Briarpatch

This place used to serve great steaks and other high quality dining options. The «chefs» working the dinner hours now, do not know a medium rare steak from one that still has a leg in the pasture. The place is run by kids, which would be fine if there were an experienced person to watch over the grill. The salad bar is the best thing about this establishment. The servers are great. You can do much better for the price you are paying here.

This is NOT your fathers Briar Patch restaurant! I took my wife their yesterday for my birthday. This used to be the place where people got dressed up to go have fine steaks and a classy experience. The salad bar used to be unique. The steaks used to be displayed in a refrigerated display case. None of that is true any longer. We were seated or rather squeezed into a small table space between two other table where there clearly wasn’t room. Right next to us was a large table full of loud slack jawed booger eating inbred rednecks who apparently didn’t think everyone else could hear their profanity laced conversation. Nothing however was done by the staff to request that they tone it down a few degrees. It was also apparent that if they served water in tiny juice glasses the waitress may get a better tip by constantly having to come fill the glasses. Note to restaurant, we don’t want to be disturbed that often. But enough about the less than pleasant ambience, let talk food. I ordered the beef eaters dinner consisting of tips, prime rib and filet. When the waitress brought out the dinner she warned me that the vegetables were hot. How is it that the vegetables could be as hot as the surface of the sun but the meat seemed as though it had just come out of the refrigerator? My wife also commented that her simple 8oz ribeye of which 4 oz of gricle and fat were left behind, was cold also. It also would have been nice if the meat had been seasoned even a little. I’ve had cold cuts with more flavor. Thankfully the meat was tough so my jaw could get a good work out. The one thing though that definitely hasn’t changed about this place is that it is still very expensive. Do yourself a favor the next time you are considering the Briar Patch, drive the extra distance and go to Logan’s Road House. You’ll thank me for that advice.

When the Briar Patch was described to me as «One of the better restaurants in Owensboro» I was immediately intrigued. With so much good food being served at the multiple mom and pop establishments in Owensboro, I had very high hopes. It was also described as pricey but I don’t mind paying a little extra, normally a higher price tag is inherent to quality food. Sadly that was not the case here.
I have been here twice since I arrived in Owensboro, once during lunch and once at dinner. With such a lackluster lunch experience I wanted to be fair and give them a second chance to redeem themselves, but boy was I quite disappointed.
I am only going to base this review on my dinner last night, as the lunch I had was nothing special, a simple turkey club and their salad bar. The club was just a regular turkey club, nothing special and I have seen better salad bars at Golden Corral. I didn’t think a review was warranted so I returned for dinner to see what the hype was about. This brings me to my dinner upon which they earned this negative review.
When I order my food, especially at a place with this price point, I would expect that the chef take personal attention to each plate that is served. I am positive that the chef neither cared or took any amount of time to make my «Kentucky Hot Brown». I could tell this because it was served to me with the top of the tomato, core intact, right on top of the dish. Keep in mind that this is the part of the tomato you are supposed to discard. Did he even look at the dish before he sent it? I was stunned.
My experience didn’t end there, the «Mornay Sauce» served was a thick layer of pasty yellow cheddar cheese goo that tasted to me like canned cheese sauce. The cheese sauce had hardened, I guess because they were holding it to serve with my childs «chicken fingers»…
Coming from the gym my wife and oldest daughter had the salad bar… Nothing to write home about, but not totally bad, but when my youngest daughter ordered the Chicken Fingers I was once again surprised. They served my daughter cheap dino nuggets, you know the ones that come in a bag or in TV dinners. Completely unacceptable and far from what this restaurant portrays itself to be. I hold a true hatred for any restaurant that tries to pass off cheap quality food just because its being served to children. For this alone you should get one star…
The only reason I gave you two stars was the server was very nice, and the salad bar wasnt terrible… Wasn’t great by any means, but good enough to at least have something acceptable to eat.
The waitress tried to explain that they are known for their steaks, but that is no excuse for serving what came on my plate. If you cant make it right, do not put it on your menu,
I will not be returning to Briar Patch. At this price point I dont expect to play Russian Roulette with my dinner.

Lousy food, horrible service and an obnoxious cashier. I don’t understand all the positive reviews, must be friends and family of the owners. Management may want to remind some of the employees to at least pretend they like working there.

2−22−14: We had a large gathering of about 25 people and were seated in a private room with plenty of space. The salad bar was well stocked. Our food was delivered hot and had good flavor. I had grilled chicken and mixed vegetables.
The reason for ⁴⁄₅ stars was two-​fold:
My mixed vegetables… the broccoli part of my mixed veggies turned to only stems after about ¹⁄₃ of the way down. The chicken was very tender, hot and well-​flavored.
The only other issue (not the waitresses fault… I’m sure it was probably how management assigned our group to the waitstaff) was that our waitress was responsible for filling drink orders, taking orders, re-​filling drinks and delivering food ALL by HERSELF. This slowed progress and part of the party was well into their meals as others were still waiting for their dinner to be served. Overall, the waitress did a VERY good job and never appeared over-​worked. She maintained a kind and personable disposition!

