The Barrel and Brew

Food was good, but the service is horrible, the music is too loud and the prices and policies on happy hour and alcohol are not clear at all. Will not be coming back here

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? (Imagine this said in a Jim Kirk ‘Khaaaaaaaan’ kinda way.
Alright, first of all, you’ve got this GORGEOUS setting down by the fountains, yet most/​all of the eateries are crap. Can *someone* PLEASE fix this please?
We were there with plenty of time to spare before the Saints game rush on Saturday, so it was quite empty at the time we were there, but there seemed to be enough staff around that service wasn’t slow and we were asked a number of times, by a few people, if we were ok. Which, when they asked, we were.
3 of us ate lunch there today, one huge plus from this place is that you can eat there for dirt cheap. We had lunch for under $ 30 total. Score. There’s lots of ‘little things’ on the menu for $ 2, $ 3 etc that you can compound and make something big from.
Problems we had:
Watery ranch: are you watering your ranch dressing down!!! It was seriously sloppy and was EVERYWHERE with the fried pickles. Not cool!
Fish tacos: came with tortilla, fish, a couple chunks of pineapple (I asked for no avocado), that’s it. Plain, boring and pretty tasteless. No shredded lettuce, or slaw mix, no red onion, or bell peppers, no ranch or some form of fruity dressing. Just bland (and I REALLY didn’t like the salsa they served on the side).
Burger: overcooked. Hubby asked for it medium, it was beyond well-​done and verging on burnt around the edges. Poor show!
The menu isn’t hugely extensive, in fact, it’s quite limited, if you can’t do burgers and fish tacos well, why bother trying? It was ok for the price, but it won’t have me going back or raving to my friends about it. I’ve DEFINITELY experienced better.
We also didn’t get any drinks refills, ok, we sat for a while after having paid the bill, but even before that, we weren’t offered a refill (and 2 of us had water and one had a soda). We have come to appreciate the good service of places (like at the Longhorn steakhouse a couple weeks ago) when we are offered refills after our bill has been paid and taken away — we always leave an extra tip — it’s really not a huge deal for the server to do, and costs PENNIES to the establishment, but the gesture goes a LONG way. Poor service, she wasn’t particularly friendly either.
I doubt we’ll be back, shame, we had high hopes for this new place in the fountains. Poop!

Yet another place where I walk in and the employees just gawp at me instead of seating me. Is it my face, or what? It also turned out to be yet another place where the level of service seems to depend on whether the server knows you or not. I got offhanded and somewhat slow service while I watched other people being fawned over.
Kind of sterile ambiance. Table where I was (finally) seated had no view of the fake lake, although most tables in the place did. A/​C was too cold.
Had shrimp salad. The salad part was «meh,» but the shrimp part was excellent. Menu claimed it was Gulf shrimp. There was tons of it, and tons of feta.
My glass of wine either came with a bug in it or acquired one during the meal.
Passed a couple of employees lallygagging on their phones on the way out. Call me old-​fashioned, but I don’t believe you should be messing with your cell phone at work.

First time to eat here tonight. My wife and I didn’t want to sit in traffic because of a bad accident so she bought a groupon for dinner here. Wings were pretty good. Service was great. Server worked with us and was really attentive and so was the manager. I’ll definitely go back. I recommend this place at least once to try it.

This place is okay for drinking some brews that are local. Other than that, it’s a weird atmosphere. I’ve never seen the place full and I’m not quite sure how they stay in business. Service is hit and miss.

Pretty good place, used to be Sam’s Boat and even though it is still owned by the same people it is much better than it used to be. I have been to Barrel and Brew a couple of times and have enjoyed it.
I like their queso, guacamole, and salsa appetizer. I also like their crawfish, they were a little salty but still good.
Nice improvement to Sam’s Boat!

Great drink specials and attentive service. Tons of large TV’s, would be a great football watching place.

B&B has most of the ingredients to be on the heels of BJ’s, but The Fountains just isn’t the place to be anymore, if it ever was.
The happy hour margaritas are kind of a gimmick, since they’re served in an oversized shot-​glass. The food was actually better than expected. Beer Mac n’ Cheese (with penne!) was well made and beer-​y. A wider selection of thin-​crust pizzas would’ve been nice. Dad loved the $ 7 ½ lb. Barrel Burger lunch special. Onion rings were okay, as was the Catfish. Some cheap menu options as well well (sliders, apps).
Large assortment of Texas beers, lacking in wines. Good for large parties; big patio with access to the bar — could be loungy at night, but never been in the evening so I can’t say.
A good place for lunch with co-​workers, happy hour every now and then, and maybe a meal.

