Rafferty's Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Paducah

We were here tonight for our anniversary dinner. We live 2 hours away and in town until Wednesday, and wanted a highly rated spot to have dinner at. I'll start by saying our waitress Greta gets 10+ stars. She is absolutely incredible, and the ONLY good thing we can think of about this place. We got there and was immediately seated in a very dimlitted area by ourselves, in the back. Behind us was a party of 3 with a 15 minute wait, and behind them were a party of 7 with a 25 minute wait. We were seated at 7pm. Like I said, Greta is absolutely amazing and the perfect waitress. We ordered the mushrooms and nacho supreme for our appetizers. Our entrees were steaks, baked potatoes and broccoli with cheese. By 8:15pm, our entrees still hadn't arrived. The party of 3 and the party of 7 had both already eaten and already left. My husband steps out to smoke. At 8:40 our plates are brought to our table. The place now closes in 20 minutes. I look at my steak, picture below, and Greta comes to ask if everything is okay. I ask her if I can be honest. And I show her my steak. It's burnt to a crisp. I held it up and I could break it in half. Her mouth dropped in shock. There's zero doubt that we had been forgotten. Our plates were cold, the cheese on the broccoliand potato was cold.. The manager asked us to let her make me a new steak. I declined. They were closing in 15 minutes. She said that she "thought we were taking our time in ordering"... she knew that wasn't the case. She took my steak off the bill, and said she had taken the croissants off as well... even though those were given to us early on in the dinner, complimentary for the so far 45 minute wait... and she handed my husband 2 cards for 2 free entrees on our next visit. We live out of town and would not be returning, I gifted the two coupons to a local customer on the way out... Greta, thank you for being an amazing person! Unfortunately we won't be returning to Raffertys, our anniversary dinner...

Should have turned around when we first locked eyes on the carpet. Server was nice enough. Ordered a cheese fry for an app, I got a sirloin, fries and a Caesar salad, and my boyfriend got a ribeye, baked potato, and a Caesar salad. We thought the cheese fries were ok, had a lot of burnt fries within the dish. And the ranch they bring with it had about a half a bottle of Cajun seasoning on top of it, I suppose some people like that? Ok fine. Salads came out with the croissant on the salad, and a lemon in it. Oh and some sprinkles of Cajun on the side???? Not sure if they had a bottle of Cajun that was about to go bad, so they were just throwing it on everything. And then our steaks came out. Oh our steaks. We both asked for medium rare. And we both cut into very RARE steaks. My boyfriend will eat steaks rare so not a huge issue for him. I however can not. I let the server know that my steak was rare and showed her. She says oh no honey that’s how our medium rare is I can take it back for you how would you like it? I’m sorry??? I’d like it medium rare. I tell her it’s not a big deal I’ll deal with it (because honestly I don’t like the confrontation anyways.) She insists on taking it back. Then who I’m assuming is a general manager brings my steak back out and watches me cut back into it. It is still pretty rare, but I smile and let him know it’s fine. My boyfriend convinces me into just taking a bite (because the same manager was standing behind me watching) and it tastes like it had been sitting in a pit of burning charcoal for an hour. My boyfriends steak was 30% inedible fat, and his baked potato was hardly cooked. We’re not from around here, just drove the hour to see metropolis. So we won’t be back. Really wishing that we would have just stuck out the wait at fat edds roadhouse instead of spending the money on this very overpriced, and...

Okay so Rafferty’s definitely caught my eye from the outside. It’s one of those places that, when you drive by, you kinda want to go in. The building has a cool, welcoming vibe and they’ve got a nice outdoor patio setup too. When I walked in, there was a woman at the host podium, and while she did eventually help me, the initial interaction wasn’t great. She acted like I’d been there before and just knew the drill, which threw me off because it was my first time and I had no clue how things worked. Honestly, nobody likes to be talked down to, and that’s how it felt. Once I said I hadn’t been there before, she gave me a quick explanation and took my order, but the friendliness wasn’t really there from the start—and it should’ve been.

I was just getting takeout, so after placing my order, I sat at the bar to wait. The bar itself was cool—horseshoe shaped—and the decor inside was really well done. The bartender was fine, not super friendly but just doing her job.

I got a salad to go, and they serve it with a croissant that had something sweet on top—maybe it was supposed to be dessert or a side, but I didn’t care for it. I also tried their house dressing, and honestly, it didn’t have much flavor. The salad had fresh ingredients, which I appreciated, but the grilled chicken wasn’t great. It tasted like it had been cooked on a dirty grill or something—it had this weird mix of other flavors, and just wasn’t appetizing.

Overall, the place looks awesome from the outside and has a fun vibe inside, but the food and service didn’t really match the expectations. I might go back and try something else, but it wasn’t a...