Briarpatch is a lovely family-​owned restaurant at a quiet corner about ½-​mile east of fast-​paced Frederica St. Before arrival, I sent an e-​mail regarding reservations, and a co-​owner replied with a cordial e-​mail saying no reservations are accepted (except perhaps for banquet room /​large parties), but that our wait likely wouldn’t be more than 20 minutes. When we arrived, it was dark, but there was still parking in the lot on the west side of the building. True to the co-owner’s word, the wait for a party of four was about ten minutes.
Other impressions:
*The dining area was cozy, but not too cramped.
*The salad bar wasn’t the most extensive, but still had some interesting items like sardines.
*The wine list was short, but reasonably priced.
*Our steaks were prepared correctly.
*The stuffed flounder was excellent!
*Our server Patrick was attentive, but gave us plenty of time with the salad bar before bringing entrees to the rather smallish table.
Briarpatch offers an excellent value for a local restaurant. We enjoyed the experience!

Phenomenal food!
The owners here are great folks, almost always working along side their employees. This has been one of my favorite places to eat in Owensboro for over 20yrs.
Choice cut steaks, cooked to perfection. Every steak is displayed by the butcher-​before it’s cooked. giving the customer a real sense of what «Choice» means.
The salad bar is amazing, always fresh. Everytime I go in, I’m full before the entrée arrives (from the salad bar) Selection always includes a handmade cheeseball, homemade soups, and fresh baked bread.
If you haven’t been to Briarpatch, you have missed out!!!

Excellent. Excellent salad bar and soup. I had the grilled shrimp and really enjoyed it. Delicious bread loaf. Very reasonable prices. It’s like an upscale family restaurant. Beats a chain steak house any day.
Last time I was here was 20 years ago and it was as good as I remembered.

Ate here with my son and his wife, and it was real good, but not amazing. It is larger than it used to be, the salad bar is larger and is GREAT, but my steak was not as thick or as tender and flavorful as I expected for a rib-​eye. It was good, though. I like the ambiance and the glass booth where you can see the cook fire-​grilling the steaks. Didn’t care much for the tasteless, greasy-​cheesy potato-​skins we had as an appetizer, but my son had requested the spinach/​artichoke dip with tortilla chips and they were out. Waitress was very friendly and courteous. I hope to go back again sometime.

Head still above water but slowly declining from when I was younger. They are treading dangerously close to becoming the restaurant «that use to be» the best in the area. Spend some money, do some painting, get back to basics in the kitchen. You can shine again or you can be a memory, you choose.

Was not expecting to have a good meal here. It came highly recommended from family so we went with them and we all had a lot of good food for not bad prices.
The salad and soup bar had a lot to chose from, as did the menu — I had fish and my boyfriend has chicken cordon bleu. We all enjoyed our meals and felt quite full.
Service was good. It was weird because it looked like they were renovating, but where we say we barely had any lights around our table, so it felt like we were in a dark corner even though we were not in a corner at all.

Good food. Nothing to really write home about. Burger was dry.

My co-​worker and I went here on a suggestion from locals here for a place that has good food and NOT a chain. I am pleased to say their suggestion was well received. Unknown initially from its exterior and interior (which is dated but cute in a way), its basically a steak house for the most part. Luckily for my vegetarian co-​worker, the salad bar was large with many topping choices to keep plate after plate coming.
For myself, I opted for the Briarpatch Rib of Beef. The price was surprisingly cheaper than I was expecting for the cut of meat it was, yet the quality was well above most $ 20+ entries of rib eye. It was lightly seasoned with salt and pepper but not overkill like most chains and plenty juicy. Cooked perfectly at medium and complimented with a Au Jus gravy that was phenomenal for dipping.
Our waiter for polite and always had a pepsi ready before I hit the ice in my current class. Was a little awkward a times but nothing that took away from his excellent service. Looking for a good steak, the Briarpatch has supplied me with one of the best I have ever had. If you aren’t a meat eater, the soup and salad bar is far from an afterthought and will supply you with an equally satisfying dinner.

Good food @ reasonable prices. I’ve been there twice recently and enjoyed both meals. I like the huge salad bar too. Thye don’t pretend to be fine dining. This is a nice family restaurant. I haven’t tried out the bar yet, but I don’t remember there being any crowd in there.

Amazing salad bar. The food could use some improvement as well as the building itself. It looks like a hanky hotel lobby. Get rid of all the fake plants and terrible wall paper. Its a pain to look at when I’m spending 35 bucks on my meal.