bayou bar & grill

good, not great. i like this place... thefoodis good but not the best. i like the patio area and the mardi gras beads hanging from the ceiling on the inside. the service is slow which is a major turn off. overall, a pretty good place if you are looking for a chill night with a few friends.

next!. bayou was once the best cajun place to go in the city. i don't know if they have new ownership, but thefoodis bland and has no umph! the fish tastes like fish...which is an indication of the lack of freshness. i have given them multiple chances to redeem themselves...on the next place. they have failed!!

typical bar atmosphere with above average bar food. ourfoodwas delicious and our server couldn’t have been more attentive. looking forward to our next visit.

mixed reviews. i am represeting in this review a small group of people who go to a different restaurant each month for the purpose of expanding their culinary palates. this month we chose creole. thefoodis excellent. 11 of us showed and each had different items. we all highly suggest the crab stuffed shrimp app. the jambalya and jacuzzi dishes are great. the only main complaint was the creole catfish which was a sizeable fillet but smothered in some sort of a thick hot sauce. my friend was unable to eat most of it, but did not complain. in general, everyone loved the meal but some expressed it wasn't as good as creole one can find downtown. now for the really bad part of the review. most of us got there at 6pm on a sat. when it wasn't busy but didn't get out of there until 9pm. why? our waitress was highly disorganized and rude to the table as a whole. many of the group felt she was slighting or dismissing them repeatedly. when it takes three requests just to get a beer and then the checks, there's something wrong. the manager apologized. personally thefoodwas loved by most but all hated the service. from personal experience, i could handle three tables of at least 11 ppl each in two different rooms by using a little bit of patience and organization. i won't name the waitress because for the most part is has to be the fault of management's training of their wait staff. goodfoodbut i guess they're more worried about being a sports bar than a restaurant.

atmosphere. this place had a great atmosphere and it was easy to relax and enjoy spending time with friends here.

pros:
1)foodwas good (i had red beans and rice w/sausage) and the crab stuffed shrimp. flavors were decent, but no real stand out qualities
2) beer was ice cold (important as tonight was a warm night)

cons:
1) service: assigned waitress was not very good, she was unable to handle two groups without attitude.- we brought this up to the manager, and he addressed the issues we had and was able to compensate us for her lack of professionalism.

so to conclude: it is decent place with goodfoodand is a great place when you are looking for a relaxed atmosphere to enjoy a meal and drinks with friends. so this will be a place i visit again and i will try other things on menu!

disappointing experience tonight. they were short staffed and we had to wait forever for service. thefoodwas ok but we were tired of waiting by the time we got it. then the checks were screwed up. we just paid and left. won't be going back.

only been here once, but thefoodwe had wasn't really that great. might try it one more time to see how the pasta dish everyone recommends moves me. great place to take in games, though.

thefoodis decent but not worth waiting (unattendedly) for 40 minutes to be seat and/or assisted. when addressing the manager in a request to know when we'd be seated, we were literally told "there are plenty other restaurants around here you can go to...". thankfully, our waitress had more manners than management and took care of us fairly well.

we started with the gumbo. it was pretty salty. okay, it was really salty. but other than that, it was okay. christopher likes hisfoodreally salty so he actually really enjoyed this! the red beans and rice were up next! this is normally a favorite of mine, so i was pretty disappointed. it was over salted and the beans seemed mushy (over cooked).i was most looking forward to my shrimp po’boy...

really good.... my husband and i dined here tonight and i was pleasantly surprised with how great thefoodand atmosphere was. we had a very sweet server, can't remember her name, but she was timely and got our orders correct. the drinks were very strong, which is a good thing, and i was happy about that. as far as food, here's what we ordered:

i got the seafood dip, which was a little thick for my tastes, but good. i also got a cup of crawfish and shrimp bisque, which was delicious, my only complaint being it was a tad too salty. the winner of my meal was the seafood fettucine acadian. absolutely delicious! it was a little spicy, but nothing too bad. i loved it!
hubby got the fried pickles, which he loved. he also ordered a crab cake po' boy and he raved about it! he said the crab cakes were soft and buttery, and very well seasoned. this is a huge compliment from him because he loves a well prepared po' boy but he can be picky about them.

