Sam's Southern Eatery Waco TX — Restaurant in Waco

We’ve been here before, but it’s been a while & we were super hungry and ready for some fried goodness. The service was amazing and as we ordered, we were advised we were ordering alot, but we were prepared to have extra to enjoy later. We were taken by surprise, we had forgotten the portions were HUGE. The food was served piping hot with a smile and we were so ready to dig in. We enjoyed the food- fried oysters (they were huge), fried fish, fried shrimp, beans & rice, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, salad, shrimp po-boy, fried pickles, cheddar poppers, green beans, hushpups and fries (I told you we ordered alot!). Needless to say we took several containers home. I think the only thing more we could have wanted was to have a southern sweet tea with the food but we had water due to our day in the sun prior to eating. We’ll look for tea next time. as hot as the food was when served, you’d be totally fine ordering to go because it would most likely still be hot when got home to eat. So good. ALSO- the appetizer portion was so big and so good that we ate so much of that, and...

UPDATE: The employee and owner have reached out to us and resolved the situation. We were impressed with how far they went to make it up to us, they seem like kind people who made an honest mistake. I've updated the review to reflect that experience.

Wouldn't allow our service dog. He is well behaved and properly marked, we've had no issues anywhere else in town, including the Zoo for crying out loud. We told them it was illegal to make us leave and the employee said 'well that's what I told my boss but...' - we didn't want to argue so we just left and filed a complaint with the ADA instead.

I understand that a badly behaved dog would be an issue for everyone - that's why you're allowed to kick out a misbehaving dog, service dog or not. But it hurts when you toss us out when we are following the law. I would really, really love not to be disabled or have to drag a dog around with me everywhere I go, and getting treated badly for it is just icing on the cake .

Thanks guys. We'll take our...

New review May 2023 - So today I tried this place again after a few years. Sams owns it again. The food is mostly back to how it was before the failure of Shauun. The prices are higher but the food is mostly worth it. They definitely have some things to work on but compared to before it is 100x better.

Old review- This use to be a 5 star review but after my last 2 visits it will not change. The place is no longer a Sam's. The food portions are half of what was previous and the prices have increased. There is no longer a friendly atmosphere. I call in from out of town for a larger order but now I cannot do so as per their staff. I was highly disappointed after spending north of $60 for portions that before the ownership change would have cost easily $10 less. I really loved this place but as with all good restaurants "This too shall end".

Good luck and thanks for ruining a Waco...