Murph’s Gaslight

Horrible don’t even go don’t waste your money. Tasteless food basically it has no flavor I felt like I was eating at a hospital.

I love off-​beat places like this, and having just ended a 4 ½ year stretch as a vegan, I needed a shot of unexpected meat love. Found Murph’s on Unilocal by simply entering «Restaurants Near Me». Both parameters were fulfilled — it’s a restaurant and it’s near me, in fact, right outside the gates of Bermuda Dunes Airport. Nothing glamorous, plastic table cloths, industrial tables & chairs, plastic dinnerware, but the window opens on a full-​sized swimming pool and tennis courts! I’ll ask why next time… Honey dispenser on the table full-​time. Clown fly-​by!
Yes, IE and CV folks may be familiar (against their will) with Harpo The Clown, a ubiquitous clown available for parties, but more likely to just show up almost anywhere. It seems he shows up here almost daily, gets fed and moves on to god knows where. Mostly harmless, except for my daughter who will never eat here because of her extreme coulrophobia — look it up.
The food? Large menu dominated by their signature pan fried chicken, with lots of other meat options including ribs, catch of the day (you never know…) a dozen more ways to cook chicken and a daunting list of sides which come automatically. My wife had the specialty, and there was enough chicken for three meals and it was excellent. I had the half-​rack of ribs which were delicious; moist and not over-​sauced. Most of the other reviews are accurate — you get a family style bucket o’ soup, pre-​mixed salad, black eyed peas, cornbread (use the honey!), vegetables, maybe cole slaw, mashed potato, and maybe more. The meal finished the junior high school cafeteria theme with canned fruit on a small chunk of pound cake topped with something white and sweet. Stiff, reasonably priced drinks from the Irish Pub section. Wait staff was friendly and attentive.
It’s about the meat, and that’s why I was there.
Many Unilocalers insist on commenting on pricing in their reviews — you should know what you’re spending before you get there, if you’re using Unilocal properly. In this case, Unilocal led me to Murph’s website, which also offered up a 40% coupon!
…and a note on their pricing — I think a ½ rack was $ 21.95 and a full rack was a buck more… Go figure. Also, everyone leaves with a major bag of leftovers, so your cost is amortized over at least two meals.
This is perfect for what it is; it’s not meant to compete with Wally’s or Jillian’s. The best endorsement I could offer was that the folks at the next table had tried the chicken at a booth at Coachella Fest AND DROVE BACK FROM EL CENTRO for dinner!
No one used the pool or tennis courts while we were there… not even Harpo.

Absolutely love Murph’s Gaslight! The food was amazing. My wife and I ordered the pan fried chicken dinner family style and we were astounded. First, they bring out a salad with a house dressing that has just the right amount of flavor, then a pot of homemade soup that is unlimited! Also fresh made cornbread with butter and honey. Then the real dinner comes out; a large plate of delicious pan friend chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, black eyed peas, and also a buttermilk biscuit. Eat all your chicken, soup, potatoes, or anything else? The waiter just brings you more and they ensure you have some chicken to take home. Every meal comes with a desert too. The restaurant is clean, well staffed, and the atmosphere is just as it should be for a restaurant that serves home cooked meals. We went here on a recommendation and will be going back quite often as Murph’s is truly a gem of the desert! Your review helps others learn about great local businesses.

Tried twice. Both times service was non existent. Clearly the regulars get the attention. Tried the «famous» pan fried chicken, cold and greasy, did not finish. Decided to give another shot and sat at table for over ten minutes and had to leave as we were hungry and needed to eat.

This place was horrible. So many people said oh this place is great, the best fried chicken in the desert, such big portions, and more chicken to take home !!
So when friends of ours invited me and my husband to go I was excited.
We got there around 430 – 5 on a sun evening and we when arrived the hostess said it would be about a 30 min wait. No big deal, we sat had a drink and talked among ourselves.
About 45 min go by and we see multiple families, couples and groups being sat ?
We then asked why are we still waiting?
The hostess said, oh we don’t have a table for 5 .
But groups of 8,6 and 4 are being sat I said ?
She then snapped at us and said oh you don’t understand what’s going on or how to do my job ???
I said really I used to be a waitress an a hostess ?
After all that we still decided to stay? Why I don’t know ?
After an hour and a half we finally got a table !!
The server was great .
But all that wait and the food wasn’t all that ?
Not the best fried chicken, soup was like water, not taste really to anything ?
Will not return, very sad since we live really close to it, almost walking distance.

