Nina P's Cafe — Restaurant in Lake Charles

Please allow me to preface this oratory by stating that I've waited tables at City Club, Pappania's and Pat's of Henderson. A girl friend and I both ordered the crawfish bread and crawfish potato. Our opening statement to the waitress was that we intended to get the potatos to go. There were roughly 8 waitresses that I could count with six customers. The wait was excessive, but I undersood that dinner shift was in about 30 minutes and wait staff were clocking in. After we finished the bread and the potatos were delivered, there was a lengthy delay before the waitress brought us 2 to-go's per our request. During that time, I ate the crawfish, cheese chives and butter from my potato. The waitress came to the table to take our cards and I asked her if she could recharge the inside of my potato. I expected to see the line item on the ticket. After another lengthy delay, she returns with the ticket, takes my uneaten potato proper, my to-go container and goes to the back. I assumed she was restuffing it and boxing it as she told me she would ask the cook. Mind you, I fully expected to pay. Had I not intended to keep my potato, why would we have asked for two to-go containers initially?

I noticed there was no additional charge on the ticket. I stayed at the table for close to thirty minutes before walking to the bar to track down our waitress to ask the where my potato was and whether she revised the check and how I would pay the difference.

She must have thought that I was basking in the ambiance of the chank-a-chank Zydeco blaring overhead. Without the first inclination to even come check on things, I inevitably had to speak to a manager that made me feel as if I was trying to get something for nothing.

I guess they assumed I was a poor potato hustler. After much banter back and forth over a $17 potato whose bare, unstuffed component costs appx. $0.79, they finally gave me an undressed potato to replace the one they tossed.

Nina P's - Where the P means 'Potat-toss.'

Due to the new Pandemic Great Potato Famine of 2023, all uneaten potatos must be recycled per Nina P policy. :)

The food was exceptional, but the waitstaff has been coined Image IQ - all image, minimal IQ. Some people should stick to pom-pom's and pep rallies.

Waitstaff - Eye Candy Food - Epicurian Palette Candy Common Sense/Customer Courtesy...

To sum it up: Unremarkable food, poor/slow service, eavesdropping waitress?/hostess?

Growing up in the Lake area I’ve heard people rave about this place over the years. I’ve never visited because it always seemed so busy. After visiting I feel like it’s fair to say that this is one, of a few places in town, that people hype up way above what the quality of the food and the service is capable of.

Upon arrival the hostess told us she was going to get a table ready for us and when she came back she sat a couple that came in after us even though there were tables available.

Our waitress was adorable, nice and took our order in a timely manner. Due to the open concept of the dining area we were able to notice that our waitress would disappear for several minutes at a time, come back out to visit a few tables and then disappear again. After we got our food we were talking amongst ourselves at our table about how we were hardly seeing the waitress even though the dining area wasn’t full and she wasn’t around when we needed something. We thought maybe there was another dining room we couldn’t see.

During our conversation, I did notice a waitresses or the hostess sweeping at a table near ours. After she went away our waitress appeared shortly after with stress?/disheartenment? in her voice apologizing that the service was slow and that she was the only one taking tables.

I prefer to handle things like an adult and I was planning to talk to our waitress about the service before deciding on her tip but the eves-dropping girl that was sweeping beat me to it. I still tipped our waitress 20% because she claimed it wasn’t her fault. It sounded like poor management.

On the receipt where they can type a note it said something along the lines to leave a review if you liked the food and service today and don’t leave one if you didn’t like it, jk jk…. Extremely childish and unprofessional.

Overall the food and service isn’t worth another visit. The gumbo looked normal but tasted like the oil they used for the roux was rancid. The stuffed redfish magnolia came out barely warm but looked and tasted good. Maybe it was just an off day for them and the food is normally delicious. Either way this was our experience and we...

A esthetically pleasing building with polite staff; less than impressive food. The decor was on par with the Louisanna culture but the meals were disappointing. The first item we went there for was the worst ever experienced across the country: Seafood Gumbo that we typically love elsewhere. You may wonder how a decadent dish like this could go wrong and all can say is the first bite tastes like burned fried chicken oil instead of roux. The viscosity of the roux is thicker than normal however, that was not the problem. The indelible taste of burned chicken oil was almost unpalatable and it lingers until you brush your teeth.. The fried green tomatoes (appetizer) were smothered with a thick and overwhelming sauce and topped with tiny chunks of mystery seafood (presumably crab) but the biggest complaint would be that they were sliced far too thin and breaded too heavy. If it was an old 198p's commercial for Wendy's, The elderly lady would be screaming," Where's the tomato?" The size of the famous stuffed spuds was unquestionably generous but the portion of fried chicken inside was severely limited and the gravy that was supposed to be on top never made it out because it was "still being made" (no comp offered for this, nor did we ask), the spinach salad was bland and almost void of the advertised feta cheese (literally like 3 tiny crombles of feta and that is what gives the most flavor); however, the grilled shrimp was generous and they were sauteed just right. Their potato salad (side dish) was the most impressive item and for a common backyard BBQ side dish, that says a lot; it was loaded with hard boiled egg whites and well seasoned with perfect texture and mayonaise based dressing. The servers are extremely hospitable and kind (dressed a bit revealing in even my children's opinion), the establishment is clean and casual and the restrooms were...