Depot Grille

The food was very good we had the Hangover hamburger and chicken fried steak with gravy .
I have been living in this area for over 20 years, we need to support a great chef.

This little place is a family favorite for us. The burgers are great, their new menu items are an awesome addition and my husband loves their wings. This is out go to spot for a quick and tasty meal. The servers are so sweet and personable.

I went in a couple days ago, I’ve been to this place when has been multiple different names, but I’ve noticed that the burger patty were absolutely fantastic it was a much thicker patty and you can taste that it was not frozen at all, I got the mushroom swiss burger in fact, it was a juicy, hearty burger that was quite satisfying I couldn’t stop chowing down on it. Instead of fries, I got fresh fried pickles definitely knew they weren’t frozen they tasted they were freshly handmade. I would definitely go back again just for that burger and fried pickles. It was fantastic! I would recommend this place to family and friends.

When I walked in I immediately noticed that this new restaurant is about ¹⁄₃ smaller than the previous tenant. I had eaten here with the previous restaurant 2 – 3 years ago a couple of times and had not returned. This time it was on a Sunday after church arriving at about 12:15 pm. I was the only diner. After looking at the menu and reading other Unilocal reviews I decided on the Cypress Burger for $ 7.95. Fries for $ 2 more. The burger had avocado slices on it hence the price as compared to a regular classic burger for $ 2 less without the avocado. The waitress told me that they were famous for the cypress burger. I thought that was funny since this restaurant is relatively new.
About 10 minutes later the food arrived. The burger was on a square jalapeño cheddar bun and it was good. A solid burger and I thought the patty tasted good (3). The fries were hand cut and showed some peel at their ends and were good too (3). My table service was good also but remember I was the only diner. Finally at the end as I was paying my bill another diner came in and ordered some breakfast and coffee. During my meal I looked around at the rustic wood interior just like the previous tenant had. I will say that everything looked clean.
I give this meal a 3. It was ok but nothing really stood out at all. The menu is not as varied as I would like and reading some of the previous reviews kept me from ordering other items. With all of the negative reviews on Unilocal,I noticed that on the front door there is a Unilocal sticker that says everyone loves them on Unilocal.The previous tenant must not have removed that sticker as I am sure the current tenant did not obtain it!
P. S. My credit card receipt says that I ate this meal at Napoli Italian Restaurant on the East Sam Houston Pkwy. In Pasadena, TX! WTF?

This isn’t a really good way to start a business especially if you have a small group that gave plenty of notice when they were coming and pretty much in a nutshell fell short at almost everybody’s expectations. It is Unilocal nature to be excited about trying out a new business in the neighborhood and hopefully finding a diamond in the rough but instead were met with an experience that one might be reserved about bragging on.
Welcome to Depot Grille, it sits on the corner space of Fleur De Lis Boulevard and Huffmeister. Some places of the parking lot are well lit and there is the extreme where you might find some patches pretty sketchy. For the amount of clientele that I’ve seen a few times, you will not have any problem finding a good parking spot.
Enter the door where you will be transferred into a very woody type interior having you feeling the sense that you might have stumbled upon an old town style saloon, it is a little confusing at first on where do you go but as the eyes set in you’ll soon feel the comfort of the plain no frills get happy «pub». As I type this review I look up to see that the word «pub» seemed to have disappeared, maybe the owner got it edited but that name should have stayed, Depot Grille (with en e?) is a little misleading.
We were sat in the room that was separated by a door to a table for about a dozen of people. This room seemingly would fit 50 comfortably.
The menu, I believe is a trifold, has your comfort food selection of burgers, appetizers (onion rings, mushrooms, fried pickles, salsa and chips, fries topped with their special toppings described on the menu and calamari), chicken fried chicken, chicken fried steak… wait you know what, I took pictures of the menu, the pictures are worth 500 + words and yes there is a children’s section.
Ziegenbach is the happy hour draft beer served here, it is $ 2 until 7 pm. Other than just that there are a few unmentioned taps for you to enjoy here. Hopefully, you are here for the alcohol since it seems that much of the food is apparently from frozen stock. One could easily tell this when biting into the outer crispy crust of a deep fried mushroom to get met with a gooy shot of semi-​cooked batter before landing on the scrumptiousness of the mushroom. Ok, let’s move on to the calamari, it was good, could have been cooked another minute but it was ok for me EXCEPT one should always have either tarter or cocktail sauce playing wingman with this food, marinara sauce exists here but that is paired with cheese sticks, sweet semi-​spicy sauce is what you get. The cheese sticks came and they were right on, even for frozen pieces you might be accustomed to seeing on a certain Pepperidge farm frozen food box, but it was still good.
Service was NOT ready for us and hopefully, this can be ironed out before a real crowd comes. The foods came out at very far and beyond various times and even the owner came by to see if everything was ok, he was informed but the serving time did not seem to change too much. In all defense of the server, he was very informative on any specials, happy hour offers with a good dose of energy in taking care of the guests.
The owner as he was presented to us seemed very caring and nice which makes me have a little guilt typing this review like this but I have to be honest on my opinion on the event takes that happened throughout the two-​hour experience.
These fallables can be easily corrected with just a tweak and readiness when a lunch/​dinner rush is about to become evident and a simple attempt to rid the inventory of the frozens and actually do some of the fried products with their own version that is fresh and in house.
This should be one of those «on the fence» experiences that you should come by and give them a try because the prices are decent, you will not lose much money in trying and by then they might have fixed most of the issues that would stunt their growth.
Good luck to you Mr. Owner, you deserve a second chance, see you in a few months.

