Mike & Terry Hamilton’s Catfish Kitchen

Basic cafeteria style restaurant with a southern fish fry buffet at a budget price. Fried shrimp and catfish were tasty.

Very friendly staff but the place doesn’t look, feel, or smell clean. The food is below average and doesn’t smell fresh. Take this staff to a different location with an upgrade to the ingredients and you will do very well. In other words, it’s going to take some money from the owner to fix this situation.

Good fried shrimp, oysters and catfish. We got a basket of each and then shared. Good value. Hush puppies could be better. Pretty nice service. Oreo pie just ok, wasn’t chocolate and had graham cracker crust instead of crushed Oreos. next time I’ll try the chocolate cream pie.

To call this a buffet does a disservice to all buffets! There is about 3 choices and that’s about it! The staff was extremely friendly and attentive, though.

The buffet was excellent. Delicious gumbo, fish, regional dishes and sides.
Quality food at a reasonable price.
The service was top notch.
Friendly service with a smile.

Ok, this restaurant is just ok. The fish is tasty and the service is good. I wish that they would clean up the place a little bit. Starting with the restrooms.
The gumbo is good, it’s sausage and chicken. The vegetables could use some help, and the shrimp is tasty.
I don’t know if I’ll be back or not.

Note to owners: Y’all need to apply to be on Restaurant Impossible with Robert Irvine.
Decided to finally try this local restaurant, in spite of the fact that it usually doesn’t have very many cars in the parking lot when we’ve passed by over the years. We should have taken the small number of cars as a warning. We ate here for Sunday lunch, and there were quite a few diners. I was ready for the buffet, but I was shocked at the tiny size.
The interior is in bad need of freshening up. The best-​looking food in the place – the meringue pies and the cakes – revolve around in clear covered containers in a display case that has seen better days. I’m a food giant, but the used, less-​than-​pristine appearance of the revolving, refrigerated dessert display case really put me off. Everything about our table was sticky – the wooden chair and table felt sticky, the salt and pepper shakers were sticky, and the little rectangular bin with sweetener and sugar packets in it was sticky. Yuck!
On the teeny buffet, the fried catfish was good and so was the fried shrimp. Everything else was not very good at all, and our total tab was just under $ 26 for two, making me mad at myself for spending that much money on such terrible food. The buffet does not have any salad material on it; the waitress brings you a small bowl of cole slaw with a little paper cup of tartar sauce and a little paper cup of cocktail sauce. The cole slaw looked like they used a blender to chop the cabbage – I could have eaten the cole slaw with a straw. I had high hopes for the beautiful dinner roll, but cutting it in half revealed it had not been given enough time to rise and/​or was undercooked.
The chicken strips on the buffet were cut so thin, if I was in the Northeast, I would have thought it was fried clam strips. The seafood gumbo was devoid of vegetables; it looked like dirty dishwater with some tiny, old curled shrimp down in the bottom of the vat. I almost laughed out loud when a diner at the buffet looked at the food, pointed to a slot where some gumbo was (I think it was the chicken and sausage) and surprisedly asked of the kitchen staff on the other side, «This is gumbo?!»
The best part of our visit was the staff – our hostess was so friendly and outgoing, and our waitress was very efficient. Unfortunately, the hostess station had empty dinner mint wrappers scattered around the front of it. Someone needs to clean this restaurant, starting with replacing all the stained ceiling tiles.
Beaumont diners, save your money if you’ve never eaten here and like me just want to finally try it out of curiosity. If you want a buffet meal, go to Beaumont’s Golden Corral where you can get good fried fish; fried shrimp that is not as good; but most importantly, access to fresh, wonderful salad to go with your meal and also wonderful, delicious side dishes. For a much better seafood buffet, go to the Chinese food buffet King Buffet on Highway 69 in Port Arthur in the evenings – they have fried fish, fried frog legs and fried crabs and fresh salad for the same money as Catfish Kitchen, and the restaurant is updated and much cleaner.

Delicious fried shrimp and fried catfish. Didn’t eat cake or pie, but they were very tempting! Very reasonable price for buffet. There was more on the buffet, but I just wanted shrimp and catfish.

This is relatively better than most of the other stuff I’ve tried while on the road from florida to texas.

The Hamilton’s had a good reputation for quality food and a nice atmosphere at Tuffy’s in Mauriceville, so I had high hopes for Catfish Kitchen. We’ve been twice. The first time it was fine. We had the buffet and everything was good and fresh.
The second time we went it was for my sons birthday, and we had a party of 8. We were seated in the room farthest from the entrance. There was food all over the floor. I asked the waitress «do you guys ever vacuum or sweep up?» She didn’t get the hint, and just answered «yes».
The food was just so so… and we really weren’t pleased at all.
The color scheme in décor in this place is horrid. So much different than Tuffy’s was.
Outside the restaurant we noticed a HUGE hole in the eave, large enough for racoons, rats, squirrels, opossum or whatever wanted to take up residence.
I don’t understand why they spend so much on advertising but nothing on fixing the place up and keeping it clean!
Will not be returning.

Stopped in on a bus road trip to Coushatta with my company and 30 other folks.
They had the food ready immediately and it was piping hot. I’m GF so there was not a lot I could eat. Everyone else’s fried chicken smelled amazing. I tried the french fries (I probably shouldn’t have) and they were tasty. My grilled chicken was solid. The green beans made me want to run screaming bloody murder they were that bad.
The place had a few people at the tables munchin when we all streamed in to use the potty. No soap in the bathroom… yuck.
Probably wouldn’t stop here again but the prices seemed right if you live near here.

Had the $ 8.99 lunch buffet. Think this place is a great value. All the food was tasty and the service was great. Our waitress was extremely sweet and attentive. The presentation of the buffet as well as the cleanliness could be improved but doesn’t need to be. Think the grit is part of its identity.

Very disappointing. We ordered off the menu because the buffet did not look appetizing at all. Looking back, should have just turned back out the door after seeing it. Nonetheless, we still gave it a shot.
Between us, we ordered shrimp, catfish and crawfish. None of us ate more than a couple bites. Our 6 year old wouldn’t even eat it and fried crawfish is his favorite (actually the only reason we went here).
In addition, the cocktail and tartar sauces are very strange.
I definitely recommend going somewhere else for seafood.