Copeland's of New Orleans — Restaurant in Vinings

Oh yes. Let’s talk Good Eats!!?

This was my first time being at Copeland’s and it wasn’t a Sunday. It’s no secret that their Sunday Brunch is Anazing, however, last night I was able to experience the traditional restaurant side of things.

Walking in, the restaurant was vibrant and super clean. The hostess was attentive as soon as I entered the doors and greeted me with a huge smile. As my party was already seated, she asked if I was meeting someone and escorted me to the booth. Extra shout out to her for being able to read the room, that’s superior service.

Taking a moment to scroll the menu. Aerial arrived at the table to take our drink orders. From the moment she arrived at the table Aerial displayed customer focused service. She greeted us, asked if it was our first time, took her time to answer my questions about different dishes, and created an overall promoter worthy experience.

As I was hungry, I wanted everything on the menu. LoL! Nonetheless, I decided on

Appetizer: Small Caesar Salad, add Blackened Chicken. Fresh chilled romaine, Caesar dressing, parmesan cheese, frico, homemade croutons.

Main Dish: Blackened Bayou Chicken Fresh blackened chicken breast served over cornbread dressing with a rich crawfish Tasso (spiced pork) cream sauce.

Dessert: Al's Favorite Homemade Creole Style Cheesecake Southern style, lighter, whipped cheesecake with a buttery pecan crust

Ok. Babeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Let’s get into it. The salad was Super Fresh. The lettuce was crispy and the croutons were buttery and well seasoned. The chicken was perfectly blackened like me and had a perfect blackened to natural meat flavor profile. The Balsamic Vinaigrette was thick and BOMB!!!! The rich flavor heightened the already amazing salad and added a slight bing of tang that you didn’t know you wanted until you had it. Yep. This was a mouth pleasing dish.

The Bayou Chicken was a magic show of good, gooder, and goodest. The blackened chicken was good as I learned from the salad. The flavor of the chicken was spot on and melted well under the cream sauce that steals the show by accident. The cornbread dressing was gooder (yes I said gooder) than one would expect. I have no idea who’s recipe this is, but babeeeeeeeeee, my aunt needs to adopt this to add some pizzazz to Thanksgiving. This dressing was tongue shocking good. And then….. just as you were taken by the chicken, the the dressing, I made the mistake of putting them both on my fork at once and sliding it through the cream sauce and babeeeeeeeeeeeeee. The diabolical attack of the GOODEST Flavors invaded my mouth, headed to my kind, and then infiltrated my soul! Whew! This dish is a winner.

Needing a sugar to balance my salt, I ordered the “Al's Favorite Homemade Creole Style Cheesecake” for dessert. Babeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! I have no idea who Al is but Al sure knows how to pick a piece of cake heaven. From the light cheesecake blend which meets the flavor measure of an organically hood cheesecake without the heaviness, then the audacity of the baker to add a Butter Pecan Crust!!!!!!! Pardon Me!!!!! How dare they create food miracles and not add a warning label that says, “this slice isn’t for the weak, hold on tight as you may experience full body sensations of happiness!” When I say this slice is the Bizkneesssssssssss. I mean exactly that. This slice isn’t meant to be shared, nor is it meant to be ignored. LoL.

The cheesecake isn’t too sweet. It’s rich and creamy. The crust is buttery, crunchy yet soft and best of all, has hints of honey. Lemme get the crust by itself as a dozen cookies to go. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Overall, my experience at Copelands has me already planning my next visit. I tip my hat to the cook, and bid a job well...

Let's start with the wait, me and a friend called ahead to see what the wait time was like for a table of two (there was no wait for a table of two) we were told the wait was three minutes but we waited over 15 minutes.

When finally got seated the server didn't greet us at all (no name, no hello, no how you doing; just nothing)he just asked was we ready to order and if we knew what we wanted to drink. We specifically requested extra ice in all our drinks just to get them with dang near no ice. We put our order in for the food and it's like he just disappeared on us for a while (I mean just didn't check up on us, didn't tell us they working on our order, no request for refills on drinks, didn't even bring the lemons or extra napkins requested at beginning of service) honestly just not great service.

Now, let's talk about the food!

The food could have been wayyyyyyyy better and everything tasted like the make it out a box or buy it pre-cooked and the cooks just warming it up.

I had the buffalo spring rolls, small shrimp Cesar salad, crawfish etouffee with shrimp, Mac and cheese and a turtle cheesecake.

My friend ordered the rockafella oysters, small shrimp Cesar salad, and the blackened catfish with cornbread dressing.