This day and age one would think people would be more cautious with their choice of words but not at The Barrel and Brew. I can’t believe people are still racist and discriminate against Asians and are so quick to pass judgement when a person chooses to have tattoos. My friends and I are all professionals (we are of various ethnicities) and simply wanted to have some drinks while watching the basketball game. Upon walking into this establishment, the hostess (Shawna) was quick to state that they would not serve our group, and according to her this was due to the fact that I was wearing a sleeveless shirt (my tattoos were visible). I borrowed my friend’s suit jacket and we proceeded in. Only but a couple minutes later, this same hostess (Shawna) personally walked over a party of which one male was also wearing a sleeveless shirt and of which one could see his tattoos. However, in this instance he was allowed to set foot in the restaurant and was served! And to make matters worse, this happened on three separate occasion during a span of 15 minutes! And I would like to add that neither one of these patrons were of Asian decedent. I can understand rules and policies, however this was pure and simple racism and discrimination.

I came here on a Friday night for a friend’s birthday.
I was sad to learn that Sam’s boat no longer occupied this location but I am always down for trying new places. I was pleasantly surprised with the new interior and the sleek new look.
We grabbed a table outside and were served immediately. I ordered a margarita which came in a shot tumbler. I was so surprised by the size that I kept laughing. I am not really sure how much it was but it couldn’t have been over $ 4 or $ 5 at most. It was also lacking in the alcohol department.
I ordered 2 of their street tacos both were decent, the pork pastor with grilled pineapple cilantro and the fried snapper also with grilled pineapple cilantro and onions. At $ 3 a piece I really can’t complain. I also ordered their chips, queso and guacamole. It came out on a cute plate with a 3 section serving container for the cheese, guac and also salsa (which was house made). The chips reminded me of Pappasitos, the guacamole was house made and creamy and the salsa was a really great addition. My only problem was that this plate was $ 8 and the queso was super watery. I suggest they knock this down $ 2, remove the queso from the menu and stick with the guac and salsa. My husband ordered the Philly cheese steak which was pretty much just onions and cheese with a few piece of meat on a hoagie roll. He was disappointed with is food and wish he had ordered tacos.
Over all the service wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t great either. The waitress came by and refilled drinks on everyone and kept skipping me! It was almost as if she was doing it on purpose. Being that there were only 8 people at our table it wasn’t hard to miss me. When she did refill my drinks it was either because my husband asked her or because I waved her down.
Will I return? Probably not. It isn’t on my side of town and there are better places in the area to eat.

We wanted to give this place a glowing review, since the menu seemed good and the place had a nice ambiance. We went in and were seated. We ordered two fairly simple alcoholic beverages, and waited… and waited… and waited. We waited for almost 15 minutes. That would be fine if the place was busy, but there were maybe 4 other tables that were occupied. I will not be trying this place in the future! I guess that is why the place was dead on a Saturday night.

Anyone who would rate this above two stars clearly has different standards than most people. The food was clearly below the old Sam’s Boat (of which I was no fan of, and the new place still suffers from some of the same poor business decisions) Here’s a brief synopsis what I emailed them about our recent visit:
The outside had two people smoking and that was plenty to ruin the experience.
How can we be expected to enjoy the beer or food while being enveloped in a choking cloud of stinking smoke? We don’t suffer this fate at any other place. It doesn’t matter that it’s outside, (the interior stinks terribly as well) it still burns your eyes and gets in your clothes. If anyone needs to smoke that bad … there’s the parking lot. There were kids there suffering from this too. I saw a family leave for this reason. We were close behind.
Second, the tacos are abysmal … you need to go to B***yhill to get an idea of what a simple, decent soft taco should be. Ours was absolutely inedible. The difference was amazing … they were so bad, we didn’t order anything else to eat as a result. I spit out most of mine. We went elsewhere …
Service was OK … but just OK. Nothing special to be sure …
This is supposed to be a craft beer kind of place as the website proclaims … yet there is so much mass-​produced beer on the menu.
The Fly**g Sa**er will not permit any of that. While the Y***house and G**ger Man have a few, they have so many beers many that it’s easy to over-​look that.
You don’t have that luxury after looking at the number of taps.
A craft beer bar doesn’t carry cheap/​poorly made mass-​produced beers that are trying to stamp out the craft beer market. If someone wants Miller Lite,
there’s the local gas station or Ch**li’s… is that your competition?
You think that given the craft beer renaissance, that people don’t notice?
Some other issues:
1) There was no info on the table about happy hour. We had to ask about it … no clear answer. Why isn’t it obvious?
2) No shade for the musicians who were obviously burning up under the hot sun.
We won’t be back …

