Tia Juanita’s Fish Camp- Athens

WOULD YOU DRIVE 90 MINUTES? Because that’s how far a one way drive from Rockwall to Tia Juanita’s Fish Camp in Athens is. We first discovered the Cajun-Tex-Mex Fusion restaurant in Beaumont. The SE Texas chain has steadily been growing its footprint north, but the closest one you can find to DFW is actually in Athens. This place is next level, and combines the best elements of Louisiana and Texas cultural cuisine in a way that just feels right. But I’m seriously asking: would any of you reading drive 90 minutes just to eat dinner, and then 90 minutes back? Because to me, the 3 hours of cruising the Texas backroads and enjoying music while the sun was setting was a part of the entire nights experience. It would be very easy if not expected to be caloricly negligent at a place like Tia Jua

We went to the Tia Juanita‘s in Athens. There’s one in Waco while there was nothing wrong with the food. It was not as flavorful as I would’ve expected from a Mexican Cajun place. The one in Waco had a hour wait on a Saturday after lunch I would not wait more than 15 minutes to eat food here. My son said the best thing about the food was the raw oysters. Me and my wife and my son all had their specialties and they’re just wasn’t anything special. The shrimp and grits were nothing like the ones that I had in New Orleans. My wife’s blackened tilapia was nothing special and my son‘s blackened Ahi tuna, he said, wasn’t that great I will have to say the gator bite was really good. The drink they do have live music that wasn’t obnoxiously loud even though we were set right in front of a speake

A selection of Mexican food, seafood, and Cajun! Portions are large and very fresh. Amazing gumbo! Large selection of menu choices. Our waitress, Brie, was amazing too!

This was a good find. Beautiful restaurant. The fried shrimp and fried oysters and pretty standard. No special breading or flavor. The boudin balls are really a good. The 20 ounce Don Julio resposado margarita was excellent. Loved the bread pudding. The sopapilla cheese cake was okay.

Normally this place is good but tonight was terrible! We sat at the middle of the bar and the server/bartender was very inattentive with our drink glasses empty 15 minutes or more each time. Our food took forever to come out and was barely warm when it did. The seafood gumbo was basically beef broth with a tiny bit of hard crunchy rice and 4 tiny shrimp. The crackers that came with it were crushed in the package to cracker dust.The shrimp and grits came out like soup with little flavor and tough chewy shrimp with soggy wet toasted bread. Both entrees as I said were barely warm. We had to ask the man who occasionally went behind the bar for refills.The server who was supposed to be there had a nasty attitude when we asked for refills stating,"I'M DOING 3 JOBS!!!" I WAS intending to get the