Clear Springs Restaurant — Restaurant in New Braunfels

Meat & Potatoes style cuisine in a Cracker Barrel style setting.

I came here with my wife for Valentine's day lunch. She had heard it was good and suggested it. It was not my cup of tea, but I will try to be fair and balanced in the rest of my review of it.

THE CUISINE: What is "Meat & Potatoes" style cuisine? It is simple cuisine. It is cuisine cooked without any other spice outside of salt and maybe black pepper. There is nothing wrong with this style of cuisine and many people are proud to call themselves Meat & Potatoes people, but it is what it is. Clear Springs Restaurant caters to these types of people who like very basic food with little seasoning. That being said, my catfish was perfectly cooked. Not too raw, and not too done. It tasted decent, but despite the menu issuing a warning that it was "Spicy", I could detect no spice in it. There was a hint of salt, and that was about it (Salt is not a spice, it is a mineral flavor enhancer). The fries were Burger King quality. Like the catfish, they had almost no flavor outside of oil and a hint of salt. The Hushpuppies were not much bigger than a large grape and overcooked. They were the only thing that had a little spice in them. The Coleslaw was fresh and nicely minced, but very sweet, almost like a dessert item. The beans were decent, but like the catfish and the fries, had no detectable spice in them. As I said, the cuisine here is Meat & Potatoes style. If that is what you like, you will love it.

THE AMBIENCE: If you have been to a Cracker Barrel, then you know what the ambiance is here. Take Cracker Barrel and cross it with a bar, and that is Clear Springs. Would I call it elegant, romantic, friendly, or Homestyle? No, I would not. It is a place to grab lunch with friends, or maybe a casual business lunch.

THE SERVICE: The bright spot of this place was the service. The servers were fast, polite, and attentive. They were always watching, but they were not bothersome or annoying. A+ on the service.

THE VALUE: We order two of the lowest-priced fish plates on the menu, a tea, and a coke. The cost of this meal, with no dessert, was $51 (including a 20% tip for our server). That's a little pricy for lunch with my wife. Not that a great meal is not worth that, but I would not consider what they serve at Clear Springs, "Great Food". It is simple food. Anyone can cook it with no special training and a little instruction. I have eaten at many catfish places with WAY better-tasting fish, for a whole lot less. When food tastes like they opened a can, box, or bag, heated it, and severed it to you, it does not say, "This is worth a premium price". I am not saying that it came out of a can, or a box. The food did seem freshly prepared. However, that the flavor of seasoning was about on the level of industrial prepared food. Now to contrast this experience with a similar business in the region, I will refer to the 54th Street Restaurant in San Antonio. It is a very similar restaurant in many ways, and the menu prices are about the same as Clear Springs. The difference is, the food at 54th Street Restaurant looks like it was prepared by a real chef, and it taste like it too. I took my wife to 54th Street Restaurant for out Anniversary, and the bill was pretty much identical to Clear Springs, and we walked out feeling we had had a special dinning experience.

Why 4 Stars? I am only knockings off one star for the price. The value for the food was just not there in my opinion when there are other places where you can pay the same and get much higher quality food. However, just because I don't like Meat & Potatoes style cuisine, does not mean it is bad. There is obviously a market for it. I am in my 50s and I think me and my wife were the youngest people in Clear Springs when we ate, so it is pretty clear what market it is catering to. The people who go here seem to like it, so it is a great place for them to eat. For me, I will not be back, but I wish Clear Springs...

FOOD: We started with an appetizer of cheese sticks. It came with 6 goodcl sized sticks and ranch dressing. I had the shrimp Brochette. It comes with 2 hush puppies, 2 and 2 sides. Upon arrival, I had 3 skwerescif shrimp, seasoned green beans, and seasoned rice.

Each skewer had 3 nince size brocheete shrimp for a total of 9. For those not familiar with shrimp brochette, it is seasoned grilled bacon wrapped shrimp. The shrimp was awesome. It came with a serving of garlic butter for dipping.

