Walk-On's Sports Bistreaux - Montgomery Restaurant — Restaurant in Montgomery

So today we took a trip to Montgomery, Alabama to meet up with some family. We decided to dine at Walk-Ons Bistreaux and Bar. Now the last time we dined at this location the service and food was on point. I was seriously impressed.

Fast forward to today. We walked in and were seated almost immediately. Our server’s name was Jaela. She came and took our drink orders and we told her that we were going to wait into the rest of our party arrived to order. No problem she said. Our drinks were brought out to us and the wife and I waited for our nephew and his fiancé. They showed up roughly 15-20 minutes later. They placed their drink orders along with our food orders. Our server took the orders and even repeated them back to us. Here is what we had to eat.

I had the Pastalya. Wife had the Cobb Salad with no avocado, no blue cheese and with honey mustard dressing. Nephew had the fried chicken tenders with fries and a sweet tea. His fiancé had the grilled chicken tenders with fries and sweet tea.

We waited about 25 minutes and the food was brought out. Wife’s salad was as she requested. Nephews tenders were as he requested. His fiancée’s order was brought out fried even though she requested grilled and our server even repeated our order back so she put in the wrong order. No problem, they took the tenders back and remade them.

Now as I said earlier, the food was on point. The server was not. Our drinks stayed empty. We saw our server maybe 3 times throughout the entire time. We had to flag down the Hostess to ask for refills which she couldn’t do it so she went and notified our server.

After another lengthy wait, our server returned and went and retrieved us some refills. After that we didn’t see her again. The head chef according to his uniform came by and checked on us. We politely informed him of our experience with our server and he seemed genuinely concerned. He asked us if we “ had paid yet” and were told him that we had. He told us that he wanted to give us some cards for a free dessert and appetizer and apologized for our experience.

He returned to the back and I’m going to assume that he spoke to our server because when returned she came out to another table and from what my wife told me she gave our table a dirty glare and completely ignored us.

Now normally we are very generous tippers but the amount depends on several factors with the biggest being how our service was. Even though our service was less than stellar we still tipped. We paid the bill and walked out.

I understand that maybe the server was having an off day, we all do. So even though we had poor service we still tipped. Had our service been on the level I had the first time, her tip would have been much more.

We get home and received a phone call from our nephew telling us that that they received an alert from their credit card company that the amount had been changed from $76 to $84.27 or roughly a 20% tip that the server gave herself.

We have called the restaurant and spoke with a manager who told us that the server had not turned in her receipts so we are waiting to hear back from him.

I will post an update once we hear back from...

Walk On’s is a great place to eat and enjoy yourself. I rated this with 3 stars for a good reason. The servers are great. BUT the hostesses need an attitude check. You can’t have this great place with the best atmosphere in town and having hostesses with bad attitudes, not smiling and getting upset because you ask them if you can sit in a certain location. This is bad for business. I’m there all there all the time either with my husband, my sister or my brother and sister in law. I have yet to be greeted with a smile, respect, nor any communication. The hostesses never even say how many. It’s bad when you have to walk in a restaurant and initiate the actual greeting. I thought that was what the hostesses do. The manager needs to watch the tapes every afternoon evening or night to see how the hostesses react to the customers. This is the best place in Eastchase but you have got to train your hostesses. The hostess we had on March 22, 2025 for lunch during the hour of 11-12noon was the worst of all since I’ve been coming there. She never actually greeted my sister and I. She just stood there and I had to say two please. Then she grabbed the menus and started walking without saying follow me or anything. As we were walking all the way to the back. I asked if we could maybe sit up front or around the bar area and she never said anything. She smacked her lips and turned around to lead us to the front with a nasty attitude and no smile. Then she sat us at a dirty table and put the menus down but didn’t say a thing to us. Once that was done, she went over to the server in the back corner and said something to her and of course that server looked over at us. My sister and I didn’t know what to think. We started to leave. The server however didn’t come right over instead she made a call on her cell maybe to check on her family - understood. When she came over she did greet us kindly. Thank goodness. We informed her that the table wasn’t cleaned and she was nice about it. Then cleaned it. My sister and I immediately started feeling better about being there. From that point on, our server was great and attentive. We enjoyed ourselves and left our server a very good tip. PLEASE TALK TO YOUR HOSTESSES. They are the first point of contact. Don’t do this business a disservice. I love this place but if the hostesses don’t get their act together, they will take this business down. It’s too many restaurants in Montgomery that would gladly accept your patrons. PLEASE TALK TO YOUR HOSTESSES. I am so dissatisfied and disappointed. No one should ever have to feel uncomfortable in a place where they are spending their hard earned money. By the way; the food, servers’ service and atmosphere 5 STARS. Hostesses no way. It has to get...

UPDATE: 12-29-23 The staff reached out and asked me to give Walk-ons an opportunity to make things right. I was reluctant but curious as to what would be done. I returned and ordered the same dish as before. The meal was excellent 👌 the portion size was what I expected, the food was hot and the catfish was crispy rathen that soggy. Im still not sold that its U.S. Farm raised catfish. Overall this meal was far better than my last experience. I am greatful for the complimentary meal, and because of the most recent experience I have increased my rating. However, even if i assume that the prior meals were because of lazy employees that cut corners, the question then becomes, how does a less than perfect meal ever leave the kitchen? Where is management in the kitchen. My request is simple, I just want fresh food when I come to dine 12-2-23 I used to eat at this place all the time. And at one point this sports bar was known for very good food. I stopped patronizing this sports bar a year ago because the food was no longer good. My wife and I returned and gave this place another chance hoping that after a year's time it would have improved. To my disappointment, and in my opinion the place has declined even more with regard to its food. The food portions are tremendously smaller, but that's not so bad if the food were good. To the contrary the food portions were small and the food itself was awful. I had the Louisiana combo, that offered catfish, shrimp, fries, and I substituted the soup that comes with it for grilled green beans. Without any exaggeration, the only thing on the entire plate that was good was the hush puppys. The catfish was not US farm raised, but rather a substitute Vietnamese fish that I am familiar with, but absolutely hate the taste of. what's ironic is their substituting real US farm-raised catfish for a cheaper Vietnam catfish but yet they serve very small strips of the fish. The french fries or cold and hard, the shrimp was old and appeared to be re-dipped in the fryer, and refried for our order. The green beans were cold and tough as if they had not been steamed long enough. The only thing that this place has going for itself is the multiple TVs for those who patronize this business to watch sports events. let me be clear to the staff of walk-ons who may be looking at this review. Don't even bother to offer me any kind of compensation coupons or credits. There is no need for that, I will never be back. Not even for a free meal. The only good gesture you could make for me at this point is to mail...