Clear Springs Restaurant — Restaurant in Nacogdoches

Pretty bad. Ate here while in town for a work conference on Wednesday. I'm from Nacogdoches and was embarrassed for this place to be my coworkers' introduction to Nac. They pretty much screwed up at least one thing on everyone's order. All I ordered was a beer, because I'd already eaten. Everyone else ordered a meal. Waitress took twenty minutes to bring the beer, and then brought me the wrong one. Then took another ten minutes to replace it with the one I'd ordered. People's food was arriving and I finally got the beer. When it came time to pay, they put the beer on the tab of the guy sitting beside me, even though we'd already asked for the tickets to be separated. Then when we asked them to separate his and mine, and finally got our correct tickets and paid, the waitress charged MY card for my ticket AND his ticket (he'd eaten a $40 meal.) The manager apparently took it off, but currently it still shows up as "pending" in my account- so the funds are still unavailable (This was three days ago. not cool at the end of the month.) I was seriously amazed at the amount of times possible for one waitress to screw up and be entirely unapologetic each time. There was also bacon all over the baked potato of someone who specified no bacon, and then when she sent it back they just scraped off most of it and covered the remaining bits with more cheese. Waitress forgot part of someone else's order entirely. When another of my coworkers asked what kind of root beer Clear Springs had, the waitress just gave her a weird look and said she didn't know- didn't offer to check or anything. Also, everyone had just about finished their entrees and was deciding on dessert when she brought the tickets out- never gave us a chance to order dessert. I should add that I'm the type of person to be uber-accommodating with waitstaff mistakes and slow service, messed up orders, etc. Stuff happens. And this is the first time I've written a negative review of anywhere. But this was seriously terrible. Everybody left amazed at how bad the service was. I wasn't even really too annoyed until they charged my card for someone else's ticket- that was the kicker. They should have paid me to drink a beer there. Kind of can't believe they charged me for it after all that. I hope the rest of the money is...

I really hate having to write a review like this but I feel compelled to do so because my nephew left in a hurry. Our family came here to celebrate my niece’s high school graduation tonight (14-15 people) and sadly, we will not be returning. I grew up in the east Texas area, so dining at Clear Springs in Nac was a common occurrence. The food tonight was never the issue. The main issue was the lack of management, leadership and remorse for what happened to my nephew’s wife. While passing out appetizers and condiments, one of the servers/food runners dumped an entire cup (2-4oz) of ranch on the back and hair of my nephew’s wife. Accidents happen, we’re all human. The server quickly returned with napkins but I do not believe he understood the severity of what had happened. My nephew’s wife had the ranch all over the back of her dress, inside her dress and now her hair was becoming matted. She was tearing up but asked us to not cause a scene. She didn’t want to come off as a brat. Shame on us at the table for not doing so because what happened next was laughable yet very disappointing. My nephew asked the server kindly, could you comp their meal (2 people). They were told no. My nephew proceeds to cancel his order because now they’re upset. The server says I can offer you a dessert to go. My nephew and his wife have now left which has destroyed the vibe of the celebration and dinner. While this may seem minuscule to the public, I can assure others, had this been your spouse or partner, you would be very frustrated and down right angry.

AT THE MINIMUM, dry cleaning reimbursement should have been offered. AT THE MINIMUM, their meals should’ve been comped…….AT THE MINIMUM, a manager should have came over and apologized for what had happened and asked the couple what they could have done to rectify the situation. Instead, none of these things happened.

The food here is good. It’s a classic place. However, situations like these will stick with a customer and their families. I cannot and will not recommend this place due to the lack of remorse...

I’ve been going to clear springs for over 30 years. I even worked there in the mid-90’s. It’s always been a favorite and a must go to when visiting Nac. I was so disappointed this time and embarrassed that I recommended it to my dad.

We arrived around 4, so not very busy yet. We were greeted and sat by a lovely lady who took our drink order to help out our server.

Between us, we’re ordered 3 beers. She brought all the waters and sodas then handed us off to our sever. After about 15 minutes, we flagged him down to inquire about our beers. He thought we were ordering them and we had to explain that there should be 3 at the bar waiting for us. About 5 minutes later he arrived with 3 beers and 2 mugs. It took several more minutes to get that 3rd mug.

We ordered fried pickles and onion rings. They were delicious. The onion rings came with ranch, the pickles came with nothing. We asked for another ranch. It never arrived, but we were charged for it.

After another 10-15 he finally came back to see if we were ready to order. This was after our appetizers were completely finished. We finally ordered our food.

The food arrived and we had to move all appetizer plates to the end of our table. Our server never took them away to make room for our main dishes. The food was not nearly as good as it usually is. The catfish was overcooked. The fries did not seem fresh. The salads looked like they were just thrown on a plate out of a bag. And the entire meal we never saw our server. We had to flag him down again to get refills and that took another 5 minutes. We were there for 2 hours and literally got one refill that we had to ask for.

Overall, the service was terrible, the food was lacking, and we were charged for ranch we never got. I love Clear Springs and I hope this was a one off due to too much St. paddy’s day...