Arrived at 5:15. Only 6 names in front of us on the list. Great! Only took 20 minutes to get seated. There was 4 in our party. Ordered drinks and placed our dinner orders. So far, all is great. An hour later, a wait staff asked if we wanted drink refills. Yes please. Ten minutes later, another wait staff asked if we wanted drink refills. Yes please. Ten minutes later, I asked a third employee if we could please have refills. Eureka! Only took 90 minutes. Still no food. Tables seated after us were being served one dinner at a time. Finally, almost a full 2 hours after ordering, we were served. Steaks were good In respect to preparation and flavor, but served warm, not hot and sizzling. The wait staff told us there were big parties that had to be served, so sorry for the wait. Then another employee also told us there is only one cook, so the kitchen gets backed up. Not sure if the employees realize that both those reasons are signs of poor management. Before you seat customers, you should tell them they will not be served for a couple hours. Give us a chance to go elsewhere. I can not recommend this place, and I will not go back. read more

The building was really cool. The ribeye steak on the other hand was as tough as a shoe and had tons of fat on it. I asked the waitress if the steaks were good and she stated " the steaks here are the best in Alabama." Probably one of the worst steaks I've ever eaten. The prices were extremely too high for the quality of meat they sell. The salad bar was pretty good and I wish I would have just got that and stopped. If your wanting a good steak drive a few extra miles in the opposite direction of this place. The pic below shows the $25.00 meal. ‍ read more

Bull Pen Steakhouse - a plate of steak and fries - Steakhouses Near Me - Oakman, Alabama

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1st time visiting a Walker County legend. I've heard often how great this place was and the descriptions usually included the term "best." Before I get to the food, bear with me while I get descriptive. The restaurant has ample parking. My party of 5 arrived just after 6 pm on a rather busy Saturday night. The dirt lot still had a lot of empty spaces for us to park. We walked into what looks like a small 2-room waiting area with a cash register. Almost any other night, people probably are sitting on benches or rocking chairs on the large wrap-around porch similar to what you'd find at a Cracker Barrel. There was no one there to greet us but I easily spotted a clipboard stating "Please sign in with number in party." I did so, noting as I did that we were behind a party of 12. We waited 30-40 minutes. Lots of people added their name to the list during that time. The waiting area actually got rather crowded. A couple of tables emptied but several times I overheard the hostess mention the people at the table for which the party of 12 was waiting was taking their time. They had finished eating, their table had been cleared, the servers were only refilling drinks now, but the group was just socializing. The hostess didn't want to be rude, but she was contemplating telling the folks they were holding up the flow. Finally they were able to seat the party of 12. They then immediately called my party of 5 and sat us at a table that had visibly been open for 20-25 minutes. That was frustrating. The interior had that familiar Cracker Barrel feel. Memorabilia on the wall; fireplace crackling on one wall. The server quickly took our drink/app order. I ordered the onion blossom ($8). It was delicious and it was huge. We split it between all of us and barely ate half of it. So, as I stated at the beginning, I've heard from more than one person that this was the best steak in the county - maybe even the whole state of Alabama. Of course, I wanted the steak. I ordered the 16 oz sirloin, cooked medium, and a baked potato with butter and sour cream. A trip to the salad bar came with the meal so I fixed a salad at the small bar and enjoyed it. Not long after finishing the salad, our meals arrived. My steak was huge, cooked to perfection, and kinda shaped like Africa. It was pink in the middle, warm, and oh so juicy. If you like to taste the flavor of your food and nothing else, you'll love this place. That's not really me, though. The steak didn't seem to have any seasoning or marinade. I prefer a little Montreal seasoning so, in my opinion, I think that would have made it better. The potato, too, was plain and almost bland. Was it the best I ever had? Sadly I have to say no. That honor still belongs to Uncle Jack's in Independence, Kansas. If I had this trip to Bull Pen to do over again, I remember seeing the option on the menu of adding some kind of spice upon request. I'll do that. Since my party included my parents and an uncle who was celebrating his birthday, I took care of the bill. The dinner averaged about $20/person. Other than having to wait for a table that had been open for 20+ minutes, my only other complaint was the service was a little slow on the refills. That and when the refills did come, the server stood at one end of the table and had all drinks passed to her (over other people's plates) when it would've been much easier and less intrusive to move to the other end of the table to refill the drinks on the other end. Final words, I'll go back - someday...eventually - but it wasn't an experience that made me HAVE to go back. It wasn't horrible. Just average. read more

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Our party of seven arrived at 445pm on 05/23/21 and was excited to dine there after reading the positive reviews and recommendations from family and friends. We were near the front of the line at the door, so we were expecting to have a very enjoyable time. On the mark of five the front door opened but there was no host to seat the groups of guest. After the groups seated themselves, several tables did not see a wait staff for 45 minutes. The main meal took 90 minutes(total 135min) from the time ordered. The food quantity was fine, the quality was poor. I ordered a 10oz filet mignon. What was received was an over cook ribeye that was held together with tooth pics. My wife had the grilled shrimp that was over cooked and soaked in grease. A request was made to speak to the manager, the waiter informed us that one was not available. The waiter was so stressed out that he had mini melt down in the dinning room. He yelled out to the dinning room guest that he can't help it because people get paid more on unemployment and something about the cost of lumber in Alabama. Everyone in the dinning room were bewildered with his comments and felt a bit embarrassed for him. If the staff is short handed please inform the guest so they can plan accordingly. There were 3 wait staff for 18 tables. Most tables consisted of four guest. A delay in service is just expected in the post COVID era. To willingly insult your guest with poor food and service will close the doors to the Bull Pen. read more

