Katie's — Restaurant in New Orleans

We’ve been regulars and frequented this restaurant once a week/twice a month for over 10 years. Any time we had guests in town, or had a special occasion to celebrate, we would go to Katie’s. NEVER AGAIN.

After a particularly abysmal experience booking a large birthday party on a Sunday in October of last year, I got over myself and chalked it up to the restaurant having a bad day. They were WELL over 30 minutes (probably closer to 45 minutes) late seating us, after having the reservation and a deposit paid for weeks. I had birthday balloons delivered, and no one even put them on the table. Instead, the balloons were dumped on the floor next to the table. We brought a cake, and the waiter didn’t even take it out of the box. He dumped the cake without the candles or any plates on the table next to the balloons. Ok, I get it. Everyone has a bad day.

Fast forward to last Sunday, July 7th, 2024. Our good friends wanted to celebrate their anniversary at Katie’s after meeting there when I booked the private room for a work event in 2017. Sunday, the 7th, was their 7-year anniversary. After our birthday party experience, I thought twice about booking a party of any size on a Sunday, but kept my mouth shut. Well let’s just say, Katie’s REALLY outdid themselves today. The awful birthday party experience didn’t hold a candle to the anniversary experience. We arrived for our reservations on time and were getting a drink at the bar. People were coming in the door and leaving the door propped to get their names on the list. The hostess began yelling, “Keep the door closed!” A few of us were standing by the bar with drinks when the bartender asked if we had a reservation. We said yes, and she told us we had to wait outside. With it feeling over 100 degrees outside, we said we’d prefer to wait inside, especially since one of the members in our party has a medical condition that is exacerbated by heat. The bartender came out from behind the bar and demanded that the hostess make six of our party members wait outside. The hostess came over and very rudely told us, “GET OUT!”. It was humiliating.

With us having a reservation for 9 at 2:30, ordering a bottle of wine at the bar while waiting, and with it being over 100 degrees outside, you’d think guests would be invited to wait inside. Guests arriving timely for reservations per the restaurant’s policy shouldn’t be penalized due to a design that unnecessarily jams a 4 top table in the bar area to make a few extra bucks. Perhaps when deciding to overbook reservations, it should be coupled with having the foresight to consider a waiting space. How about letting you know when they take your credit card for the reservation that you will not be allowed to wait inside even when the restaurant runs late on the reservation time that they allowed you to book?

Before going up to be seated at our table on the second floor, I spoke with Murphy (who is the best waiter in the city) and asked for the owner’s number because of our treatment at the hostess stand. Murphy asked Gretchen, the manager on duty, to speak with me. Gretchen made lots of excuses, all quite understandable, but still not ok. After being seated over 20 minutes after our scheduled reservation time, and half of our party dripping in sweat, the party started to calm down a bit and we believed we would have a nice celebration. After being seated long enough to order drinks and appetizers, Gretchen showed up at our table and in front of a room full of patrons, she accused someone in our party of calling the hostess a B*. Seriously? After the second interaction with Gretchen, we left without eating and went to another restaurant. No thanks, Katie’s. I’ve spent a small fortune at your establishment for work and pleasure over the years. There is no food in New Orleans, or anywhere in the world, that warrants the customer service we’ve...

I was a part a group of 6 who sat down to enjoy dinner at Katie’s. We were seated promptly and our waiter was very kind. Shortly after ordering I got a call and we needed to change our sit down dining to a Togo. We asked the waiter and he was very kind and said no worries hes bring to go boxes with our meals. Our waiter allowed for me to paid for our food before we got our food to help speed up the process ( two shrimp po boys and three chicken Alfredo pasta). Our total was a lil over $100. Service was great up to this point. We paid our bill and I left a tip. We then go our plated food and we transferred it to Togo containers. The kind waiter provided us with bags and Togo utensils. We gathered our belonging and Togo food. We ended up eating in the car and someone said there was something hard when she took a bite. She then opened her poboy and found an entire acrylic fingernail nail. (See photo below). We were about 20 minutes out from the restaurant at this point. I promptly called the restaurant and was transferred to a manager. The manager seemed very confused. He reiterated that he had no clue how a fingernail could have gotten in there because there was only four male cooks in his kitchen. I mentioned to him that we just spent $100 and none of us were able to eat our food due to feeling disgusted from finding an entire dirty acrylic fingernail in the sandwich itself. He said that I could bring the sandwich back and he would make us a new sandwich. I mentioned to him that none of us wanted to eat there because there was a fingernail found in our food and at this point, we did not want to try again to trust this food. He said all he could offer was a refund of the one sandwich. I was very disappointed in this. None of the six of us were able to finish our meal due to feeling overly disgusted about this and no refund was offered for any of the meals, except for the one Poboy. We are not from New Orleans. We came to this restaurant, hoping to have a genuine New Orleans cuisine experience while on a vacation here and it turned south very quickly. This restaurant had great reviews and good rating and that is why we chose this restaurant. Was hoping the manager would have handled this situation better and at least offered a full refund for the meal due to us not being able to eat anything. I was unable to return to the restaurant to provide them with the fingernail because we got the phone call and needed to get to someone promptly regarding family matters. This happened yesterday evening, and I have not seen the refund for the Poboy sandwich in my account yet. Very disappointed with this...

We spent 4 days in the French Quarter and decided to venture out to get our last meal in New Orleans away from the tourist traps. We had one recomendation for this place, so we were excited to try it.

We were a little disappointed that the patio section was closed, and we had to eat in their small, crowded and loud dining room, but since we had already driven to midtown, we made the best of it.

We ordered the Swamp Fries, Catfish PoBoy and coleslaw. They swamp fries were really good, the PoBoy was mediocre, the coleslaw made us sick. The service was friendly in the beginning, but it was slow. We even had to ask the hostess to get our server at one point because he seemed too busy socializing with his coworkers. Based on this visit, we would not recommend this restaurant. Maybe this restaurant is better when the right people are working... who knows. They even turned customers away 30 minutes before closing... just bad business.

The PoBoy was not what we expected. Their menu state that their PoBoys are "gourmet", but there was absolutely nothing gourmet about that sandwich, except for the price. If you're looking for a good cajun PoBoy, look elsewhere. Clesi's, a seafood restaurant down the street, has them for $11, instead of $16, so that's a good alternative.

We got the coleslaw as a side, and it was not good. We love coleslaw, but this tasted off, so we didn't eat it. The server seemed surprised and added that everybody loves it, so the problem must be with us. He also said that since we didn't complain about it in a timely fashion, we still had to pay for it, which we did, even though it was bad. I'm not sure if they gave us a bad batch, but we both ended up throwing up. My girlfriend had a couple of bites, whereas I only had one tiny one, so she projectiled-vomited on the side of the road just a few miles down from the restaurant. We were supposed to be driving through Florida now, but we had to stay an extra night in New Orleans because it was impossible to drive while puking. Thanks for ruining our time, Katie's! Next time a customer tells you there's something wrong with your food, maybe you should listen.

I posted the picture of the pile of vomit, as well, to show how sick we got, but I'm not sure Google...