This place first leased their space at least 2 years ago. I despaired of their ever opening, and am glad they got the doors open. We stopped in the other night for a nice dinner out. Got the gator bites for an appetizer, the King Ranch ribeye with asparagus and a side salad, and the fried catfish with a loaded baked potato. We had a Moscow Mule and raspberry iced tea for drinks, and finished with the carrot cake. We also got hush puppies--more on that below.
Usually I start with the food, but this time I need to start with the service. The people were friendly, enthusiastic and helpful. But there were a lot of issues, too many to gloss over. 1) We came in the side door from the back parking lot. There's a booth right next to this door, and that's where we were seated. You don't want this spot. Every time new patrons entered we got a blast of hot air, so we were a bit sweaty for the meal. 2) When we were seated we were asked about drinks, but not appetizers. The drinks were dropped off without an opportunity to add anything. We were ready for our mains when I got the chance to order the appetizer. So it delayed things. A minor miscommunication. 3) When the order came to the table it had fried crawfish instead of catfish. So I ate my steak while they corrected the order. Awkward. 4) I never got the side salad mentioned above. Would have asked but I forgot about it. We did get offered something to make up for the order mistake, and settled on hush puppies.The food was a mixed bag. The gator bites were great--done perfectly with a tasty breading. This is not easy for gator, it dries out quickly. The server told us you can get other preparations if you ask, and recommended blackened. Would get that next time. The steak was decent. The ribeye had a lot of gristle, which is not unusual for that cut. It had a nice dollop of butter on it. The asparagus that came with it was great--nicely seasoned and done perfectly. The catfish was a large helping, three good-sized filets so there was plenty to take home. The breading was good. The fish itself was slightly chewy and fishy, just OK. The potato was fine. The hush puppies arrived after the mains. I'm glad we got to try them, they were very good--crispy but not hard outside, fluffy inside, and slightly sweet. Would order a dish with those for sure.
The Moscow Mule was OK, kind of heavy on the lime. I asked about mocktails but they don't have those, so I got raspberry tea. The raspberry tea was sweeter than I expected. When I got a refill I was asked if I wanted sweet or unsweet, and I asked for unsweet. But either there was no option or what I got was in fact the unsweet tea. Either way it hit the spot--I finished two glasses. The raspberry is quite strong. I liked it. The carrot cake was drizzled with a sweet caramel sauce, so it was sweet on sweet. I like a sweet dessert, so this worked for me. Can't tell if the carrot cake was homemade, it was dense like a purchased one but quite tasty.
Why am I even giving this 3 stars? The friendliness and good intentions count, and the bright spots tell me that there are better things on the menu. Maybe we just had bad luck on the service.
The interior is nicely decorated in a Texas theme. The bathrooms were clean and ready. Papa Peter's seems to be positioned as a mildly upscale value place, about like Outback. Is it better? Can't say that. For about the same price you get two sides with an Outback entree, with solid quality. And while I liked the gator bites, I do love the blooming onion. But I can see that lots of folks do like Papa Peter's, and I hope they do well.
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