The Brown Barrel & Blind Harry's — Restaurant in Midway

Original post from November 2024: This is a review to speak to the amazing communication and detailed information I've been provided while trying to plan my office holiday catering. The staff and especially the owner have been so helpful answering my million questions as I plan this out!

Update after catering order received December 2024: Totally disappointed in the catering order we paid over $800 for! There were several issues and almost a week later I'm still upset over it. I took on the majority of planning for this meal. My colleagues paid to have a very underwhelming lunch. Our leadership paid to have a pathetic dessert tray. And I feel responsible because I planned it out.

Issues include:

Invoice sent without tax accumulated, yet we were charged for the tax upon payment. When questioning the fact that the invoice had a different total we were told Uncle Sam had to get his money. Sure he does, but it should have been included in the invoice total! We were out that money, nothing was adjusted.

Presentation: The food was delivered in sheet pan foil trays with no canned heat or way to keep fresh. Nothing was provided to cut the lasagna and it was all one big dish, minor inconvenience but just added to my frustrations.

Amount of food: I asked to lower our numbers from 45 to 40 the day before due to several people having Covid, but since it was close to the date we were not allowed to do this. I guess it's a good thing because the amount of food for 45 people was pathetic in my opinion. I think we would have had the same sheet pan of pasta regardless what number we had stated. I understand that we live in a world where we waste a lot of food and everyone ate, but when I'm telling you that it was not 800+ worth of food. I waited until everyone had gotten food due to worries there wasn't enough. My food was cold by then, it was about 20 minutes past delivery. Catering should be provided with a way to keep warm. I could have gotten to go food for a lot less had I'd known. Never assume! Lesson learned!

The worst part of this was the added on dessert tray. It was an additional $2 per person ($90 for the pictured tray) and I did get a picture of it bc I was thinking we were missing one. When I text the pic to the owner and asked he told me they do one dessert per person. Ok fine, but chips ahoy don't cost that much per person. Seriously, see the pic. I felt swindled bc I even discussed us getting our own desserts with him and he assured me that it was "cheap" to get the dessert through them. This dessert does not appear to be made by the restaurant but picked up from Walmart or Kroger!

Customer service- the food was dropped off and although I think it was obvious we weren't expecting the tax, were disappointed in the presentation and questioned the dessert, nothing was ever followed up on.

I get that this restaurant has a good reputation and we went with them with this in mind and to keep it "local." I'll regret the decision for a while. Felt...

I have eaten there twice. It wasn't too bad until last night 9/16 my family and I had reservation (that we made on monday9/11) yes, yesterday was the fall festival, hence why we made the reservation. We were celebrating my wife's birthday. We get there and they have nowhere to seat us besides Seperate tables on their back patio by the bar. Fine, we dealt with that. Conversation sucked because of our separate tables. It took our waitress 15 minutes to get our drink orders. We get our drinks and maybe 5 minutes later a drunken guy walked out of the door and flicks a cigarette on my 8 month old baby sitting in her stroller at our table. That was the most inonsiderate thing ever!! Seating us by the bar with the children we had with us. We ask for the manager and he seems apologetic and says he will be getting us a table put together inside and will talk to the drunken man about what he did. One of our family members walks inside to make sure they are getting us a table and sees the manager patting this man on the back like he was praising him instead of even just making him leave. While this is happening another waitress Is outside and hears us talking about leaving and yells at us and tells us that we still have to pay for our drinks. Obviously, we knew we had to pay for the drinks. She then continues to yell at us, get in my mother in laws face and continue to escalate the situation. I do know her name and will be reporting her separate from this review. In the end they ended up letting us go without paying for a thing because of how awful this whole experience was. Yes, we know they were going to be really busy, hence the reservation we made days prior. Nobody had ever said anything to us about not taking a reservation for the day. There was no reason for a waitress to be yelling at us, and continuously making the excuses that she was. The drunk guy flicking a cigarette out at our baby could have been avoided if not being seated where we were, at the bar side of the patio with a 3 year old and 8 month old baby. We will never be back, I do not recommend this place especially if there are many people in your party, and hopefully something is done about the waitress.

*Don't even try taking this review down. We will continuously put...

I don't often write a review, but this place deserves some acknowledgement. My first experience with Brown Barrel happened on an extended work day; the boss hooked up a ton of food because we had to put in several extra hours one night. The Cuban sandwich I had was outstanding, even though it had almost cooled to room temperature, and made me want to see if it was better under regular circumstances. The restaurant wasn't very busy, and we were seated just moments after entering. Our server seemed a bit disinterested, but was efficient and polite. She brought my wife the wrong margarita, which she enjoyed just the same, because a good margarita is still a good margarita, right? My cocktail, the watermelon mojito, tasted pretty close to the Jolly Rancher watermelon flavor, with a dash of mint- a very good take on the mojito. I ordered the blackened chicken ravioli, and my wife ordered the Bacon wrapped shrimp and grits. We also had an order of onion rings, served with "nasty sauce." Yes, I ordered it specifically because the menu said "nasty sauce." The rings were thick cut, and breaded with a thick and crunchy batter that wasn't dense or oily. The onion was also still a bit crispy inside, not mushy. The nasty sauce had a nice little dash of heat, and was actually great for dipping the shrimp. The shrimp and grits were the best my wife has had this year: cheesy and flavorful, great texture, and the Bacon had just the right ratio of chewy to crispy. I don't really like shrimp much, but had to try it. My favorite part was the Bacon, the cheese and the grits. The shrimp tasted, well, like shrimp. The blackened chicken was delicious and tender enough to cut with the side of a fork. The three cheese ravioli were delicious, too. We are the leftovers for lunch the next day and it was still amazing. We will...