Decent ribs and pan fried chicken. And good service, in an ok setting. Everything else was inadequate, all the more because it was not a cheap dinner. Canned vegetables (black eyed peas). Horrible soupy mashed potatoes with no flavor. And the desert was a canned peach with some whipped cream on a small piece of crust or dough.
I might stop in for some take out chicken and ribs if I am in the area, but not really worth traveling for.

What a wonderful surprise for dinner, starting with the daily soup, the fresh salad, my dinner of Chicken and dumplings, hubby had the Chicken Pot Pie, he said was Great !
I so wish Murphs was open for lunch again. It was a fantastic place to bring family & out of town guest for lunch. They still request we take them there for lunch !
BOO, HOO, I have to tell them
” it’s only open at night”. BUT…
If that’s ALL we get is Evenings, …
I’ll take it ! WELCOME BACK

This is more Southern than you think. The yardbird is dispatched using a deep iron skillet. The rendered product is perfection: golden batter, moist white meat, plump. The price is also right: all you can eat for about twenty dollars. The sides set the Dixie tone: corn, black eye peas and mashed potatoes.

Over Christmas week my family and I were out in the Palm Desert area. My dad recommended that we eat here. Murph’s Gaslight is located near a small airport in an area I’ve never been to. We even caught a glimpse of a plane flying above to the Palm Springs Airport.
The dinner menu came, as my dad discussed what they are known for cooking. He mentioned that the family style fried chicken meal was delicious. All meals come with homemade soup, salad, canned peaches, bread pudding, and biscuits. A clown came to visit our table, cracking myself and my nine year old niece up. He brought over a clown nose and posed for our pictures.
We were seated next to the pool. Yes, a pool. I stared our the thin pained glass window wondering what a pool was doing here. It was pretty chilly next to the window in December.
I ordered a pan seared chicken breast that was ok tasting. My niece ordered a cheese burger, she wasn’t crazy about her decision either.
My dad was happy with his meal, so I guess that makes me pleased. I am sure he will be back.

What a fantastic meal. So much food. You didn’t get to see the soup or salad or even the dessert. I’m so full.

This chicken is incredible. I don’t know how they do it. This recipe could be taken nationally. It tastes that good. Literally my fav (tasting) chicken is KFC. This is a close 2^nd in taste. As far as quality of chicken meat, it certainly is far better than KFC. To get 5 stars means it’s the best I’ve had outside of anything from Kentucky.
Order one chicken dinner and you’ll get more food than you know what to do with. 5! 5 pieces of chicken. 1 buttermilk biscuit, 1 piece of corn bread, soup, salad/​dressing, mashed potatoes/​gravy, corn, beans, peach cobbler. $ 20!

I took my daughters here for lunch because we’d heard so many good things. We all had the pan fried chicken which we left on our plates because it was dry and tasted like old oil. Ugh

For the experience and the food. People watching here is so incredible. Drinks poured heavy. And when we were there, a clown was walking around, drunk lady couldn’t stop sneezing and she almost jumped in the pool (yes they have a pool). Pan fried chicken was great. Homemade and delicious. Felt like Home to me — crispy and hot. Juicy. Perfect crisp on the outside. Great flavor. Potatoes were great — definitely not instant like other people say. And gravy was good! They had chili and cheese in the lobby for free which was yum. Weird that it was just there and available but yum. Mozz sticks were definitely frozen from a box. Will go back for sure for the fried chicken and hope the clown will be there.

We had always wanted to try the Pan fried chicken. It was our first time there. We got the family style chicken meal. There was 4 of us in our group. It seemed relatively slow for a Saturday night. Martin was our waiter. The turkey soup was excellent. The chicken was very bland and seemed dry. The corn was very salty. There was gravy for the mashed potatoes and luckily I did not have any of it. The other 3 people in our group had gravy. We thought that the price was far too expensive for the meal, $ 21.95 per person, which supposedly was 25% off for the month of October. We paid and left. After being home for a mere 30 minutes, the 3 people that ate the gravy all got intense burning diarrhea. My wife had it the worst.
We will NEVER eat here again !!!

