RAINES IN WILLIAMSTON — Restaurant in Williamston

Visited Saturday May 15th between 12 and 1pm

Place looks alright coming in, a little too open for my taste but who really cares. Was sat by hostess quickly and waitress was polite and friendly. No qualms there.

Down to food now, which was not good. Seems there are a couple guys in the back working overtime, Chef Mike and his brother Chef Mike. That's right, the whole time we are there we can see them microwaving food. You want to see just pay attention to the Raines logo over the kitchen, they are behind that. Also listen for the beeps and dings lol. Honestly it was like watching a episode of kitchen nightmares.

We were told the Mac and cheese wasn't ready yet when we came in. Well it was ready after all, super duper hot 🔥 and texture like it was microwaved. The broccoli, also microwaved. How about the tortilla for my wife's wrap? Nope not toasted on the grill, not steamed in a steamer, microwaved. The the two fresh things were my burger and cheese fries.

The cheese fries were close to great but not fried long enough or the oil wasn't hot enough. Either way they were soggy and wrong texture. They did give a lovely amount of cheese and bacon so that was nice. Like I said, almost.

Burger was a surprise, actually one of the best around so at least they got that going for them.

Slaw sucked, maybe personal preference here but wife took one bite and tossed it.

One last thing, male bathroom was horrible. How does a place this new look this bad? Holes in the wall patched up, dirty walls, stuff all over the floor, and the trash can was tilted forward missing the internal waste bin and bag. People were just tossing napkins in the empty hole. ???

All in all, I don't have high hopes for this place. Throw out the microwaves, get the staff to clean and take care of the bathrooms, and maybe.

One last thing, cooks need to calm down with the stupid bell. I felt bad for the waitress staff the cooks hitting the bell over and over again to make the wait staff hurt...

We moved to the Belton area last year, and Raine's was one of the first restaurants we tried. I got the Raine's Burger with sweet potato fries. My dad got the same thing, my mom got the salmon filet, and we got mushrooms to share; The food was satisfactory. Unfortunately, with each time we got Raine's, the food slowly got worse. Recently, we had an experience that made us decide not to order this food anymore; the mushrooms were 99% water and salt, and everything else was painfully over-salted, to the point where nothing could be tasted, and the salt burned our mouths. The whole meal was like "would you like some food with your salt?" None of my family liked our meal, and we didn't even eat it all (except for the sweet potato fries, which were still pretty decent). The whole thing could've been a fluke, but the steady decline in quality, followed by the above experience, has deterred us from ordering...

From a business standpoint, I applaud Raines for their simplistic restaurant presentation. The first 5 years of a new restaurant are incredibly tough financially. What makes them stand out, is basically their bar. This is like a meat & three and a burger joint mixed into one. There is a little bit of everything here. You could sense the pride of this new addition in the staff as they greeted us and explained the menu to us. Our table ordered salmon, pork chop, and a burger. They were okay. Nothing stood out to me at all. There was no WOW moment for me. The sweet tea was so diluted. I am happy to see new business coming to the Williamston area. But I'd like to see DIVERSITY and something UNIQUE other than a sit down bar. ( Which I know is probably a large portion of their income) Raines, as of now, I do not see myself coming again. Let me know when you've...