Let me just get this out of the way immediately; I hate the ordering process at Willie’s.  You have to wait in a long line just to put in your order and then you sit down at a table.  You then get a waitress who waits on you for the remainder of your meal.  So he/she basically does everything but take your order.  This makes no sense to me and I think that is just flat out confusing…

That being said, the table got two appetizers, fried pickles/jalapeños and a large order of onion rings.  Both of these appetizers were amazing!  The pickles and jalapeños came with some ranch dressing and nacho cheese to dip in.  The onion rings were probably overkill, but you get a huge mountain of them for $6 and they are the flakey type of onion rings that I like, so even though it was a bit much, it was still nice!

Look at this mound of delicious onion rings!

I ended up ordering a blackened tilapia dish that came with rice, green beans and a side salad (proving that you can indeed eat healthy at Willies if you leave out the fried appetizers!).  The salad and green beans were both delicious as they were really fresh vegetables.  I know that a lot of people love tilapia because it is not a “fishy” fish, but it had a great taste to it; I only wish that the blackened seasoning had a little more of a bite to it.

The tilapia was nice, but I wish it was a little spicier.

Overall a pleasant night out, with a very friendly waitress that put up with a lot of our joking and even dished out some of her own.  Definitely worth a stop to try them out if you haven’t.

Value: 8/10 (the main courses are reasonable for dinner (sub $8), but the beer can be a little expensive)
Atmosphere: 9/10 (old signs, tons of beer, and a sandbox for the kiddos)
Service: 9/10 (great service by the manager to both get us a table inside due to the pending rainstorm and great service from our waitress throughout the night; the only reason they get dinged is because of that dumb ordering system)
Taste: 9.5/10 (great taste all the way around, from the appetizers to the main course)
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First off, the place is completely different on the inside from the old Casey’s; I will say that they did do a pretty good job with the interior, although the bar that separates the patrons from the kitchen seemed a little tacky. I was greeted by a hostess who promptly seated me; there was the ’50s music channel being played on satellite radio. The gorgeous patio that looks out at the hill country (if you want to check it out, you had better hurry before the developers catch up…) and I believe that they still have live music. I would have sat outside, but our string of 100 degree days has just beat me down.

I decided to order the special for the evening which was the steak and jumbo shrimp with mixed vegetables; you could get the shrimp either fried or grilled, and I opted for the grilled version. For a drink I got the homemade lemonade (I am a sucker for lemonade and limonada) and that turned out to be a good choice — it was on the tart side (which I like) and you could get as many refills as you wanted.

The meal took a little while to prepare, but that was ok by me because I was just on a casual evening out.  Once I got it, I started with the vegetables which were fresh squash, zucchini, and mushrooms; they were all fresh and nothing like that vegetable medley from the bag.  There was a nice taste to them, but throw healthy out the window as they were just dowsed with butter.  If you are having problems with your kid eating their vegetables, take them here.

The jumbo shrimp were nicely prepared too; they had a great flavor to them (I didn’t even bother with the cocktail sauce), but again, I was kind of overtaken by the intense buttery flavor.

The steak was the biggest disappointment.  It was a decent sized steak, but it was a terrible cut of meat.  There was almost more gristle on that steak than there was steak; all kidding aside, I would bet that a good 1/3 – 2/5 of the steak was fat.  You could tell it was a terrible cut of meat because I probably only had three pieces where I did not get a substantial amount of gristle accompanying it.  The taste was all right, but it was again a really buttery flavor.  To top it off there was a big hunk of butter on the side.  Are you seeing a theme.

See that steak? Yeah, almost all of it was fat...

The most positive thing I can say is that the staff was incredibly friendly.  My waitress was very nice and engaged in some pleasant conversation for the majority of the meal.  She was really pretty good.

You know, things are always going to be changing; you just hope that it is for the better.  I really can’t say that the food was bad, but when I go out to eat, I want to really feel spectacular about visiting the establishment.  I think the restaurant was all right, but I would trade it to have Casey’s back any day of the week.

Value: 6/10 (my bill was $18, but then again I did get steak and shrimp and homemade lemonade for dinner; that would have been a good value had the food been spectacular, but alas, it was only average)
Atmosphere: 8/10 (like the atmosphere; the patio really makes it)
Service: 8/10 (really solid service, however, I was disappointed no one told me goodbye when I left)
Taste: 5.5/10 (The food was slightly above average thanks to the lemonade and vegetables; the steak was incredibly fatty)
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