Restaurant Cotton — Restaurant in Monroe

This restaurant royally mishandled a reservation made several months in advance to celebrate a graduating family member. Long story short, we waited over 30 minutes past the reservation time only to be seated in two separated seating areas and decided to eat elsewhere. I would never again trust the reservation process here for a larger party!

We arrived a few minutes prior to our reservation time and were told there was not a table open yet. (That’s ok, we didn’t mind waiting a few minutes!) Then, we were told they would be splitting our party of 12 into two booths that were “next to each other.” The booths had a tall partition between them, so the two halves of our party would not be able to see or talk to each other. The hostess let us know that the restaurant would have called to notify us that this was happening, but no one did. Had they let us know this in advance, we would have cancelled the reservation at that time. We waited for over 30 minutes past time for our “reservation” to be ready. During that time it was also mentioned to us that the large reservation prior to ours showed up an hour late, but were seated anyway, and did not even have their food yet. It was my understanding from this comment that since the restaurant allowed the severely late party to keep their reservation, our on-time reservation could no longer be upheld. Several times the hostess went back to speak with the manager about it, but the manager never came to speak with us. After waiting over 30 minutes and finding out half of the family would not even get to sit near, see, or speak to the new graduate at dinner, we started calling elsewhere. Right before leaving, the restaurant offered to put half of the party at a table near one of the booths, which still sadly did not meet the expectations of our reservation. The one positive thing is that the restaurant offered to refund the $60 reservation fee, but we are all still extremely disappointed to have gone through all of the trouble just trying to have our reservation honored as it should have been. Thankfully Warehouse down the street was able to take us on the spot and we had a fantastic dinner...

Very tricky footing when you first step in the side door, at the stairs leading up to Planters.

Awesome atmosphere and decor. It was pretty hot the evening we went, but there were large fans running on the balcony on the back of Planters so that helped for those wanted to take in the views. Our bartender was a super nice fellow.. tall, short beard, smiling from ear to ear with every upbeat word he said. This guy truly is a national treasure for the food service industry.

We arrived a bIt early to get drinks prior to our reservation at 7:45pm. Unfortunately, the existing party at our table lingered for a bit longer which delayed our seating until maybe 8:30pm. I think I know why.

The chef came out and chatted with us a least 2 or 3 times while we were having drinks at Planters, but the scene got stale the longer we waited.

They offered us some free apps while we waited which didn't come until we sat at about 8:30pm, so that was appreciated.

There were maybe 5 other tables scattered throughout the main ground floor dining area, all were much smaller than our party of ~16, and it felt like our drinks and entrée order taking was a bit more prolonged than it should have. If a party this large was problematic, it should've been tag teamed with a second person.

Food came, and my crawfish pasta's sauce was skinned over as if it was sitting in the window. It's a big party order, I get it. Flavor was very nice. The crawfish were incredibly small, possibly from frozen like you see in Costco, because the recent crop we've seen in the Little Rock (AR) area was enormous. So, a little odd for me. But very heavy with the sauce and noodles - I could barely eat half of a moderate sized portion of this very nice dish. Everyone else seemed to like their food.

Once we were done and chatting, I was able to better appreciate the woodwork on the ceiling and the general ambiance. It's very cozy.

For the price, not sure if we'll be back when visiting our niece at ULM. It was our first time in Monroe, so would be great for us to try...

My boyfriend and I came here for dinner on Saturday expecting a great meal. We, however did not get that.

We sat down and were greeted by our server who promptly got our drinks out to us. We then told him we wanted to start with the roasted oysters on the half shell. When they came out, the parmesan on top was warm, but the oyster meat itself was cold. Disgusting, but we chalked it up to be an honest mistake. The server apologized and brought out another. This time, the parmesan was a little more warm, but the oyster still nastily slid down our throats like a cold loogie.

We told the server not to worry about another and said that we would try the gnocchi. The lukewarm at best bowl of gnocchi reeked of feet and body odor. I couldn't even swallow one bit of it. I was getting sick to my stomach. My boyfriend also hated it, but said it smelled of something much worse than feet.

We didn't want to be that couple that sends more food back after complaining twice. So we held our tongues and waited patiently for our Mahi-Mahi. It was a large fillet served on top of mashed potatoes (I substituted those for grits) topped with crab meat. Right before we had been given our entrees, we overheard the bartender asking another guest "you don't like your fish? I'm sorry." The fillet was delicious and hot, but the grits weren't warm. My boyfriends mashed potatoes were about the same. The crab meat on it, however, killed it. It tasted sour and rotten. We believe that is what also killed the gnocchi. At this point we were completely fed up with the entire experience and were just ready to leave.

We asked for our check to only to have the margarita, explained our horrible experience to the server, paid, and ran out of the door.

The worst thing is that not one manager or cook ever came to the table. We expect much more from "fine dining" and will never...