Samantha's Tap Room & Wood Grill — Restaurant in Little Rock

First of all I ate here as a work lunch. Atmosphere is very good, I would call it business lunchworthy for work, or date worthy in the evening. Food was also excellent. For the most part. One of the gentlemen said that the gumbo is not as good as last time, and would not be trying it again. In restaurants, flavor consistency is king. They failed to meet this goal, at least for him. I have only eaten here one time in the past, and was pleased with them then. But it was long enough ago but I couldn't attest to the consistency.

Did not like that we had to wait to be seated, when they weren't busy. Apparently they have a rule that if you have five or more, they won't see you until everyone arrives. Three out of five arrived on time, and we had to wait to be seated. There was no reason we couldn't go on and be seated, and get appetizers started. Luckily when we asked, they went ahead and seated us when the 4th arrived. If they had been busy, it would have been more understandable, but at 11:30 a.m.....?

For appetizer: We had the spicy, smoky and sweet. I did not try for grilled andouille, as I do not eat pork (due to my wife's allergies). However, the smoked gouda, bread, sport peppers, we're all very good. Wasn't the biggest fan of the pickles. They were a little on the two sweet side for my taste, but I know a lot of other people like sweet pickle.

For the main course: I had the marinated grilled chicken breast. It was excellent flavor, juicy and tender. Very good flavor, may of been a few too many capers, but not overly so. Just a little strong on the caper flavor, but definitely still delicious and edible. Capers were not enough to call it overpowering. Excellent balance of flavor, but I think the capers could have been backed off about 10%.

Sides: Asparagus was good, but a hair overcooked. It was just barely to that point where it becomes a hair mushy, and lost its crispness. Still very much edible, just a touch overdone. That perfect texture is very hard to get, and rarely seen. This was close, just a hair to the overcook side. Better to be a hair on the overcook, than the undercooked, IMO.

Grits (I forgot that grits are corn, shouldn't have ate because of my wife's allergies, but that's my fault).. Excellent flavor! I haven't eaten grits in years, but the creamy asiago cheese grits or some of the best grits I've ever had. If you're going to screw up and eat something you're not supposed to, at least it was excellent flavor.

(Just in case you're wondering, these are the foods I avoid normally due to my wife's allergies; Pork, shellfish, corn, & beef. Her allergies are actual allergies, and were caused by tick disease, and not her being picky.) My restaurant interpretation of the 5🌟 rating system (feel free to use):

I started using this because I don't like seeing standard restaurants with 5🌟. If I see 5🌟 I expect more than standard. Also adjusted for type of business. Sit down restaurants are skewed and critiqued accordingly in comparison to fast food. My wife kept getting on to me for being too critical.

1🌟 = DUMP…. NEVER AGAIN I DON'T CARE IF IT IS FREE (wish there was a no star option). The food you would feed a prisoner, only if you didn’t like them. 2🌟 = Crap, fast food...... Only for If you are in a hurry, tight on $, and/or in a rush. (Think big chain places with $1 menu, not HORRIABLE, and sometimes a decent food comes out). 3🌟 = Okay, worth going on a regular, but has room to improve (Think frequent work lunch spot, Rarely less than Okay, usually Good to really good food) 4🌟 = Very good, favorite "common" places. Nothing EXCEPTIONAL. (Think casual date, Nicer Chain restaurants usually, occasional surprisingly good Fast food) 5🌟 = Reserved for EXTREMELY high quality and/or Exceptional, and  Places that surprise me. (Think first date to impress, anniversary, special occasion) GREAT flavor, great food, ambiance,...

My sister's 34th birthday dinner.... Scheduled for 7pm..... We showed up on time and were told that our wait was 1.5hrs. We decided to go across the street to Brewski's and wait for our call, but we never received one. We then took it upon ourselves to go back over to samantha's to see what the issue was and that's when the hostess decided to give our party a difficult time with accommodations for 7. Oh, we originally said 10, so 7 was clearly a problem🤷🏿‍♂️ The hostess finally takes us to our table after 6 minutes of bulls**t and then more b.s. ensues..... The waiter comes to our table and none of us recall ever getting his name because the first thing he says is, "the kitchen closes at 9 so I hope everyone knows what they want."🤔 My bad.... forgot to mention we didn't get seated til about 8:50.... His approach rubbed all of us the wrong way and 15 minutes in we already wanted to speak with a manager. He stated that the kitchen closing was false and that we would receive normal service. It was clear to all of us that they did not want to deal with our party of 10, oops, 7 and we were keeping them there later than they wanted to be. Not our problem!!! If they did not want to serve us that late, the phone call for our wait would've been helpful. We may have even gone somewhere else, but they handled everything poorly. Now to the food.... We ordered the surf and turf queso for an appetizer and it was amazing. My wife had the skirt steak tacos which were extremely chewy👎🏿I ordered the bone in pork chop which was mediocre at best🤷🏿‍♂️ There were other complaints at the table about some the dishes, but we were determined to enjoy one another's company and not ruin my sister's night like the restaurant tried. Needless to say, as amazing as that queso was, we'll never eat...

My cousin flew in from L.A. and was craving some type of soup with white beans he had at Samantha's during his last visit to Arkansas, so we went to Samantha's for dinner on July 3, 2025. Only to be met with some let downs during our visit.

The atmosphere was nice except for a homeless guy who was sitting at the bar cursing at people. Staff eventually told him he had to get out.

As the waitress took our order, my cousin scanned the menu for this soup after he didn't see the soup on the menu, he described it to the waitress and she told him it sounds like a soup maybe serve only during the winter months. So he was a little saddened as he thought about this soup from LA to Little Rock. He then scanned the menu and ask for another dish and was told they didn't have everything to make the dish he was requesting, then he asked for Hennessey as his drink and he was told they didn’t serve that; however, they had Crown and whiskey from a local distillery. At this time the waitress apologized and laughed with us in disbelief that everything he asked for was unavailable.

I then attempted to place my order for some Eclipse drink only to be told they didnt have the mango required for the drink. At this time we both were deflated and couldn't be leave it. We began to laugh in disbelief.

I suggested leaving and going to another establishment, but he wanted to stay. The waitress suggested another drink to me which was really good. We were finally able to order something that they HAD.

The waitress we had provided great service.

My rating is based on the overall experience which includes the numerous items that were unavailable...