Shrimp Basket — Restaurant in Tuscaloosa

This restaurant WAS one of our favorite places to eat at when visiting Tuscaloosa each year. However, after last night, we will NEVER return to this location. We asked to sit outside which ended up being a huge mistake. A guest who was sitting at a table by the door decided to start smoking. Their smoke was blowing in our direction due to the wind & fan. I mentioned it to staff & their response was, “He’s getting ready to leave.” I tried to explain that I have mild asthma & I can’t be around the smoke. I questioned the smoking policy because there aren’t any ash trays outside for smokers, no designated smoking area, we weren’t asked if we wanted smoking/non smoking, told outside was smoking, no signage stating it’s a smoking facility, etc. Instead this mans waitress chuckled & walked off, even after I said that I didn’t want to have an asthma attack. Our waitress said she’d get a manager but he didn’t come out. When we were leaving, the manager came out to ask us how everything was. Please keep in mind that I was still coughing intermittently due to the earlier smoke irritating my airway. He also seemed to think it was funny, even when I said that I hoped to stop coughing soon. He just thanked me for being the bigger person & not saying anything to the man who made it a point to light up multiple times. Heck, once we complained about the smoke, said we’d go inside, was told no since the smoker was leaving, even the hostess decided to be rude. She walked outside, made eye contact with us, when I smiled, she just looked at us with a nasty look, no smile, just an eye roll. When the hostess earlier couldn’t get the spelling of our last name right even with us spelling it, she laughed. I guess everything in that restaurant is laughable at the guests expense & health. I had to show the manager the AL law regarding smoking policies when he said he’d have to look into their smoking policies. There was never an apology or anything. I explained to him that we’ll simply never sit outside again & told him that if it were a smoking facility/area that we wouldn’t have been out there to start with. I’ve never seen any employee/employees have as much disrespect & disregard toward a customer than what they did. I’ll be calling the Department of Health to see if they’re a designated smoking facility & if not, I’m filing a formal complaint. Heck, even our service was slow as molasses. People who were seated after us were greeted before us, had food before us, & out the door before us. Other servers did ask if anyone had helped us. I did say that our server popped her head out & said she’d be with us in a few minutes. Overall, just not a good experience. We should’ve walked out once I started coughing earlier from...

I originally gave Shrimp Basket a 5 star rating but sadly I felt the need to change this to a 4 star. The reason for this change isn't due to one incident that had to do with a server or one mistake but what appears to be a company change. Every year when they offer the buy one get one free 25 dollar gift cards we buy 15 cards and we get 15 free. We would give them as gifts and use them periodically through the year. This year the bonus cards have an expiration date in May of this year which only gives you a few months to use them. I'm sure they are hoping that they will just go unused and therefore not have to give you that one for "free".

The other issue I have is with the portion sizes of food that is served. Typically we would use the cards on the nights they offer the all you can eat specials. Saturday night we decided to place a to go order and my wife got the combo which allows you to select two items from the grilled or blackened list and she got chicken and shrimp. When we got it home there was only was given 4 very small chicken strips and 5 shrimp that were rather small shrimp as well. They were cooked and tasted well but my wife who doesn't eat a lot was very disappointed in the amount/size of the portions. Four chicken strips are fine but when they are the size of a ladies thumb approximately then it is not fine.

The other issue that I have been ignoring for sometime is the all you can eat specials. I do like the fact that it is not off a bar but cooked fresh when you order. What I don't like is that if you order say the fish they bring small portions out and the last time I ordered this I would tell them as they brought me a small plate to go ahead and order another but I would still go 10 to 15 minutes in between finishing my current plate and getting a new one. They also started bringing smaller and smaller plates to the point that I was done within 2-3 minutes of them bringing the food.

Now I'm not sure if they were so busy the cooks couldn't keep up and they had to give smaller portions so people wouldn't have to wait but all that did was move the waiting time to the back end as you finished sooner and then had to wait. Maybe they do it in hopes you will tired of running your server to death or feel self conscious about it and not order as much. I honestly have no idea but regardless the reason it was very...

Honestly, this place isn’t great. I ate here a couple of days ago with my dad and had a pretty iffy experience. I definitely won’t be back here again because of it.

Our server was fantastic though (I can’t remember her name, but she was absolutely wonderful)! She was very attentive, hardworking, and made sure we were satisfied with our meals. The other servers who were working that day were either not working diligently or were on a break because there were three other servers talking at a table in the back for about an hour while this girl was running around making sure all her tables were satisfied. She did a fantastic job at handling the situation though.

She was really the best part about this restaurant because everything basically goes downhill from there.

Negatives: -The bathrooms are DISGUSTING -Silverware was dirty (asked for a new fork) -Out of several items or were told they were not good and to not order them -Portions are pretty small for the price -OVERPRICED FOOD -Fries were droopy (not very crispy)

Positives -The combo basket with whitefish and shrimp was good (waitress recommended), but the portion was small. -The homemade ranch and hot sauce was really good on the fish.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this place and won’t be back. There are better seafood places in Tuscaloosa. You’re better off going to the Captain D’s next...