Red Rooster

Not much to look at, but the food was delicious and the margarita was awesome! Great service! Best chicken fried steak ever!

This place is a trip ! The food is good, home-​style comfort food… the pork chop special was good… sides are above average… Chicken fried steak was decent (this is Texas, hard to fudge up CFS). Good «Ho” — made pie.
Okay, the food is good, you get it, but the service? One girl taking orders and serving in a freaky, 1960’s ish room, reminiscent of Grandma’s house (not mine) with chicken figurines everywhere… worth a adventure if you are killing time, stoned and hungry… great people watching !

UPDATE 7÷1÷12 Wish there was such a thing as ZERO stars!
Have several friends who have also had issues with the cleanliness of this place. One friend was there with several church members. She ordered the chicken fried chicken with white gravy. She took two bites and under the chicken was a HUGE, LONG BLACK hair. She said she was with friends so she didn’t want to make a scene, so she just didn’t eat anymore and passed when they offered her a box. I hadn’t been there in over a year when she shared this with me. She doens’t «do computers» so I’m sharing on her behalf. I hear more and more about the filth they seem to think is okay.
I had eaten here many times, use to go 4 – 8 times a month.
PROS: The food is good (average), well cooked and if that’s all you care about you will like this place.
CONS: Wait staff is rude. You will have to ask for anything you need like refills on drinks and will be treated as though you should have got it yourself.
It is not a good place for large groups. We had a party of about 10 for lunch. We called days ahead to let them know we would be there at 11 a.m. Service was painfully slow, food trickled out for 1 – 2 ppl at a time. Some people were finished while others were still waiting for their food.
If you are sensitive to cigarette smoke you won’t like it. They have a seperate room for smokers but you can still smell it in the small non-​smoking dining room.
If you like a quiet dining experience, go somewhere else. There seems to be a constant amount of banging and clanging of dishes. It’s as though the wait staff are trying to break the dishes as they clear tables.
Also, the owner likes to sit at a table in the dining room and work on her books. That’s fine except she chews gum, smacking, snapping and cracking it with her mouth open. How did she reach her 50s and nobody has ever told her that is gross!
THE BIGGEST REASON I WILL NOT GO BACK, EVER is… My husband and I were having a late lunch there. We watched (and listened because you can’t help but) as the waitress loudly cleared tables, almost all of them were dirty. She picked up plates with ½ eaten food and utensils, she picked up glasses grabbing 3 – 4 at a time by the rims, all with bare hands. When a couple asked for two slices of cake to go, she used those same bare hands! She used a knife to lay the cake over into her left hand, then used the other hand to push it into the to go box. NOT ONCE DID SHE LEAVE THE ROOM OR WASH HER HANDS! All we ever saw her do is wipe them on a dirty bar rag. If that’s the attitude of hygene in front of the customers, what goes on out of sight?
And that was the final straw for me and we haven’t been back since.

This is Cleveland, Tx and if you keep that in context, you will be very happy with your experience.
Still have smoking and non-​smoking options. Trucks idling on hwy. This was Thursday, karaōke night 6:00 — 9:00 (smoking section only).
Ordered chicken fried steak from Haley and it was truly battered and cooked in the spot. If you think you should be served inside of 15 minutes I’m sure you’re right, but you might be the type of person who would be happier at a chain. This is authentic and takes at least as long as it would take you to cook it yourself.
Great atmosphere because it’s the locals beating their kids and talking between tables. Haley will bring you more tea or fetch you another cold beer.
Only Sweet-​and-​low so bring your own Equal or Splenda.
No AMEX.
French fries and fried okra are fresh, but you’ll need to request them crispy if that’s how you roll.
This is small-​town East Texas so you should go unless you’re a smug hybrid-​driving city person.
This place compelled me to wright a review…

Just took my Father here for his 67^th birthday Friday. It was his choice.
To begin with I am giving 5 stars not related to the personal significance of our visit, I’m giving it due to the fact that I had a chance to get familiar with a wide variety of their food this time, and it is in my personal belief and experience that the food quality here is; 1) RARE, 2) Some of the best in Texas 3) BEATS any Pappa’s or Landry’s chain and is far better than anything to be found in Kemah.
So let’s start out with a little honest commentary. Our Waitress was having a bad day. This is one of the regular waitresses and while she has never been rude before, she should have been relieved of duty and sent home Friday. As I had never tried the shrimp before, and was ordering multiple plates, I simply asked if one of the shrimp plates could have two types (their signature «Rooster» and «Chicken Fried Shrimp».) She snapped back «No, that’s too much trouble!». We were shocked, almost wanting to laugh… I am not going to take a star away from the food quality as it far exceeds just a poor attitude of one young lady on one day. My parents said that she has never been like that before and it’s not worth noting. To me it is, but only minor. She proceeded to walk around yelling at other co-​workers in an angry manner to make it clear that she was god-​damned pissed off at what we ordered. Total childish bullshit.
The «Redneck» T-​Bone was one of the most wicked, kicked assed, killer steaks I have ever tasted in my life. I highly suspected that they used butter, or rather clarified butter (a Bobby Flay burger «secret») when grilling, but I was told that it was a mixture of Bourbon, soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. I still think they use butter.
Dad had the Tilapia and we sampled it, excellent grilling job. We also shared a chicken fried steak, and once again, it was one of the best chicken fried steaks I have had in my life. And I have lived in Texas for 20 years so I have tried a lot of them. You could eat it with a fork it was so tender.
The field peas turned out to be a mixture of black-​eyed and purple hull, total excellence there. And as you might expect, the shrimp (in both the «Rooster Battered’ and «Chicken Fried Shrimp» formats were the finest on earth, fresh Texas Gulf shrimp as sweet as you can get, and so large we had to use a steak knife to slice them. I am a fan of Texas Gulf shrimp and know that sweet flavor so well I would bet my life on being able to detect it from any other shrimp. These –were– without a doubt in my mind, Texas shrimp. In fact I didn’t bother asking as there was no need to.
The only thing that let me down was the fries as they were soggy. Stark contrast with the top notch quality of the rest of their food.
You can bet your ass, that if I found soggy fries, and a waitress with a horribly childish attitude like ours had, and will still give 5 stars, this is some of the finest food in Texas. And you know, a little southern belle snottiness probably helped to add to the authenticity of this little hard to see road side dive. :)
Well worth the drive up from Houston. Once again, the best, most tender chicken fried steak (fork eating) I have ever seen, and that steak was so good, it should be illegal. (And it probably is in some parts of the world). Nice black edges, juice pouring out, in fact, I don’t know how they did that. It was almost like a scientific perfection of steak. Alton Brown would highly respect that, and I have no doubt it rivals the best thing beef wise that Bobby Flay has ever slapped down on a dish… Whoever designed and perfected these southern recipes and was able to successfully teach other cooks how to replicate them, is one of the most talented chefs in Texas.
Not only worth the drive up from Houston, this is worth traveling a long, long way to try.