Sams Southern Eatery

Sam's Southern Eatery is a great choice if you are in the mood for seafood or chicken in a simple, relaxed atmosphere. The restaurant itself was quite clean (including the restroom). Seating was comfortable and the tables were spacious. You ordered from the posted menu and then took a seat. The menu offered a fairly broad variety of food including burgers and sandwiches, chicken, fish, and seafood. Traditional Cajun entrees like po' boys, etoffee, and gumbo were available, as well as several types of cobbler for desert. Our food was top notch, and it was served with very little wait time. My large gumbo was just that...large, and very good. Gumbo prepared in the South is typically pretty tasty, but this was certainly above par. It came with some fried bread which I had never had before, but I definitely will look for it now. We also had catfish fillets, fried shrimp and fried oysters... all of which were seasoned and prepared nicely. Chicken wings rounded out the meal and they too were quite good. The side dishes warrant remarks of their own. Cole slaw and French fries were very good, but the star was the red beans and rice. Hands-down the best I have ever eaten... sadly, even better than mine. Staff were friendly and service was prompt. Prices were a bit on the high end, but certainly not unreasonable given the quality of the food. The menu was set up nicely so you could mix up your choices a bit... 3 or 6 of this, 2 or 4 of that, etc. Lots of potential options from which to choose. This definitely was a very good meal, and worth the effort to do again some day. There are apparently 51 locations of SSE in the U.S. (mainly in the central and southern states it appears), so if you happen upon one... go inside and enjoy a great southern meal.

Unfortunately Sam's is not what it used to be. My husband had the fish po'boy which was very skimpy for the price. I had the philly and again it was a small quantity of food. We shared the fried green tomatoes but their ranch dressing tasted more like mayonnaise than anything else. They forgot to give me my red beans and rice. When I brought it to their attention I was given my side. The red beans and rice with a little added salt were the tastiest part of my meal. Our bill was over $34. Never again

First off, I HATE giving negative reviews and understand that it is really difficult in food service right now. So........last Friday we ordered take-out from Sam's, we had 4 total orders at around $45. In those orders, we had about 10 catfish filets along with shrimp, fries, etc. This fish is good and overall we were happy with the food. When we picked up our order, they offered us some sauces. From past experience, we asked for two sauce containers per order but the guy at the counter said "we can't do that", and proceeded to give us one extra sauce. These sauces can't be much more than 1 or 2 tablespoons as they don't even fill up a jello-shot plastic cup halfway (see pic). The whole thing was kind of laughable but we were a little shook when he dug his heels in. I get it if we had one small order and were trying to stock our refrigerator with their sauce but c'mon guys. Don't nickel & dime repeat customers over $.05 worth of sauce. That's weak sauce!

I ordered the Crab Cakes, they were amazing and were the best I've ever had! I also got the French fries which were great but what makes this score a 4/5 is the macaroni and cheese. It was just Kraft, and I was very disappointed by that because I'm always excited to see different homemade versions of macaroni and cheese. Overall,a great place and the mozzarella sticks were good too, just needs a homemade Mac and Cheese for me to love them more.