE. I am hearing impaired and even with my hearing aides turned off the place was still too loud. Like I said, this restaurant was very busy, so of course the large inside dining area was full. Our waitress came to our table quickly and took our order. She was very polite and attentive. I believe her name was Ariel, but may be mistaken and I apologize. My wife and I did notice she had a large tattoo on her right calf of a boxer and I am not talking about a dog. Anyway, she took great care of us, especially as busy as she was!

I ordered the Gulf Shrimp Boil and my wife had the Creole Snapper Delight. Wow! Both these dishes were amazing! I have to say though that we could have easily shared the Shrimp Boil, which came with a whole pound of wild caught Gulf Shrimp! See pictures. I did manage to finish off everything except the shrimp, which were large and delicious. I had about 6 or 7 leftover that I took with us. Fortunately, we had thought to bring a cooler bag and ice packs just in case. I ended up returning home to Tennessee with them where I heated them up in a sauce pan of hot water and then added them to linguine, olive oil, red pepper, fresh parmesan and some Tony's Chachere's Creole Seasoning. Outstanding!

We had a great time at The Catch and highly recommend it, but depending on the noise level, you might want to sit outside where there is plenty of seating. Great job to our waitress who helped make our experience a good one. ...

Terrible experience. Not sure where the good reviews are coming from? First checked in and told them we needed a high chair. Then was sat at a table that didn’t have room for a high chair l, and you couldn’t pull one up to the table anyways because of the table type. So the baby had to sit behind us in the high chair. Went to the front to ask if there was somewhere else for us to sit, and the hostess acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about. So I basically ended up holding the baby the whole time. There is no air flow. I know it’s hot out, (we went for dinner so it was getting dark), but the place they sat us outside had no fans or anything. There were fans in the other outside section but not here. It was miserable. Everyone was sweating , and I kept having to take the baby inside and sit on the bench because she was hot and it was made worse since I was having to hold her. Waitress was nice but took forever. I finally had to ask her if we could please order because it had been so long since we sat down and we were just ready to get out of there. Husband said the $40 seafood boil was not good. One person ordered the special which was $60, and it came out without the lobster. They did end up bringing him two tails since they messed up. I think it would have been better just to take some $ off the meal, because he couldn’t eat two lobster tails with a 16oz ribeye. Overall, it was a pricy mistake. It was the first place we picked while vacationing here, so hopefully we will choose better in the future. Would...

Parking is very difficult to find, and most is inconvenient or hazardous when you do. Be prepared to walk unless you’re lucky. I drove around for about 10 minutes then decided on a sketchy spot about 5 blocks away. Bar drinks were ok. Wanted a bushwhacker but they don’t have them. The frozen drinks I saw didn’t look very good so I probably would’ve skipped it anyhow. Food was mediocre at best. I ordered tuna dip and calamari for a light dinner. Changed my mind on the tuna dip when they had nothing to serve it with except tortilla chips. That just doesn’t go together. I asked for crackers or pita chips or whatever, and they had nothing. The calamari came out room temp and was rubbery. I’ve had good fresh calamari and this wasn’t it. Our server was nice and replaced my app with the snapper entree. It came out in about four minutes, which lets me know I was given whatever was back there to save time. The fish was the texture of chicken, and the broccoli was almost white in color and looked like a pile of mush. My wife ordered a grilled chicken salad and got a very mediocre fried chicken salad, with ranch so runny it was almost like water. Downstairs atmosphere is pretty cool, but upstairs is crowded, loud and chaotic. Long story over, it’s across the street from the ocean. It’s called the Catch. I expected much better. Unfortunately we won’t be back. Give it a shot if you want. Maybe...