Louie Wingz & Catfish — Restaurant in Portage

Four weeks ago my wife and I stopped in at this place because of the awesome wing reviews. We ordered a six piece wings with fries and a soft drink to share. The reviews were right. We loved the batter on the wings. Probably the best I've had. The soft drink was only slightly cold. There were no cups and no ice. I guess we can overlook the soft drink issue. Today was my wife's birthday. We planned for two weeks to get 20 wings and a large (5 piece) catfish order with fries today to celebrate her birthday dinner at home. Drove back home across Valpo and the food was still blazing hot. Smelled great. She had the table all ready by the time I got home. We dug in and chowed down on the catfish and fries first. The batter was great as usual. The catfish was good but not great. Then I dug into the wings. As the next 10 minutes passed by the meal went from happy to sad. The first bite I had of the wings had a "soap" taste to it. Half of the wing tasted this way and the other half didn't. Weird. Tried four more wings. Same thing - part good and part bad. Weird. I dug deeper into the pile of wings. The "tip" parts of three of the wings were completely black. Not burnt, just greasy black. Weird. Then the real hit. I pulled a wing out from the bag. Right at the joint of the wing "tip" and the wing middle "flat/wingette" section of the wing (not the "drumette") was about ten - 1" long chicken feathers. Flat out GROSS. We can't go here anymore. I give them 2 stars because of the knock down good batter. Don't stop reading yet - - - - However, this order, especially for a birthday dinner, was uncalled for. There were only two people, that I could see, running the place and I'm certain they were not the owners. We saw the owners the first time we were there. The people after me ordered some Dr. Pepper drinks; walked out and came right back in - they were given 2 Pepsi's instead of the Dr. Pepper's. If the owners are going to not be there every second (which they can't because it would be impossible to live that way) then they need to make certain they have employees holding the fort down that care about the survival of the business as much as they, the owners, do. Dang, this upsets me. They have a great breading on their wings. Oh well, back on the search for good...

It hurts me to even rate this as a 3, because I literally travel from Chicago to Valpo to get these wings ever AFTER finishing my undergrad career at the university. I stopped in on February 12th, around 1:30pm or so (the review is late because I have been out of the country and did not get a chance, but I wanted to make sure the owner saw it) and I called in ahead for wings "drenched" the girl told me over the phone that it was an extra charge I told her it's fine I'll pay the extra. Once I got in I told her I wanted to just check because I had traveled so far to see if they were drenched and on top the sauce was not on the fries like how I've gotten it before, it was all at the bottom. So I asked her could I have some more sauce since it was not to my liking, I had already paid the extra, and on top of that had traveled so far just to satisfy my craving. She literally goes into explaining how the ladles are measured and the guy in the back comes forward to the little window to show that he was the one that made the food and had a sort of stern frown on his face. Needless to say she said it was necessary to charge me extra, again, so I just left with what I had. It was the principle and that's why I took time out to write this review. My boyfriend and I met the owner (Trent if I'm not mistaken) right when he came to Valpo and he has such a giving spirit and is so nice. That spirit and generosity, on top of the fantastic food, is what led me to recommend this restaurant to all my people, especially us from the Chi that are just there for school. I would really suggest passing this on to your employees. Not to say I won't be back, but this experience with her and him left a sour taste...

I took my wife out to dinner at Louie’s on a Friday at 5:45 pm. This place is right in the middle of the university campus. Their main business is take out, but they do have a couple of tables inside that you can use to eat there.

We placed our order and were told that it would take about 20-25 minutes. We grabbed a table, one of three in the building and we were the only people there. While we were waiting for our food, there was a constant flow of people coming there to pick up orders.

After a while, approximately 15 minutes, we were served our food. I ordered the chicken sandwich, and my wife ordered the catfish. Both of our meals were served in to go boxes. Both meals were served with French fries.

Everything looked crispy and well cooked. The fries had a seasoning powder on them, and it was very tasty. I’m not sure what it was, but it was good.

The first thing I noticed about my sandwich is that the piece of chicken was HUGE. This is not a small sandwich. The sandwich was very flavorful, very crispy, and well-seasoned. The bun they used was soft and was a perfect complement to the chicken. Everything about this sandwich was top notch, it could hold its own to any other on the market that I have tried.

My wife’s fish was cooked perfectly, she received four large pieces of fish. She could only eat half before she was finished.

Overall, this was a great meal, though it was not cheap, it was not expensive either. I will...