Beware of Murph’s Gaslight. My family had dinner here this evening and it was the worst dining experience in my 25+ years of dining out. We arrived at the restaurant about 15 minutes before dinner service but waited patiently for their official opening and seating.
We were seated at a table overlooking the pool. The table was set with saucers and soup cups. I moved my soup cup and found dried nasty food on the saucer. I moved the setting to the end of the table for our server to see and take care of. When he returned to our table I pointed out the issue with the setting. He pushed another setting at the table towards me and walked off with the dirty setting. There was no apology or embarassment on his part.
The table also had a syrup dispenser filled with honey sitting on a saucer. I picked up the honey and found ants on the saucer. I again alerted our server who set the honey on our table still covered with ants and took the saucer away. I was shocked that he would leave the honey on the table. Another server walked by and I asked him to take it away. Again no apology or embarassment from the server.
Our server came back with a bucket of soup with a ladle to serve ourselves. I picked up the salt and found live ants crawling on the table. I immediately got the attention of the hostess and asked for a new table. The dining room was less than a quarter full and she had to check if we could be moved.
We were taken to a new table with moderately clean place settings. They transferred the bucket of soup from our ant infested table and the cornbread they had set at the table before we moved. I watch them half heartedly wipe the table down before sitting a new set of diners at the table.
The food was atrocious. I have had better fried chicken dinners in the Budget TV dinner trays available in your grocer’s freezer for ¹⁄₁₀^th the price of their chicken dinner. The veggies were lukewarm and waterlogged. The blackeyed peas contained random chunks of carrots that provided no additional flavor.
The salad was the equivalent of the 99 cent salad mix at the grocery store with a sliced canned beet added for disgust value. The salad dressing was the consistency of saliva.
My husband’s rib and chicken plate looked unappetizing and by more than half of the gummy $ 4 buffet looking ribs left on his plate when he declared himself done they tasted that way. The beans looked like they were scooped out of the can with no attempt to disguise they were canned. The barbeque sauce tasted like elementary school cafeteria barbeque sauce.
At no point did our server ask if we needed anything at all or if the food was to our liking. He walked by at one point and dumped 2 more pieces of fried chicken and a doggie bag at our table, while there were still 3 pieces of chicken on my plate.
At no point were the dishes cleared by our server before more things were dumped at the table. I had to hand him things to take away as I was juggling the plates he handed us.
A dessert was brought out that appeared to be old pound cake cubes with macerated strawberry slices. This was tolerable and definitely the best item we were served.
If I could award negative stars I would. Please save your time, money and taste buds and eat anywhere but here. They have no pride in their business and no shame in providing a subpar dining experience with indifferent staff. There are far better establishments in the desert with decent food and decent service.

The earlier poster is correct. mashed potatoes are instant and all veggies are canned. and the dessert, well, hardly.
According to the owner, Josh, folks come here for the chicken not all the sides hence he isn’t going to change a thing. So you have to weigh a $ 18.00 fried chicken «dinner» price and ask if its worth it.

Thomas V of Cathedral City is obviously Ill… and not from the Chicken.
Which happens to be Fantastic!

Pan Fried Chicken is good. They give you lots to take home too. It’s moist, not greasy and has a nice crackle to it. However, it simply cannot compare to genuine Broasted Chicken, which maddeningly ooozes flavor, juice and crispiness. The seasoned breading is light, reminding me of Shake n’ Bake… which I LOVE.
If you can get past the seventies-​style ambiance and Hospital plasticware… Murph’s is a step back in time, where portions were generous and served with family pride.

I’ve been going to Murph’s since 97. This is a great family place. The Irish bar s classic with great drinks.
They actually put out snacks in the waiting area which is warm and inviting. If you have only one dish, have the pan fried chicken, it’s amazing!!!

I was in the mood for fried chicken but didn’t want a fast food joint. I remembered this location and my timing couldn’t have been better. Their original location at the Bermuda Dunes airport, they recently reopened less than two months. Parking was no issue on a Thursday evening and I opted to dine in the bar versus the dinning room.
Actually the bar was a good choice BC I caught the latter part of the happy hour which was till 7:00 pm — I enjoyed a cold shock top beer. They also offer food in the bar and I went for the 4 pieces of classic pan fried chicken and a side of fries. The chicken was crispy, seasoned tasty, tender and juicy-​including the large breast. The interior is like stepping into the past and the crowd is mostly mature and locals hangout.
Service by the bartenders was solid even though they were quite busy.