The Oyster Bar

Love this place. Cool location, convenient parking behind the restaurant so you enter through the back. You can rent a room for private parties & the room has a bar. Love the laid back atmosphere — not fancy. Food is consistent and the all you can eat red beans & rice is awesome. My favorite to get is ½ a po boy & cup of gumbo.

I met a colleague for dinner while on a business trip to Little Rock. This whole in the wall joint brings Cajun to life. A varied menu of fried food, decent oysters and favorable gumbo. The atmosphere is dark smokey bar without the smoking! Limited beer choices but will suit the Bud Light and Miller Light drinker.
The Oyster bar is great for those looking to get a home town feel for Little Rock, very casual!
Portion sizes were large. I had the catfish étouffée, and a cup of gumbo with raw oysters as an appetizer. Nothing was worth coming back for, but I may just be a foodie snob!

Fresh oysters at a reasonable price. Like other reviewers mentioned, waitress was not too friendly.

The Oyster Bar has Great Shrimp Gumbo! With French Bread. Wow really good.

Hosted a get together for our son who was visiting from WI in the private party room. Great experience. Lots of room, and food and hostess were fantastic! Will definitely go here again catfish, boiled shrimp, hush puppies were a hit!

The Oyster Bar is my families favorite place in Little Rock to eat and has been for us since our children were little. They are 42 and 40 now, so that tells you about how long we have loved the Oyster Bar. We always get the oyster po boy and okra.

Heard from a friend about this place and described their oysters as some of the freshest. Oddly enough when I saw the menu I had something different in mind. I ordered the shrimp creole and I have to tell you, you will not be disappointed. The taste is indescribable and with that being said I ordered a second bowl. Ordered a second bowl not because I’m overweight but it seemed to be a little on the low portion side. Besides my stomach disagreeing with the portions it was a great experience and great service.

My boyfriend stopped in to try this little place and glad we did. It’s nothing fancy, but plenty of tables, roomy and clean. We had lunch and I ordered the Grilled Tilapia basket ($ 11.99, I think?). It was 2 large pieces of fresh & perfectly seasoned Tilapia, delicious hot fries, 2 perfect hush puppies, a small coleslaw and a pickle spear. It was all very good! My boyfriend had the Grilled Shrimp plate. It was a large portion (15, to be exact) of large shrimp, french toast, fried okra, onion rings and he ordered a small side salad. He said it was all perfect and delicious.
Service was friendly, food and drinks were served quickly and we did not have to wait on anything. There signs also noted cheap happy hour beers, I think, between 3 – 6 pm. We will definitely be going back to this little tucked away restaurant.

We are new to Little Rock and were looking for some good seafood. We tried this place out on a Friday night, but were a little disappointed. There was no kind of combination plates, so you had to order just one kind of seafood (which really disappointed my husband). The breading on the shrimp was super greasy and soft and would just come right off. It was not the crispy, fluffy fried shrimp I was expecting. You can also only get oysters one way, absolutely no variety or flavors. I was hoping for a real seafood spot, but this was not it.

My experience at this place was borderline pathetic. The outside décor and location might lead you to believe that you found a hidden cajun gem, but dont be fooled, this place rather blows. Small portions of food that is mediocre at best. Two stars cos I didnt see any roaches… actually I take that back 1 star.

Huge oysters and cold beer! They had a strange set up called a «sauce bar». It was your typical condiments for oysters i.e. Horseradish, Tabasco, and crackers. Anyway, the oysters were a huge gulf coast type and very fresh with Guinness on tap!

cheap unhealthy eats but delicious cheap unhealthy eats. little rocks best onion rings. whichever day is chicken gumbo day is a good day to go.

The beer was good. and service was good but the food was Def a letdown. Oysters (raw) were small but decent but the cat — ettoffee was basically a ton of rice, bland gravy with maybe 4 mini shrimp and a piece of underseasoned catfish on top. Grilled Mahi Mahi was a ¼ slice of obviously frozen fish that was super underseasoned. Fries tasted like burnt oil and no seasonings. Coleslaw obviously packaged and not homemade. Will not come again.

One of those special places that is where I remember the best times of my life. A comfortable place where you can sit down and eat a half pound of boiled shrimp, an oyster po-​boy and a pitcher of Bud Light. I always measure other oyster po-​boys by the one from the Oyster Bar. IMHO, it’s one of the best.

