Cafe Nola — Restaurant in Santa Rosa Island

Generally this has been one of our favorite places on the island, however...

I don't know if it was because it was a rainy Tuesday night or what, but the food and service was down a notch or two.

Instead of my usual choice of deep-fried something, which is consistently good, I went for the New Orleans-style BBQ shrimp, in addition to a dozen raw oysters as an appetizer.

Oddly, the entrees came out first and the waitress seemed flummoxed by the concept. Her excuse that the "chef" was also the shucker didn't make much sense because you'd think if that's the case he/she would know what order the food was going out. Her suggestion that she'd take the food back to the kitchen to languish under the heat lamps while we continued to wait for the appetizer defies reason if you're in the business of serving fresh, quality food.

So, she left the food at the table. The deep-fried basket was a good as usual, however the BBQ shrimp were over-cooked, the heads mushy, the rest of it chewy. Too bad, because the sauce and seasoning was spot on.

She did finally bring the oysters but didn't bother to hang around to ask how the food was and we had to ask at the bar for crackers because we couldn't get her attention in the nearly empty dining room. Furthermore, the majority of the oysters and their liquid were milky looking and had a suspect texture.

Once again we had to flag down the waitress in the uncrowded dining room because no one was checking on us. Too bad there too, another beer might have been nice to fill up on since the aforementioned shrimp and oysters were inedible.

The owner (I guess that's who he was. He didn't identify himself.) just came to the table with partial refunds in hand, which I guess means he's accustomed to refunding disgruntled patrons. Unfortunately, instead of serving this to a one-off tourist, they did it to a local.

I'm sure we will go back at some point, especially if everybody else is full up, if nothing else to see if they can still run...

Summary: Food is good. Wait was extremely long. Business operations could use some improvement. Deserves more than a 1 Star rating but I would like to see owner acknowledgment of the review before bumping up the rating.

Pros: Food was excellent. Staff is extremely nice. Great location.

Cons: Need to improve how staff handles dinner rush. Took me 1.5 hours to put my order in.

My experience: Came at 6PM on a Saturday. Line was long. And moving slow. People in line assured me the food was worth the wait. There are two registers but only one was being used. Looks like one register was for dine in orders. The other was for call in orders. Wait was long since there was only one register and people still didn’t know what they wanted once they got to the register. It took me 1.5 hours to put my order in. Once I put my order in, food came out relatively quickly. About 20 mins.

The food was excellent. It was indeed well worth the wait. A full sized Po boy was truly authentic sized Po boy. Well over 1’ in length made in beautifully thick French baguette.

The jambalaya was delicious. Dark and savory. Andouille was made the dish. Few restaurants make jambalaya well. Cafe Nola knocked it out of the park.

I was too hungry to take photos of the food

Opportunities for Improvement: Use both registers for dine in.

Have a staff member walk up and down the line handing out menus.

Have a staff member write up tickets in line for them to hand to the register when they get there to improve process.

I hope your staff is paid a decent hourly wage and do not depend on tips. There are huge operational deficiencies. I saw 6 people ahead of me put in orders over $200 and tipped $0 because they waited so long in line. It was not a fault of the employees.

Excellent food. Just needs to...

This place is amazing. I moved away from home seven years ago, and somewhere in that time, this place opened out on the beach. Coming and going and visiting, I believe I've been here about five times now. And it's absolutely wonderful. Growing up in Pensacola, New Orleans was always a place to vacation to for some fun times.

So, being there dozens of times over my adolescence, you get an affinity for the food, and you crave it, like all the time. But then, you go to restaurants that offer this Cajun/Creole food, and it's disappointing. Their gumbo is just in a tomato broth, the po'boys are on some crusty loaf, their beignets are dense and hard to chew. Some of y'all know what I mean.

But the Cafe Nola has offered me the best New Orleans cuisine I have had east of New Orleans itself, and west of Orlando, the current city I live in. But that's another story.

I've lost track of all the different food items I've had here. But I will say that the po'boys are out of this world. I had a soft shelled crab po'boy this most recent time, a few months ago. And the bread, that's what makes it special. It's so soft and crumbly and yet so strong to hold up and not disintegrate against the moisture of the ingredients it contains.

The toppings are simple, the lettuce, the tomato, the remoulade, letting the main meat of the sandwich sing. In my case this time, the crab was fried very thoroughly, and nothing was hard to chew through. Just good crispy crab and the delicious meat within. Very very good.

There are certainly other things, like the "Debris" Fries and the Geaux Geaux Shrimp, the Gumbo. I've had a lot, but not enough. Will continue to eat my way through this menu for the...