Benny Paul's Soul Food — Restaurant in Madison

3rd (and final) southern cooking restaurant I’ve supped with here in Madison GA. I travel all over Georgia for my job. I always look forward to trying new and locally owned places to dine.

Located just off the square, Benny Paul’s Soul Food is conveniently open for lunch between 11 and 3.

The food:

Three options for protein (on Mondays): Fried Chicken, Baked Chicken, and Chicken and Stuffing. For $16 you get 1 meat, 2 sides, fried cornbread, and tea. I chose chicken & stuffing along with green beans and mac & cheese.

Let’s start with THE BAD. 25% of my mac & cheese contained undercooked noodles. Indelibly hard. The other 75% tasted just fine if you could dodge the macaroni bombs. (I presume one batch was cooked perfectly, and another batch wasn’t, and they got mixed during service). The green beans were ho-hum canned green beans. I couldn’t detect any seasoning or butter. As far as other sides, there were only a couple other choices, and it would appear the selections change daily.

THE GOOD is their chicken and stuffing. The chicken was moist and well cooked. The stuffing and sauce it was served with may be the best stuffing (outside my Mama’s) I’ve ever tasted. It was heavenly. Never have I tried fried corn bread patties before and since I’m not a big cornbread fan in the first place I was dubious. However, I liked it! It wasn’t sweet (which is fine by me) and it was fried to cornbreadily-perfection. I really liked it. Portions were fine; I was full afterwards.

The employees: Benny Paul’s was understaffed when I visited. So, there was a bit of a wait. I got the impression that it is not a normal thing and hopefully I’ll be able to tell when I return there to eat. If you glance at the photos on the Google results you commonly see a woman serving food. That is who I met today and although being stretched a bit thin by herself she was welcoming and very kind. (And she convinced me to try her apple cobbler, which I’m saving for later tonight!!)

I would return and hope I get the...

3rd time I have tried to eat at this place. The other two times even though they said they were open according to Google. They were in fact not opened.

This time I called ahead instead of wasting gas to get there to be met with locked doors and a sign that said closed. Even though it was 12 one time and 1 the next time. They said they close at 2 or 3.

When we finally asked how it works they weren't very engaging. The chicken was dry and did not have a lot of meat. The macaroni was cold, old , and dry. The potato salad was to sweet for my liking. Green beans tasted like can green beans. Also got the banana pudding that tasted anything but bananas. More like an apple pie with lots of cinnamon.

Sweet tea had a lemon taste and no sugar to it. When we were leaving they weren't clear on if we leave the trays on the table or bring it back to them.

That was our first and last time to eat there. Next time, we are going back to the buffet in loganville. Journeys end restaurant. You get more food for your buck and are actually full. When I left this place in Madison I was still hungry and...

Wow! Where do I start?!? It's very rare that I experience phenomenal customer service but today was an exception. Closing time is 1400 on Saturdays so I called ahead to be sure that they indeed closed at that time since I'd be traveling 15 minutes to their location. Upon arriving I was greeted with a welcoming and friendly hello! The cashier asked if I would be dining in or take out. I was completely shocked because it was within 5 to 10 minutes to closing. Normally when it's that close to closing, the only option is take out but not today. I ordered my food then was treated to a very unexpected surprise blessing! Needless to say the two ladies were really really nice and pleasant. I ordered rice, yams, potato salad, and chicken breast with cornbread just like my mother often made. Everything was so very delicious. I will definitely be going back...