If I could rate this place a 0 it would get it.
The inside is like an old place that should have awesome food. It is not. Started at oysters, peel & eat shrimp and wanted to try other menu items.
It is their habit to shuck oysters early for the day. The worst thing you can do to a good oyster. They arrived glazed from the cooler, firm to the point of rubber and stuck to the bottom of the shell. A bad sign to say the least. They tasted as if they were in the cooler for a few hour4s sucking in the fragrance of their other items, which I will now describe.
The peel and eat shrimp arrived in a basket cold, so far so good. The first bite was a shrimp that was mushy, should have been tossed days ago and the smell of bad seafood. Ok, maybe one shrimp was leftover. No, the next two were the same, I would not eat more than one the wife tried the others. When you spit out shrimp after a bite there is an issue.
The employees seemed to not really care if the shrimp were old and mushy, threw them back in the bucket and moved on.
Anyone that rates this place 5 stars thinks Long John Silver’s is fresh seafood. The food was some of the worst I have ever had. That with only two items. I would not dare consume any of their other food. If you are an oyster bar and shuck oysters a full day before they are served you are NOT an oyster bar. And when shrimp smells and is like eating old shrimp/​dead fish flavored mush there is yet another issue.
Stick to fried food here if you dare, having fresh fried shrimp is an oxymoron.
I should have stopped at Red Lobster at least their food is frozen boxed and fried with no expectations. And I can’t remember the last time I visited RL, maybe 1981.

Three words, OYSTER bar… Out. Of. Oysters.

Boo…so the fried asparagus and peel & eat shrimp that we ordered for an appetizer were a bit of a letdown. The asparagus was okay – bite size pieces in a basic batter and heavily fried (so much that all you can taste is grease and salt).
A bit sour over the lack of oysters at an **oyster bar**, I didn’t want to get my heart set on something off the menu that sounded good and have them be out of it… and absolutely could not handle any more heavy greasy food.
So, I ordered the sliders, which is my go-​to when I can’t decide what to eat. Nice work, Oyster Bar – your sliders are tasty. The burger itself is nothing special, and it was overcooked… but the buns are amazing. They were the saving grace of my entire meal. Soft, grilled, tasty bread… that’s all it takes to make me happy, folks. Take note.
The fries were obviously homemade, which I normally love, but these were way too limp and greasy. Next time I eat here, I am going to ask for a substitute for my side dish.
It’s not five star by any means – it’s a greasy, wine in a styrofoam cup kind of place, and you will not be impressed. However, the Oyster Bar carries Diamond Bear beer and is a fun, low key place to eat if there isn’t much else around.

I think this place is cute! I love the blue vintage chairs and booths with the red table cloths. Nice big picture windows at the front too. I just love authentic places, and from what I have heard, The Oyster Bar has been around for at least 30 years!
I had the shrimp dinner. The shrimp were very fresh and plump. They fry them in a light batter with the tails still attached. Amazing! I got the fries and cole slaw as sides. The fries were okay, but the cole slaw was probably some of the best I have ever had. Nothing fancy, but you can tell they pay attention to how it tastes because it was spot on. I also enjoyed the little pieces of bread that accompanied the dish.
My one complaint is that I had a hard time telling the difference between the ketchup and the cocktail sauce. Now if they got that cocktail sauce going, I’d give this place 5 stars. I’m a fan!

Dinner tonight at The Oyster Bar. The staff was pretty great as were the grilled Mahi Mahi, French bread, and Peel ‘em and Eat ‘em Shrimp. The cucumber salad was very blah though and could use some vinegar or something for some kick. Overall a great place to visit.

Really? Five Stars?
The hush puppies were hard on the outside and dry on the inside. Barely edible without a lot of sauce. Hush puppies are supposed to be buttery and soft and make me happy. These did not.
Fried okra? Yuck yuck yuck. It was super greasy and I think I was given okra that was starting to turn.
The catfish, which I went here for, was edible, but not remarkable.
The service and the atmosphere was pretty decent, and everyone was super nice. So it’s worth adding a star for that. Just don’t expect five star diner food. I should have gone to one of the bigger tourist traps.

This place is a total hole in the wall. If you want fancy this isn’t the place for you, but if you want great cajun food then it is. Last time I went I didn’t even have to look at the menu because I automatically order hushpuppies and a bowl of shrimp etoufee. I have eaten a lot of authentic cajun food in my time and this place in the middle of L.R. totally stacks up to Louisiana.
I come out of this place miserable most times because I eat so much. The cherry on top is you hardly have to wait after you order your food and they put your drinks in such big glasses that you don’t usually need a refill. Plus, it’s cheap even though you can get shrimp.
When I went home last month of all the places I wanted to go first was Oyster Bar. It’s one of mine and my family’s favorite places in L.R.
Do yourself a favor and go!!!