Charlotte Ford

Review of Mulates Cajun Restaurant

This is a difficult rating and review to leave. I...

This is a difficult rating and review to leave. I want to leave a 5-star review, just for the food alone, but we had a hit-and-miss issue with the staff here. We had been staying a week in NOLA and kept returning to Mulate's for lunch throughout the week (last week of October '19). We had fallen in love with the delightful staff and amazing food. The stuffed mushrooms kept us coming back (Tue-Thu-Sat). Two of our visits were fabulous: Fabulous services, fabulous food, quick, friendly, etc. The last time, unfortunately, was horrible. So horrible, I had words with our feckless server out front afterwards (we were waiting for our Uber, he was again on his phone texting).

Our server, a young man named Jessie, was written off by us as young and maybe a little in over his head at this establishment and the level of service that was expected. He had zero charisma, never smiled, and was rather sullen. We saw he was capable of warmth and smiles, because we watched his every free minute (he had many while ignoring his tables) spent flirting and buzzing around the attractive, sweet, hostess up front. He had no name tag and a baseball cap on. To say he was casual and showed an egregious lack of professionalism would be an understatement. The bartender, apparently fed up staring at our drinks, gave up on Jessie bringing them to us, and was kind enough to bring our cocktails over. Jessie asked us, while we weren't close to finishing our entrees, would we wanted for dessert. I suggested he ask us when we don't have delicious stuffed mushrooms and lovely meat pies still in our mouths. He seemed put off by the comment and we were essentially, for all intents and purposes, cut off from anything remotely civil or polite from there on out. You could hear crickets from our side of the restaurant (not busy at the time).

After we finished our entrees, we waited for Jessie to come take our plates and dessert order. He passed our table no less than 12 times in the following 45 minutes, while we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. We wrangled a nice female server and begged for a bill so we could get the heck out of there. We were fully fed up and put off of Mulate's at that time. He brought the bill and asked if we wanted desserts. I responded that dessert orders would have made sense a half hour earlier and not requested after the bill had been tallied and brought. Jessie, hands down, was the worst server/service/experience we had in NOLA all week. In fact, he was the only bad experience, but for one taxi driver, all week. Mulate's is fantastic food. Mulate's has great servers two out of three visits.

When Jessie came outside to text, yet again, I approached him and asked why he wouldn't return to take our dessert order. Feeling 10-foot-tall and apparently bullet-proof, outside of the his employment, he said, "I asked," never making eye contact and spun around and walked away while I was mid-sentence. I followed him inside and he disappeared into the back. I gave the lovely hostess (he'd been previously rabidly-flirting with) the broad strokes of our issues, but had an Uber to hop in.

Sorry Mulate's, your food is amazing, but Jessie was just the worst. We spent a ton in that place, happily, until Jessie. We went elsewhere for the rest of the week.

Food: A solid 4 to 5 out of 5.
Service: Usually a 4 to 5 out of 5.
Jessie: A total zero.