The buffalo spring rolls and the rockafella oysters they was Busting with a big B and Slapping with a capital S.

The Mac and cheese was dry, tasted like box Mac and cheese and you can tell it has been sitting in whatever warming process they use to keep the food hot for quite some time. Overall, I had them take my Mac and cheese off; didn't even get paid for. Just a big no no for me.

The shrimp Cesar salads was kinda soggy like it set and waited to be picked up for quite sometime and I don't know why but the shrimp came on the side instead of on the salad and they were the petite shrimp. (I always thought when you requested sometime to be added to your order it will come on it not on the side; not really to mad or upset about it. The server should have just specified we put our shrimp on the side or something. Maybeeeee, I'm being to picky but I don't know just leaving a review of my experience.)

The main dishes, ummmmmm okay okay okay. First of all, the rice tasted like success rice yes you read that right success rice in the yellow box the five minute rice. The gravy tasted like jar gravy and they just added some onions and green bell peppers for some flavor and just slapped the crawfish in there. And again shrimp came on the side not added to the dish. Just a no no no no no for me.

The blackened catfish with the cornbread dressing was the same. Now, her cornbread dressing was straight just needed some gravy or something. ( The cornbread dressing was moist and good just dry). Again rice that came with it was flavorfully just that dang success rice in the yellow box. The fish tasted like the bottom of the ocean. Not sure if the didn't cook it long enough, seasoned well enough or something basically that didn't get paid for as well and she had to order something else to eat off the menu.

Even she when ordered something else it took an hour to come out but overall she was happy with the reorder but didn't get to eat it at the restaurant due to the time it took for it to come, so she just packed it up and took it home.

Lastly, the turtle cheesecake also tasted box or store bought. Smh I requested just caramel and whipped cream. Basically, had to wait for a remake on that as well. But overall it was okay I guess.

Overall, the whole experience could have been better. We arrived at 5:30ish didn't leave until about 8:45ish 9pm. All imma say and I hope this review helps somebody but it will be a while before I go back that if I ever go...

The greeters/ladies that sat me and my daughter were amazing and that's about where the best of our experience here ended. We were seated sooner than I expected but actually I wasn't surprised because the place wasn't too crowded after that things kind of went downhill. I already knew what we wanted to order, appetizers, entree, and dessert so I told the waiter and he asked if we wanted it all at once and I told him no it was just a little closer to closing so I wanted to be less of a burden, needless to say although he asked and I answered everything (but the dessert thankfully) came at one time. It didn't take me long to find out my waiter was more concerned with flirting than providing service which was sad to watch, he's name is plastered in my head due to the excessive amount of times he kept telling all the female patrons how he was there for anything they needed I guess besides bringing them their food the way they ordered it. I observed this each time he just dropped off the plates and walked off. I don't want to blast this guy because it's going to be a new year and hopefully a message may be relayed that restaurants aren't places we go to flirt and although it may be all for fun, less is more. This was my first time here and because of the rush in service I can kind of relate to the previous Golden Corral comment and think my daughter may have enjoyed it there more, the tables were even a little messy as we were seated. We ordered oysters, they were great! Buffalo Spring rolls, better than I thought they'd be and would definitely recommend, our entree was a failure The New Orleans Sampler, while the flavor was there it looked more like a plate you'd get at a food tasting. I'm used to small sized crawfish I was ok with that, I watched upset and jealous as my waiter continuously walked by me serving real servings of blackened catfish to patrons around me, I don't know what was on my plate, I don't even think it was catfish and while it was seasoned it was hardly blackened only on one corner one side and not pretty like others around me and yeah I couldn't say anything because my waiter was to busy failing at getting his flirt on elsewhere. Then lastly they should be embarrassed at the size of the shrimp they serve on the etouffee, I've had bigger at Popeyes. I don't even know why a restaurant like this would even purchase shrimp the size they served me and my daughter, I've NEVER had an entree, side dish or not with shrimp the size of this emoji 🍤 and I'm almost not exaggerating. We had bananas foster for dessert, so if you can't tell when I take my little one out to eat it's for an experience, to try different things, we got that and again our waiter walked off so fast I couldn't ask for a box to clear the table for some comfort. The one time he did ask if there was anything we needed I asked if we could get the sauce for our spring rolls to go because we just had a box, he said sure but we never got that. So to summarize the greeters should get a raise, there should be a little more attention to detail, tell the waiters a nice smile and less talking will get all the ladies they want, and stop being cheap with your shrimp, treat each plate equally, I was really looking forward all day...