Gigis Cafe

Not a place to get a bit on the side…
After having company over for Christmas dinner, I just didn’t feel like cooking today. So, we wound up at Gigi’s. We’ve heard good things about it, and Beth had a great club sandwich there.
The iced tea was freshly brewed and very good, a nice tannic bite and the smoky note that seems to accompany Luzzianne tea. I liked it a lot.
Beth ordered a Reuben and it was great — lots of good pastrami and great rye bread.
I ordered a chicken fried steak. It was one of the best I’ve had in a long, long time. Probably since Virginia’s in Austin closed decades ago. Crisp crust, great gravy, real meat. I was more than impressed.
At this point, the place has earned a solid 5 stars. Please understand I am not writing this to scare people off, but to ask, no — beg, the restaurant to get their act together.
Beth had french fries and they were the all too common house cut French fries, limp and greasy. So few restaurants seem to understand that it really IS necessary to double fry your French fries if you want them crisp and delightful. And there are ways to do this in a production environment.
I had the broccoli cheese casserole. It was a bland and tasteless waste of space on my plate. Adding spices, using better cheese, using more broccoli all would have helped.
I also had the pinto beans. *sigh* They were well cooked with great texture and wonderfully textured silken pot likker to go with them. However, they were tasteless. Suggestions — salt. Use salt. Add some salt pork to the pot of beans. Add some chopped jalapenos. Look at Ranch Gordo’s book on cooking beans. It isn’t harder to make great beans than these tasteless blobs.
Service. The service was very friendly, but slow and inattentive. I had to ask for more tea. If we hadn’t been able to see into the kitchen to see the cook preparing our lunches, we’d have thought our order had been forgotten. (We were the only people in the place at the time.)
Cleanliness. I don’t know what the problem was, but the floor in the men’s room was sticky. I mentioned it to the waiter. He commented that he’d thought it was just his shoes. As the homeland security types like to say, «if you see something, say something.» You don’t want people leaving with a really bad impression of your place. Better to ask a coworker to also check it out. Sometimes this happens when someone uses too much cleaner and doesn’t do a clear water mop followup.
If these issues were taken care of and the side dishes were on a par with the main course, we’d move in. Yeah, the Rueben and Chicken Fried Steak really were THAT good!

the best catfish I’ve tasted in the metroplex! everything we tried on the menu was perfect, also wonderful people, immaculate clean tables, floors etc we will be back!

Delicious! Super friendly service! Stopped in after the parade and enjoy everything.
GIGANTIC PANCAKES!!!
Chicken and waffles were great!

Very small hole in the wall place. Nothing fancy which is a good thing. The wait staff was very friendly. The food was very good. The portions are big and very flavorful. You can tell it’s made from scratch. A real hidden gem and definitely worth trying out if you’re in the area.

Yes it is a real review but coincidentally my husband went back with coworkers this past week and his meal was very good –but cooked by a different person –a woman so it may have been an off night when we both went. And when something is not good — yes I post a review to let other patrons know. This is what this forum is for. You have to be able to take criticism and grow from it
And yes — the guy needs to wear a hair net plain and simple as does the waitress with the pink hair? I assumed manager the way she greeted us