Js Catch Market & Grill — Restaurant in Phenix City

Recently a friend mentioned to me that Js Catch runs their own truck down to the gulf coast weekly to pick up fresh seafood for sale in their restaurant and seafood market. I am not certain if this is true or not, so please do not take that statement as a fact. But it was enough to raise my interest. Friday Sept 19 I decided to make the 30 minute drive with a goal of finding some fresh gulf seafood to cook for our friday night dinner.

Grouper was listed along with redfish, red snapper, and others. I decided to try the "grouper" and ordered 3lbs. It has been well over a decade since I've purchased grouper from a seafood market, but I have caught, cleaned, and cooked many hundreds of pounds of northern gulf gags and red grouper as well as my share of scamp ealier in life.

I was a bit distracted during the process so I was not paying close attention to the fillets as they were being bagged and weighed, but I do recall thinking to myself "that doesn't look like any grouper I've ever cleaned." I chalked it up to being a while since I had seen any fresh "grouper." They offered ice but i declined as I came prepared with an iced down cooler for the ride home. I paid and made the 30 minute trip to the house.

Later in the evening, I began preparations to fry up the "grouper." Immediately upon removing the first fillet from the bag and placing it on a 16.5 x 11.5 inch sheet pan I realized this is NOT any grouper species I have ever seen. Fillets were the entire side of a fish including the rib meat section, and were roughly 10 inches long by 1" at their thickest. No legal gag nor red grouper will yield such a small fillet. The myoglobin "bloodline" found on the skin side of a typical grouper fillet was virtually nonexistant.

The fillets were fresh, but the texture and color was totally wrong for grouper. The smell was fresh, however not anything like saltwater fish I am familiar with. After battering and frying, the texture and flavor was again, nothing like grouper nor any other salt water fish I am familiar with. As a matter of fact, the 2 fillets were a totally different in flavor and texture vs the others. Pics of the uncooked "grouper" fillets are attached to this review.

I will add, while I was there, the restaurant patrons seemed to be enjoying their meals and the plates I saw looked good enough that I will make the trip down for dinner or lunch sometime.

However I will not make the mistake of purchasing "grouper" from them again.

I understand it is hard for a small business to thrive in this economy and I applaud Js Catch for making a go of it. I would appreciate it if they did not lie to me in the...

Found this hidden gem in Phoenix City, AL on our way to Panama City. We were going to stop in Columbus to eat since it is bigger and has a lot more chains we know but I am so glad we didn’t. I saw this place on the map and since I love seafood, we decided to stop by for dinner.

As soon as we opened the door, we were welcomed with a smile and we were told to sit where ever we liked. Our girls wanted to sit at the counter in the big seats that swivel so we sat there. Everyone serving was really nice. Before we even ordered we were asked if we liked crawfish (the answer is yes, of course!) and we got an order of crawfish for free. It was delicious. I don’t love cracking shells and pulling out meat, so fortunately my husband was willing to do it for both of us. Thanks husband! The crawfish was good dunked in golden melted butter.

Then we ordered a shrimp dinner and macaroni and cheese with fries for both of the girls. The fries were crispy and tasty and when our food came out all of it was delicious.

We had gotten half grilled shrimp, half fried with fried okra, corn on the cob and Louisiana coleslaw. The coleslaw was vinegar based and my husband said it was good. We both agreed that the spiciness of the fried shrimp was perfect. The extra breading we didn’t eat but what we did was great. The grilled shrimp had good flavor and was especially good dunked in butter. The fried okra was good - hot and crispy. Everything tasted very fresh. The corn on the cob was good too. I poured a little melted butter from the seafood on it (you can’t have too much butter when it comes to corn on the cob) and it was great.

We were just traveling through but I would mark it as a place I would come to again next time we happen to be passing through. If you like seafood, definitely...

We came the 2nd day after the grand opening and unfortunately wasn't able to order many items from the menu as they had sold out most of everything the day before but I still ordered the founder dinner with the parmesan potatoes and the gumbo. I opted not to get the coleslaw as a side because I was told it was a vinegar based slaw and because I like sweet slaws like those of KFC or Shark's, so I passed.

1st, the wait was long but I didn't mind because that extremely sweet, sweet tea was just the way I liked it and it helped with the wait as well as the conversation I had with my guests so I I didn't mind the wait. When it did arrive, the positions were smaller than expected and the fish was fried entirely too hard. The parm potatoes were not seasoned nor to my liking so I only ate 1. Now the gumbo? Perfect BUT....it is spicy so if you can't do spicy DON'T ORDER THE GUMBO!

It wasn't what I expected and wasn't worth the long wait BUT I will give them another try when I can order exactly what I want and when it has been established a while and they aren't stretching the food by giving smaller portions. The do have a fresh fr to order your oysters, shrimp and other seafood fresh to go so that was nice. My friend ordered the burger with the pimento cheese to go and it was HUGE so I may just get that next time but wh o wants a burger from a seafood place? My only suggestions are to not cook the fish so hard, increase the portions AND get a jukebox. Listening to music does wonders for an extremely long...