Grandma's Goodies & Gumbo — Restaurant in Missouri

As someone from Alabama who visited New Orleans regularly this place is a expensive imitation. They desperately wants to sell its ambience but lack true southern hospitality to say the least the atmosphere was tense. The menu didn’t have craw fish which is a staple of any Cajun, but they apparently do sell it; I just was unlucky to not read the door. But for a place that wants to give you a taste New Orleans in Branson you’d think that there would be a crawfish basket. So I settle for cayden gumbo, which was greasy and the roux was burnt. There was no okra or any vegetables at all.The shrimp was store bought but I won’t judge for that. After all their hundred of miles from a sea. The corn bread was corn cake it was overly sweet and when served in foil the foil got more than me. The boudin was perplexing because the stuffing was delicious and very authentic, but that casing was so tuff. I would recommend the balls instead. Supposedly their recipes are passed down through the family. The only thing passed down was a bottle of (slap ya momma) seasoning. Also something that tells me that these people are more yankee than a candle is the tea. For a southerner you sure do make some weak bitter sweet tea. So lastly if your in Branson seeing your aging country music star and want a weak imitation of Cajun food this is your place but if you want more authentic food. Well I guess your...

Can't seem to sample the cuisine because every time we stopped by -- four times now in the last six months -- they have been closed: twice during relocation before many months of renovations with no updates mentioned, then due to an unexpected hospitalization, finally last week because of the holidays. This last time we even called ahead and got a message outlining serving hours. We then drove for more than an hour only to discover a hand-written note on the door alerting us to a holiday closure period. In the time it took to write the note it seems that the phone answering message could have been updated too. If this lack of customer service extends to food service than I'm not sure we missed much. Sadly, we'll probably never know. I was raised in New Orleans and truly miss tasting other people's translations of authentic Gumbo, Red Beans and Rice, Jambalaya, and even corn bread. But, after four separate attempts to visit Granny's (total of eight hours driving time) over the last six months, I figure we'll just have to continue enjoying my own old go-to recipes, plus my wife's excellent corn bread (usually baked in our fire pit outside in a Dutch oven, probably impossible to beat anyway). Granny's, we sure wanted...

Recommended by a friend so we stopped in for lunch and sampled three entrees; jambalaya, red beans & rice, and fried shrimp platter. Sides included potato salad and cornbread. Highlights: food is very good, came out hot and seasoned well. Shrimp had a nice cornmeal crust and was not overly breaded as we have experienced at other restaurants. Rice dishes cooked well with the right amount of spice. Cornbread was sweetly delicious. Potato salad hit the mark; loved the dill. Having restaurant experience we could clearly see service in the front of house needs improvement. A few small adjustments would help, menus on the table to avoid a wait for them, and a sign telling you to seat yourself would save people from standing at door...