Alligator Cafe
| Address: | 9540 Garland Rd, Dallas, TX 75218, USA |
| Phone: | +1 214-821-6900 |
| Site: | eatgator.com |
| Rating: | 4 |
| Working: | Closed 11AM–9PM 11AM–9PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–9PM |
Location
Photos 100
Reviews 5
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Sherissa Goodson
Me, my fiance, and my 3 year old daughter just went to The Alligator Cafe. Ive been wanting to try this place for the longest and it was on my list of must trys. We walked in, were sat, and my daughter was coloring. We sat, looked at the menu, talked about what we wanted to eat, picked out the drinks that we wanted. Of course this being a new place, I was very observant. There were 3 servers. Not one came to our table. We noticed one of the servers was pregnant, so I let my fiance know that we should make sure that we give her a good tip (since she served the person at the table next to us, we assumed she would be our server too). Well it turns out that we had no server b/c all of the servers walked by our table, glanced at us, and kept going. My fiance wanted to say something, but I told him to wait. I was sitting with my back against the wall so I could see the entire restaurant. I watched all of the servers make their rounds to the patio and inside. I sat and watched them make their rounds 3 times. The people at the table next to us were checked on several times and this server insisted on making sure that these people were good... You would think they would of acknowledged us then. Why would you not serve a family? We were also the only African Americans in there. Again, I waited to see if maybe any one of them have any decency to show some kindness... No one did. I finally went to the bar discretely and asked for the manager as I did not want to disturb anyone elses dinner. The guy at the bar was the bar manager but was the only one on duty today. I informed him of how the staff ignored us and even glanced our way and didnt even come say anything. The guy who sat us even spoke to other tables and didnt say a word to us. This is a small restaurant so you are easily able to notice everyone that is in there. The bar manager apologized a bunch and offered to discount our check if we stayed, but I declined only b/c the staff. He offered to take care of us, but I didnt want to stay any where that we werent wanted. He tried and was sooo nice BUT I will never come back to that place and will def warn others.
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Ramon Bennett
We really wanted to start choosing restaurants that werent the normal big box chains on the corner. So we read all the reviews and headed to Alligator Cafe. It was a Thursday night so we thought okay it wouldnt be crowded. Boy were we right...we were the only people there for most of our meal/experience except for 2 women who came in (they had no consideration for anyone and were so loud even the staff was annoyed). The dining room is very small and dark with a temporary hose A/C blowing. It was hot in there. We arrived the staff was all sitting around and talking. We were seated and given a menu. All the items sounded great! We had the Coconut Shrimp as an appetizer and honestly for $11.99 I would have expected them to really be jumbo, but they werent. They had little to no coconut left on them after frying and well they were average. I had the Pasta Orleans and it was very good. The flavor was great and had tons of crawfish....but the problem was the sauce was to plentiful. I was chasing everything around in a soup basically. : ( My husband chose the Bourbon Street Pasta. He thought it was very good as well. His dish had less sauce and he was pleased with the flavor and excellent spices on the blackened chicken. Finally since we arent really dessert eaters, we had an order of the hush puppies as dessert. We loved them too, really they should include a few of these with each meal or upsell them, because they are a great little add on. Finally, the biggest complaint we had is that there were flies everywhere. Yes they have a porch, but with it as hot as it is outside, no one was using it ... we were constantly batting the flies away. YUCK!
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A Private User
Dont worry, there arent really any alligators here and the crackheads are mostly docile during the daytime hours. This part of Live Oak is safe enough to visit during store hours... just be sure to adjourn to a new venue after dinner rather than chatting in the parking lot after closing. Those too timid to dine in this part of town are missing some really good restaurants but in this case, theyre missing the only good Cajun food Ive found in the state. Dont get me wrong... I love Nates crawfish and theres nothing wrong with going to Shuck & Jive or Razzoos just to get drunk... but most places give you tomato soup and call it creole, manage to leave out the okra in gumbo, and try to sell something they make without a roux as "etouffe." The etouffee at Alligator is the warm thick goodness that youll find yourself adding to your list of comfort foods. If youve only had the dish elsewhere in Dallas, try it again here and find out how it should be made. In the same way, itd be worth it for you to order the bread pudding even if youve never liked bread pudding before. Sometimes someone can prepare a dish so well that even people who would otherwise hate it find themselves making exceptions. If they arent sold out (and they usually are) fresh root bear is made on site too and if they are out be sure to check the bottled sodas behind the counter before deciding to go with their excellent iced tea. My only complaints are that you can only buy crawfish by the pound here on special occasions and the location is such that we cant demand that the small overworked staff keep extended hours.
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Jess Herb
Well let me tell you, I have never had something this delightfully disgusting in a long time. Sometimes one needs to go through a complete torture of the palette to truly appreciate good flavors. Unfortunately I traveled out of my normal work lunch area to try this place, and boy did I regret it. Being an absolute zealot of seafood I am surprised this establishment can call themselves a seafood restaurant. But being a lover of spices I am appalled this place can boast “Louisiana style.” I unfortunately ordered the Atchafalaya and paid the up charge to trade the catfish with the talapia, I have never had something so bad in my life. How can something covered in some sort of red sauce with craw fish be so bad. It was if the sauce was plain white gravy (from a packet) with red food dye. The fish was merely lightly salted with dollar store grade salt and thrown on my plate without a care in the world. If you value your taste buds don’t go here. Oh and the service. Let me just wrap it up like this. We had to beg for a waitress, she was very very inattentive. The hack, I mean chef, sat and shot the breeze with some friends while we waited for water and didnt acknowledge us, and it took ages to get our check
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Earmine Carroll
My sisters and I went here for the very first time, one of my sisters ordered the Fried Fish with Shrimp etouffee, when it comes out my sister did not like the sauce and requested something else. The Manager (Vicki) comes over who was very rude and tells my sister this is what you ordered it says what it is on the menu and we cooked what you ordered. My sister says I dont like it, Vicki says do you wont us to scrape the sauce off (uh no), do you wont us to pack it up for you(uh no) she said she didnt wont it. I have never been to any restaurant where they try and make you pay for something you dont wont. After going back and forth for several minutes Vicki walks off, didnt say we will get you something else nor did she offer, but comes out with another plate without the sauce sats it down and walks off. Who treats customers like that? Needless to say the waitress was very nice, but the manager Vicki very very very rude she needs to take a customer service class and we will never be back nor refer anyone to this place ALL BECAUSE OF VICKI. SO SAD!!!