First of all the picture of their burgers are not their pics — it belongs to TGIF —
We were really excited to try this place with a bunch of other foodies. So the owner knew he was having a big table of foodies well in advance of our dinner time. So he had time to prep, get staff ready, and make this his moment to shine. Since the only review so far was by the owner himself no one knew what to expect.
Our first sign was when we walked in and our feet stuck to the floor all the way through the place.
We got there a little late so the rest of the group had arrived and started ordering. The waiter quickly got our drink order. After that was a waiting game, good thing we were in great company or we would have walked out.
We started out with the firecracker fries with added pulled pork. As they brought out dishes to the others it was one at a time and a few of them were not right or missing items. This got us a little concerned.
We were told that their burgers were fresh made and seeing the pictures on here we thought they looked great. I guess I should have looked further to see these aren’t pictures of his actual burgers but copied from TGI Fridays. So Sad when a place does that.
Our Fries finally came out, but without the pork! The waiter said oh you should have pulled pork I will go get that for you. In the meantime I had to keep asking for water. Once he brought me a new glass another time he took my glass. We asked him to leave a pitcher of water for the table, but he never did. You would think with 13 guests you should leave a couple pitchers.
Fries — obviously frozen. Soft not crispy at all. No seasoning on the fries whatsoever. The cheese was melted on with a sprinkling of bacon bits (not bacon cooked and chopped on top) and a few jalapenos, and a side of ranch. About halfway through eating our fries our pulled pork we ordered finally arrived. The pulled pork tasted like crock pot pork, no smoke flavor and really dry. I took a couple of bites and said no way.
We each ordered a burger. I had the Cypress Burger which has avocado, cheese, mayo on a jalapeño bun. The menu said burgers come with lettuce, tomato, and onion unless otherwise stated. So I would think since this was a specialty burger it wouldn’t have those on it. Nope — came with the lettuce, tomato, and onion which I promptly removed.
Husband did the Build your own burger — which should be called we build what we want you to have. He asked for cheese, bacon, caramelized onions, jalapeño bun, with honey bourbon sauce. When it arrived they had added lettuce, tomato, and pickles. He asked why they would do this since he requested a build your own and didn’t ask for those. The waiter said they all come that way. So my husband removed them off and couldn’t find any honey bourbon sauce on it. The waiter was like well I can get you some, but we said by the time you get it out my burger will be cold. The waiter didn’t offer to hurry up just said «okay Buddy». The caramelized onions were not! They were lightly cooked still white and somewhat firm. Caramelized onions should be brown, super soft, and sweet tasting — these were not.
I noticed the waiters used the same lines on everyone. Often calling men «Buddy» and saying «I will have that right out», which means in 20 or so minutes. One asked for her sauce and never got it, 2 asked for gravy and it took them 20 mins to get that out. The waiter told one guy that he would bring more gravy because they have tons of that ready, then 10 mins later told him they are making the gravy now. These are items that should already be prepared and only take the time for the waiter to get to the kitchen put it in a dish and come back out.
On to the meat on the burger. We were already disappointed and should have canceled our order after seeing another guest’s burger. The meat is obviously frozen from Sysco or some other distributor. You can bend the burger and it not snap or break. It was squishy and lacked flavor. My husband said the best thing about his was the bacon. Mine was the avocado. We each only ate about half our burger.
Overall, I would not return to this place. It needs a whole overall, a chef who cares, and an owner who cares. Not one that writes his own 5 star review and steals other restaurants photos. The wait staff needs a lot of training.