There are several side options, like coleslaw, buttered corn, green beans, a version of beans that are in-between ranch and baked, fries, and seasoned rice.

My green beans were seasoned and had son tiny bits of bacon. They were very tasty.

The seasoned rice was bland. It wasn't a true white or pure yellow rice, but more like a dirty white rice. It had no seasoning as f ar ascI could tell. I have been fining here for over 25 years. I used yo go to the location in San Antonio in Hollywood Park. They had a true dirty rice back in the 90's yhstvwas out of this world. That location was the bomb. I have never giguredvoutvwhy it closed. It wasn't seen from the highway, but people knew about it because it was packed on weekends, and it had brisk traffic during the week. They definitely need to bring back the dirty rice!

My wife had the large order of fried shrimp, with Buttered Corn and the baked/ranch beans. She also had 9 shrimp. She liked all.

Our sweet tea with Lemom was very quenching.

SERVICE: Our waitress was efficient in terms of getting our orders correct. She was a little too pushy. Yes, shevwantsvto turn tables to enhance her earnings, but she needed to slow down and give us some breathing room.

AMBIANCE: There is a shaded patio with tables and benches to sit at while waiting to be seated. Seating took about 20 minutes; it's not bad for a full house. The decore is retro/nostalhic/rustic. There are lots of authentic retro items hanging on the walls, on shelves, and from the ceiling. The items are not the new-old like you fund at a Hobby Lobby or Michael's. They are the real classics.

We sat on the main floor due to my wife mot navigating stair well due to kneevsurgery years back.

There is an upstairs loft.

The noise level is high-medium. It's mot overbearing to where it's hard to Cary on a conversation, but it's not quiet.

The building is like a barn or cotton gin. It's a country vibe like was seen on the old Waltons or Hee- Haw tv shows.

I recommend this place. I would have given the food 5 stars had the rice been the authentic dirty rice they started the restaurant with.

The service is usually 5 stars, but our waitress was average. BestvI can describe it is, she was a little gruff and pushy. She used a handheld to present our table. I barely had time to read the bill and decided on my tip before she was ready to snatch it. As I sat, this is her; 99% of the wait staff has...

This is how restaurants stay in business,, over 30 years running!! It is a simple formula good food,good prices,great service,and clean.what so many places cant get right this place nailed it. Let's start by saying from the moment you walk into the door the staff makes you feel welcome you're not an imposition on them you're not distracting them from their telephones they're there to serve you. The place is absolutely Charming it's a big old barn checked tablecloths picnic tables plenty of stuff to look at and admire from the past decades of antique collectability. the server immediately came up and asked us for our drink orders and if we'd like to get any appetizers started. we started with their signature onion rings very large portion enough for six people and few more to take home . I ordered a cup of the crawfish etouffee which if you're not familiar with it is a creole tomato-based almost like a gumbo but it's a little bit thicker gumbo is more of a soup etouffee is a more of a a chowder it was very good, had a nice little spice to it but like I said it is the Cajun version that has tomatoes in it not the Creole version.they have a full bar. since I was going to have their other signature dish, the catfish I just got a local beer. fried battered catfish it was a light cornmeal batter fried perfectly the fish was still very moist on the inside not a dry spot to be had and it wasn't greasy which means it was cooked at the perfect temperature it came with fries coleslaw which was extremely fresh pinto beans and some hushpuppies which had a nice little jalapeno bite to them my daughter had the chicken-fried steak my cousin had the combo platter which had fried oysters and catfish his wife had the chicken fried chicken and my wife had the fish and chips every dish I tasted was of the same quality and the gravy on the chicken fried steak was amazing right on point. the server Allison kept coming around to see if we needed a drink refills, to clear away any plates. Allison was there in a timely fashion to see if we would like or had room for any kind of dessert which we did get one slice of there buttermilk Pie which was absolutely delicious a very custardy buttermilk type pie. bring your appetite or get ready to carry home a bunch of...