overall, i was pleasantly surprised with this place and will definitely be going back.

wasted 32 dollars. we called in a carry out order for the first time. the people were nice. no problems with the service. they had it ready fast and they were busy. but thefoodwas gross barfoodthat only a very intoxicated person would like. the sausage that was in the red beans and rice was the consistancy of canned dogfood. it tasted terrible. way to mushy and greasy. the whole dish was bland. the beans were so mushy and even the rice was mushy. like it had been heated, refrigerated and reheated several times over several days. just one bite and the inside of your mouth is covered in a layer of grease as if you tried to chew up a big mouthful of crisco shortening or maybe butter it took a while to wash the horrible greasy taste from our mouths. the bread was hard and tasted like it had been at the bottom of the container and was cut and wrapped with plastic several days ago. we ordered a piece of chocolate pecan pie. we could tell by the way it looked, old, separated, like it had been sitting. it tasted like they opened up a pie last week when someone ordered a piece and put it in the refrigerator uncovered right next to all the salad dressings and grated cheese containers and all week long it has been absorbing all the refrigerator odors and moistures from these different containers and now they finally got an order for one and they pull this pie and cut a piece of it. thats what it tasted like. not saying thats exactly how they operate. but thefoodwas disgusting and ruined our night. we threw it out and just really felt like we wasted our money. ive enjoyed sitting on the deck for drinks and sandwiches here over the years and would maybe go back for that but will never call them for take outfoodagain.

greatfoodmakes up for ambiance. our family of 4 dined for the first time on 4/20/2013 for lunch. thefoodquality and portions were excellent. the oysters were fresh and were served with a side of ketchup topped with fresh horseradish. for some reason i found this especially appealing over the standard bulk mixed/bottled variety of cocktail sauce. the jambalaya and chicken/shrimp pasta were loaded with meat and vegitables where many places fill the dish with the starch and then just top it with the good stuff. the staff could do a better job cleaning the place up though. windows and sills were peppered with debris. whle the menu has a new orleans flair the ambiance is in line with a standard burger joint.

usually like thefoodfor the most part but..got the catfish po-boy (hard to mess up) the fish was old. no chance anything else went wrong, just old fish. i grew up in south ms and have eaten catfish at least three times a month since before i know. tried a bunch of lemon, just no.

my wife and lived in new orleans nearly all our lives, so cajunfoodwas a staple. shrimp and grits, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, raw oysters, gumbo, red beans and rice and po-boys were regulars at the dinner table. bayou bar & grill has all of those, but sampling most of those menu items on a recent visit proved to be a very different experience than what i grew up with. the closest to authentic would be the red beans and rice. all the others miss by a pretty good margin. the duck in the gumbo tasted gamey, the seafood gumbo was thick like there was too much undercooked flour and the shrimp and grits had loads of cheese mixed into them (cajun shrimp and grits are really simple - grits, butter, sautéed shrimp). the jambalaya had sauce mixed with rice - just kind of weird. surprisingly, even though the dishes were not traditional cajun, the flavored were still pretty good, and our order of raw oysters were fresh and shucked to order. also, our waitress was extremely friendly and pleasant. those qualities really redeemed the restaurant and made it place i wouldn't mind going back to as long as i wasn't really craving real cajun dining.

waitstaff picks the size of the tip. just had lunch at bayou on madison, 5 of us. at the end of our meal we received our checks complete with the 20% gratuity already added! really bayou?? never saw that stated on the menu. never had a gratuity calculated after sales tax is added, and most places who charge automatically on a table of 6 or maybe their automatic is 8 people (i have never seen 5) still only charge 18%!! our waitress also forgot one of our salads, one of our sandwiches, and a beverage order.....should we really have been charged 20%? oh yeah, one of the tips was $9 and when we questioned how that calculated she said "i rounded up but if you really want your forty cents change, i'll get it for you". last time we go there for a long time even though thefoodis good.