Bobbie's Southern Kitchen — Restaurant in San Antonio

Summer vacation used to mean hitting the road for our family. Yes. There were lots of roadside breakfast stops at scenic overlooks with picnic tabled rest areas to stretch our legs and grab a small carton of milk from the cooler to wash down a few powdered doughnuts. Passing through many small towns at lunch time meant a guessing game of choosing a place to eat that served good food and had something everyone liked. No Google back then to aid in that decision. However, we quickly learned to look for diners and cafes that were surrounded by parked 18 wheelers and commercial vehicles. These guys always seemed to know where to get tasty, comfort food for a reasonable price.

In case you have not caught the drift of my post, it's a segueue into a boast about a restaurant in an urban area that packs the parking lot for the same aforementioned reasons. I can only plead mea culpa for such a tardy visit to this now well established comfort food emporium that we knew so well in it's former, popular, southside location and quickly realized what good food we had been missing.

If you have not been residing in a bell jar you have probably heard of and guessed that I am referring to Bobbie's Southern Kitchen, a lovely rambling place that has blossomed from that of a southern flower branding (formerly the Magnolia) to a scratch kitchen and a menu bursting with a robust selection of favorites. Two steady favorites are pictured below; chicken fried steak and chicken fried chicken. Gravy, anyone? No longer on the regular menu are the oh-so-good hand battered o-rings. However, on the off chance that the joint is not jumpin' you might just be able to convince Greg, co-owner and chef, to fry up a batch. Cheese enchiladas, pork chops, meat loaf, tacos, . . . and don't forget a mile high piece of pie!

Flores St. location

Bobbie's sports that neighborhood feel in spades along with the various taxidermied wildlife that have oversight of the whole cafe from their back wall mounting. "Norm" type neighborhood characters mill in and are greeted by their first names with an expected order of "the usual, Sue". The menu reads like Bud Jones #2 with many of the same "reminds me of home" comfort food items. Like Bud's the "don't mess with perfection" dishes lovingly prepared here are unsophisticatedly delicious in all their fried, gravied and buttered majesty.

My advice to you if you are going to eat here, based on first time experience, is to ask before you order. Ask what, you say? That question was immediately formulated upon presentation of 1. a jumble of olympic ring emblems personified by a mounded plate of perfect, homemade onion rings, 2. a righteous serving of chicken fried chicken with 2 breasts the magnitude of which left me with mouth agape, 3. a chicken fried steak that ufo'd in from deep space frying and damn near overshot its diminutive, by comparison, dinner plate landing zone, 4. real mashed taters with Havocream 40 weight gravy.

Mesmerized by the banquet of food before me, I kept expecting to see the Man vs. Food star walk in the door at any moment to take on the challenge of consuming either gargantuan cf plate. The aforementioned question I was referring to is, "is this a good sized portion?" To this inquiry you'll get a gioconda smile from the bonhomie waitresses here and a reply of, "it's a good size, honey". The most understated retort I think I have ever heard. O.K. You get the idea now that all these menu items come in Paul Bunyonesque portions. But are they as good as they look? Shut the barn door! Tender, juicy and hot fit both cf plate protein descriptions. I am hard pressed to tell you where you can find any better renditions and at such a beggar's price.

Where have these killer mom & pop, time warp, love at first bite, down home, rustic, mandatory command performance encore restaurants been all my life! The easy answer is "across town" which no longer has any sway to an epicurean that "Has Wheels. ...

We first visited Bobby's when it was a hole in the wall on the southside. The place was SO small the wait was almost 3 hours, However, if the food is good you wait. 1 year later they have moved to a much bigger place in embassy oaks, but the wait is still over an hour. This is because the hostesses are kids and have no idea what they're doing. We were waiting in the freezing cold for over an hour, went in for updates twice, and literally asked the girls if they skipped us. They lied and said no, that they were waiting for a six top to open up, while on my right there was a front room with MANY tables open of various seating capacities, to which I asked the girl, if they were not allowed to put tables together to seat us. She looked like the thought had not dawned on her. Then she awkwardly dismissed me and said they would text us soon. The phone was verified twice! 10 minutes later we went back again only for a HUGE hispanic woman with a bad blonde dye job to come out and straight up LIE, without consulting the hostesses, to say that she had texted us twice, called us three times, and that the hostesses had gone outside to call us where we were all sitting at the front door in the freezing cold for way over an hour. All that being said this was a crucial moment in the service industry. It was already a bad customer service moment, compounded by the woman's choice to lie to us and put the blame on us, that we easily refuted by showing her there were no missed calls or texts and the fact that our entire family of six was sitting at the front door and would have heard them call my sister in laws very unique name. What should have happened was a sincere immediate apology for the inconvenience, and then quickly putting two of those available tables together to seat us. What actually happened was that when we called her out on all the lying she got mad and told us they didn't need us and we could leave because they plenty of people to serve. We did leave but I went back to ask her directly for name for this review, because after being mistreated like we were this ia all we have, and she refused. I asked for the manager and she said it didn't matter because she was the owner and in charge. When I then turned and asked the hostesses for her name they were told to not give me any information and to add insult to the whole ordeal she threatened to call the police. My unsolicited advice is first and foremost, if she is really the owner, Bobby's should do themselves a favorr and keep that little gem hidden in an office somewhere in the back because she is really bad for business, and hire experienced staff that does know about customer service and how to run a restaurant floor successfully. That pained with they're good food would be a more enjoyable experience for their paying customers. Final word...We went Tycoon Flats on Austin hwy and had equally delicious food with infinitely bettet service. We were made to feel welcome and like they appreciated...

Food is top tier but the service has really changed. I was given a gift card for bad service after our server was under the influence on drug usage an the owner sympathize she noticed too the same behavior so she was let go, so my 2nd visit i was sat immediately after a 6min wait outside, but after 25min of waiting alone i was still not served i had my back to the counter left of the register i turned back an asked a male server if he was my waiter he said no, i thought maybe perhaps that would make him ask to help but he didnt so i waited another 13 minutes so i had got up went to the register an the hostess asked how was my experience i told her i still hadnt been served. She right away said i cant believe it and i said this is my second visit for a previous bad service i encountered here. She served me herself a drink and asked me my order, after that a male server brought me my food an never came back so when i needed more orange juice, i swear i was just gonna get up to serve myself about this time, and honestly after waiting for my drink to continue eating was i was just out of patience it was not even busy there was 5 open tables around me but it was like no one wanted responsibility for my table. I just said forget this I went to the register told them my gift card was in the register and said it was another horrible experience the waitress or the hostess went to tell the owner, the owner Ana looked at me with no conversation or got up to address anything. They still use my gift card with no conversation about what I just went through so I just left I honestly wish I could eat there because I really enjoy the grits they make them like my Grandma used to in Georgia, but I can't go because it's such horrible service. This is my 4th visit this year, last time before this i recommended it to my colleagues an had an embarrassing service with our under the influence server and now this where the owner had no empathy but still charged me, she cared to charge me but not to address the service. I was forced to Not finish my breakfast, but was still charged for it. At least get up an introduce yourself an render the problem she just didnt care to acknowledge it. If your gonna address this again please reframe Ana from handling this again that clearly doesnt help. I get there isnt much you can do so i guess visting here will have to be taken with a grain of salt but before you reply back understand you have (14) one star reviews this YEAR on you're service experience and 4...