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Cajun's Wharf, or Anderson's Cajun's Wharf, is a new version
of an old favorite in Little Rock. The restaurant served for years
on the banks of the Arkansas River, only to close a few years ago.
It was reopened by the Landry's Seafood chain. However, last
year, the original owners reclaimed it, remolded it, revamped
the menu, and brought the restaurant back better than before.
ON THE POSITIVE SIDE - A great setting on the banks of the Arkansas
River to enjoy a fabulous menu which features seafood, beef,
pork, poultry, and Cajun dishes. I particularly recommend the
Boston Casserole which is a baked fetucinni dish stuffed with
shrimp, scallops, crabs meat, broccoli and water chestnuts
in a Nuremberg sauce. Also delightful is the Salmon filet. For
an appetizer I recommend the Oysters Rockefeller. The wait staff
in the restaurant section is attentive and informed.
Before or after dinner, you can enjoy the Patio Orleans Raw Bar
or the beautiful outdoor dock overlooking the river. The bar
features quality live entertainment nightly. Early in the evening
the performers are usually piano bar type acts, but after about
9:00 p.m., they feature a live dance band like the Memphis Blues
Revue. (They are quite fantastic in themselves, and I have never
had a better time dancing than the night they played at Cajun's
Wharf.) The bar and restaurant are famous for features a "bayou"
house drink called a "Play-de-do, " which is some type of orange
concoction that comes in its own "take home jar, " complete with
screw top. I did not particularly like it, but my date thought
it was wonderful. If you are from out of town, staying in a downtown
hotel, Cajun's Wharf offers a van shuttle service which is quite
convenient.
THE NEGATIVES - First, Cajun's Wharf does not take reservations,
and a typical weekend night commands about a 2 hour wait for dinner,
which is asinine in my opinion. I believe a restaurant that busy
is obligated to take dinner reservations. Of course, they have
a strategy behind this. They expect that you will be honored to
gladly wait by going into the bar area, which is LARGE, and they
hope you will spend more money on drinks and appetizers while
waiting to spend money on dinner. (If the bar area was transformed
into a dining area, there would not be such long waits either.)
I mean all of this is not so bad if you go there planning to spend
the whole evening. For example, we arrived about 6:00 p.m. and
went straight to the bar where there was a nice duo playing pop
hits from today and yesterday. We danced some, shared a bottle
of wine, and enjoyed wonderful Oysters Rockefeller. Then, we
went into the restaurant section for dinner. After dinner, we
returned to the bar where the duo was winding down and the Memphis
Blues Revue Band was about to begin playing. We shared after dinner
Irish Creme Coffee and later a Play-de-do while we danced the
night away. We left about 12:30 a.m.
However, if you want to eat at Cajun's Wharf before or after another
event, FORGET IT !!! About a week before our visit to Cajun's Wharf,
my date and I attended a pop concert at the symphony. The concert
started at 8:00 p.m., and we wanted to eat dinner first. My date
wanted to eat at Cajun's Wharf, so I called for a reservation.
No can do. They had the audacity to suggest we show up early and
wait our turn, even after I explained the need to arrive at the
symphony on time. Well, even if we had arrived at Cajun's Wharf
at 5:00 p.m. we could not have had dinner and got to the concert
on time. A two hour wait, an hour for dinner, and an a half hour to
drive to the auditorium, would just not have worked, especially
since we needed to arrive at the concert at least 20 minutes early
in order to get parked, etc.
ANOTHER NEGATIVE - In the bar, Cajun's Wharf has a policy that
you either have to pay out each order OR you have to give them your
credit card. OK. Fine. However, they KEEP your credit card the
whole time until you pay out. I have NEVER had this experience
anywhere before. When we went from the bar to dinner, we had to
leave right away or lose our dinner spot. The waitress said she
would ring out the ticket and bring our credit card over to the
restaurant. Well, it did not come, and it did not come, and it did
not come. We had to ask our dinner waiter, and finally the manager
to intervene. Finally, half way through dinner, the waitress
brought the card and the check to our table. The explanation we
received for this policy was that it is to prevent ticket walkers.
Geez! Besides, how do I know that they are not running up a big tab
on my credit card. Give me a break.
In addition to that, the wait staff in the bar is not very attentive.
I had to go find our waitress twice to place an order. Then, when
we were ready to leave, I had to look for her again. I could not find
her anywhere for about 15 minutes. Finally, I ran into her. However,
she could not find my credit card!!! Not again! Then, when she
did find it, she could not get the modem on the register to work
in order to get authorization on my card. It took another 15 minutes
and four tries to get it to go through.
Overall, Cajun's Wharf is a good dinning and dancing experience.
However, they still have a lot of room for improvement.
--Alan CW
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