I had an okay wait time but my steak was the worst steak I've ever ordered in a restaurant. It was chewy and I could hardly swallow every bite I took. It was a bad experience. I heard so much good out of the Bull Pen. I was highly dissatisfied. read more

Awesome steak family operated awesome Wild West town next door complete with salon and jail

Beautiful restaurant on the inside and out. I would like to tell you about different items on the menu but I can't. That's my fault because the steaks are so good I order one every time I go and have never tried anything else. Again, steaks I have had were great. Service was good and staff extremely friendly. Worth any wait or long drive associated with your visit. read more

I'm very disappointed in my experience last night the only reason I am giving the place 2 stars is due to the lady working the front & one of the servers. I had been wanting steak for about a week & decided to drive almost an hour to try this place since it was showing up on my Facebook. My daughter & I were seated right away by a really sweet older lady who I thought was the owner because of the way she seemed to have pride in the restaurant. The place has about 20 tables to it, some are booths but a majority are 4 top tables. It's style is very rustic & you could tell they were going for an old ranch style decor. We sat for a little over 5 minutes when the older lady walked by & noticed we still did not have our drinks & we had our menus. She asked me if someone had helped us yet, I told her no. She said she was so sorry & she would get someone immediately. A few moments lasted our server Amy came to take our drink order which was 2 sweet teas with lemon, I told her we were also ready to order our food. We both ordered the 10 Oz ribeye I wanted fried green tomatoes & endless salad bar, my daughter wanted fried okra & a one trip salad bar, we also ordered some fries with cheese & bacon for an appetizer. She wrote everything down & said she would get it put in. We go to make our salads & sit down, after about 15 mins we still did not have our drinks and our salads were almost gone. The nice lady walked by again & she asked me if we had ordered, I told her yes ma'am but we still did not have our drinks. She was VERY upset by this point & said she was so very sorry for our server dropping the ball, at that point I chalked it up to they were busy since I have been a server before. A few moments later our server came & said she had forgotten what we ordered to drink so I reminded her. She brought us our drinks which came in huge plastic cups. About 5 minutes later a lady brought us our fries, she asked me if we wanted anything to dip the fries in since there wasn't anything on the order, I asked for ranch. She immediately brought it to us. By then we had been there for a little over 25 minutes which wasn't too bad. We sat there for another 30 minutes without our server or any other server checking on us AT ALL. By then my tea was almost empty, my daughters was 1/2 empty & we were both saying how hungry we were but didn't want to fill up on fries or salad (hers was gone). I let another 10 minutes pass & we got up. I went to the front & explained to the nice lady that we did not have our food or ticket yet but I wanted to pay for what we did eat. She was ABSOLUTELY shocked that we had not been served, she was angry when I told her another server had to bring our fries that were cold & our drinks had not been refilled. She told me I did not owe anything & that should owe me, I told her that I wanted to pay for what we did have because it's not her fault. She finally allowed me to pay $10.00 even though I know the bill should have been more. It turns out the lady is the owners mother, she is super nice & if they had more of her I guarantee my experience would have been better. read more

Came here for my moms birthday. Waited 30 minutes for our drink orders to be taken and 2 1/2 hours for us to get our steaks. It was extremely good food but just not worth the wait. I asked the waitress where our food was after about 2 hours and she told me to "be patient." I won't be coming back read more

Fantastic steaks! Ribeye cooked perfect. Love this place for dinner. You need to go early though because it gets crowded.

Great food, excellent service & ambiance to spare. Only open three days a week but well worth the drive from anywhere in Walker county!

We arrived at 5:00 pm by 6:15 still not seated. There are empty tables open but they are waiting to seat a table of five first. They will not fill other tables until the table of five is seated. So there are lots of hungry people sitting and wAiting just to get seating. We have been here before and the food is good but i am basing the score on just sitting and wAiting. read more

This used to be one of my favorite places to get a good steak but the last couple of times has been very disappointing. My friend and I went back a couple of weeks ago and I doubt we will make a return visit. This time was worst than the previous. It took over one hour and 30 minutes to get our meal to our table. We were there at opening time and were one of the first through the door. It took about 20 minutes for the waitress to take our drink order (Water) and another 15 to get it and place our food order. About one hour later they brought out our steaks. My friend's even then was the wrong cut of meat. She had ordered a Strip and they brought out a Sirloin. We sent it back and then they brought the correct one. It seems the server had picked up the wrong plate. Maybe that is why it looked like they were serving one steak at a time to the tables. The Salad bar was good with a nice selection of items although it looks like they have gotten smaller bowls and they limit customers to one trip. Once we got the food the baked potato was good but a little under cooked and the Steaks were barely eatable. . They had a excess of fat and were both very tough. When we finished at least half the meat was still on the plates made up of fat but mostly grizzle. You couldn't cut it with their steak knife. You mostly had to pen it down with the fork or knife and then tear it apart with the other. They need to buy either a better cut of meat or sharper knifes. It looks like they are cutting cost so I doubt they will do either. Anyhow is not my problem. I probably won't be back. read more