Fantastic service, very customer focused. Loved the food and great beer selections. Will return for more.

We went to B&B for the first time one week ago. We were thoroughly impressed with everything about it, but the standout was the service! It was apparent right that management was hands on and trained the staff with teamwork as the focus! All the waitresses helped each other out and the manager checked in on everyone. Food was great and we loved the selection of local beers. Great place to watch a game. Also has a great patio over the Fountains lake. We will be back!

Met a friend here for a few beers after work. they have a decent selection of craft beers on tap, and he got me to try a few of them. That’s something i normally don’t do. While I did enjoy some of them, I found that for half of the ones we ordered the bartender had to get them from another bar. That slowed down the service, but we only grumbled a few times.

A nice addition to the area. Beers are about $ 5 and mixed drinks are about $ 6 on average. I really liked the blueberry spicy (I think it was habanero) margarita. They don’t have many veggie friendly options if that is what you seek. But the veggie tacos ($ 3 a piece) are good as well as the french fries. The guacamole, queso, and salsa appetizer (about $ 8) was decent too. The crème brûlée (about $ 5) was especially good too. Service was friendly, but they brought out the food in an odd order. Not that I mind for it all goes down the same, but it was a bit odd. However, it seemed they didn’t have enough waitstaff that night so maybe that is why the confusion? The food prices were cheap as well as the drinks, and both were good… so I’ll be back.

Great redo inside & out of the old Sams boat. Had crawfish first time around. Had to come back for chk fried sirloin & amazing Mac & chs. Salsa is good. Good selection of Texas beers & even a bunch of Texas liquors. Patio is nice. Staff was my only complaint. Our waitress sucked. I’m tolerant about a new place, but she didn’t have the basics of waiting a table. They also kept a bunch of staff from sams, which I found very weird. They were weird for sams & don’t fit at all with the new nicer place. I’ll be back. Expect they’ll get better.

I spent an afternoon on the patio here a couple of weeks ago and it was a great time. The staff was friendly. Our waitress was very knowledgeable about the beers. I loved that so many local beers were offered. Food was good, the beer was cold and it was a perfect Saturday afternoon on the patio. I look forward to going back!

RIP sam’s boat –the fountains… and good riddance.
sam’s was a tired, dirty place. glad its gone because the Barrel has cleaned it up and simplied… looks good.
they have a great selection of beer. menu has good variety for moderate prices.
we had the
fried chicken wings $ 10…loved them. qty 10… fried but with a special sauce glazed over them… really tasty
bratwurst on a hoagie with onions… side of onion rings — oh yeah… good stuff.
joe [the mgr] is hands on, very friendly and customer service minded.
once word gets out that sam died… i think this place will be a good addition to the area

A fantastic new restaurant/​sports entity featuring a simple menu, but also collecting all the local beers in to one location for you to sample.
All of the small breweries from Texas, under one roof! Made in Texas…
It’s not just a fresh coat of paint covering the Sam’s that once occupies this space. It’s now an open air bar room style design with plenty of tables and TV’s. The staff is prompt and the food is amazing especially considering how fast it comes out.
The Breaded Chicken and sides are the perfect lunch combo. The chicken is lightly protected by a thin crispy veil, smooth and juicy with a hint of Thousand island in the paired dressing. Beer Mac is what makes America «big», but after the first bite who needs to be thin anyways. There is always plus sized modeling after a meal here.
Cant believe places like this don’t exist already, you get to support local breweries and demolish great food. So now we all have a spot to take the out of towners that wants to see what Texas is all about.