I give this place two stars. My scale ranges from terrible to excellent. Two stars being bad and 3 being neither bad or good. Anywhoo… we tried several different appetizers which were sub par. All fried: jalapeños, mushrooms, onion rings, calamari. They were each typical frozen foods appetizers — we didn’t finish any of them because of that reason. For dinner I had chicken tenders which were tasty with a side of coleslaw which I really liked. Strange but the texture of the chicken tenders was a tad too soft. They were better after they got cold/​room temp. Boyfriend ordered Santa Fe Chicken. Which he felt was just ok. But did not like the rice/​beans. In fact he didn’t even want them on his plate. I tasted both… beans: undercooked and hard, rice: Sysco? Ben E Keith? I even thought his chicken tasted very packaged.
Nothing at all stood out about this place. It’s very generic and forgettable. I would not go back.
Note: there is a 5 star review listed for this place… by the new owner.

Remember that old song that goes «oh where or where has my little dog gone, oh where oh where can he be?» This is how I feel about every restaurant that has opened up at this location.
This spot is located in a well established neighborhood. Meaning this hood has been here before they built out to Cypress. What’s missing in this immediately area is a really good restaurant. They have built new homes and hospitals and hotels right up the street from this place but have failed to build a really good restaurant on Huffmeister. So, when finally the failed Burgers and Brew closed at this spot I was hoping someone new would step in and finally change this place around.
You walk in this place and it still has the exact same Dodge City saloon look as the other failed predecessors. Fine it was OK for a BBQ place but even 3 restaurants ago it needed rehauling. Instead, from the outside it looks abandoned and on the inside nothing has changed but the owner.
Note to owner, if you want to be successful in this spot you can’t half do it, you have to go full throttle. If you don’t, people will pass this place up and head on to 290 and spend their money.
But lets forget about the history and let me get down to the «food.» (Notice the quotes. Its so much better saying the words quote and unquote than typing it.) Anyway, prepare yourself to order and wait. I’m talking serious waiting. We had a table of like 13 and 1 plate at a time came out. Keep in mind other than our table the place was nearly empty. It took me about an hour before I got my chicken fried steak. It actually had a nice seasoning to it. The size made me happy but it was mostly batter. Tasty but got tired of eating it. It was like peeling crawfish at one point in search for meat.
My intentions were to try a burger as well. Just to taste. They advertise them so much that I figured why not order one just to try even though I may not be able to finish it. Well I specifically asked the owner (very nice dude) if the patties were hand formed. His words to me were «yes, we buy it all ground and form the patties ourselves.» The whole table heard that statement and after seeing one of my fellow foodies burger, it was clear that we were lied too. You can not pass a frozen patty as a hand formed fresh burger to a true burgerologist. In fact these were the same type of patties used from their predecessor.
One by one after we left, my fellow foodies started complaining about stomach issues. (Only those that tried the frozen patties.) So glad I didn’t. And so sad i can’t give this place more stars. The $ 2 beer was great. The service was like ordering from teenage snails and the owner dude is nice, friendly and er… not exactly honest about the patties.
Would I give them another try? Only if they do a complete overhaul of the place and get somebody in that kitchen with passion. Not just kitchen help. But then again it is a pub so add some wings and sale ritas and I may be back.
Remodel and Prosper.