Annie's Family Restaurant in Conway, Arkansas Fails to Live Up to Its Name

On every street corner and in every nook and cranny of Conway, you'll find all varieties of food. From Mexican to Italian to Chinese, but sometimes you just want old fashioned home cooked comfort food. Great traditional southern dishes should be what you find at a "family" style restaurant, but unfortunately, Annie's Family Restaurant doesn't live up to its name.

My dining companion and I arrived early on a Saturday afternoon and were greeted by an almost empty dining room. We were promptly seated and asked to wait a moment for our server. We waited. And waited. And waited. After what seemed like an hour, but was probably closer to five minutes, our server finally arrived to take our drink order. The drinks took another five minutes to arrive. After being seated with our menu for ten minutes, we were ready to order, but the server dropped off our drinks and was gone before we could attempt to order. After another five minute wait, our server returned and finally took our order. She promised that our food would be our "shortly."

Our food arrived in 15 minutes, which isn't a terribly long wait, but given how empty the dining room was, it did seem like an unnecessary wait, especially when given the quality of the food. My dining companion ordered chicken filet strips, but they looked like pressed and formed chicken patties with a breadcrumb coating instead of the battered tenders that she was expecting. The fries and that accompanied the chicken were cold and slightly undercooked.

My fried pork chop was coated in the same boxed breadcrumb mix and was heavily seasoned with salt. It was tough and leathery, and the side vegetables fared no better. I was served a lettuce salad (that was a hand full of iceberg lettuce with a tomato slice) covered in ranch dressing, but it seemed like an afterthought instead of integral part of the meal.

In spite of spending 45 minutes in the restaurant, our server never bothered to refill our drink glasses and never checked to see if our food was properly cooked or enjoyable. It was possibly the worst dining experience I have ever had.

The server was attentive to a few customers, but they seemed t be regular Annie's visitors. Maybe the service and food is better after you've established a reputation as a good tipper. As this was our first (and last) visit to Annie's Family Restaurant, we will never find out.