Carribean Cowboy

This is my third visit to the Caribbean Cowboy on Rt 82 in North Royalton. This is an interestingly themed restaurant with country music, servers and bartenders in cowboy hats and a meat-​heavy menu that includes traditional barbecue type food and jerk-​marinaded meats. If you don’t like Jimmy Buffett, you should know that it’s in heavy rotation. In fact, we suspect that the album «Banana Wind» was actually playing.
We went on Saturday night, the day after New Years so it wasn’t terribly surprising that the place wasn’t busy, although we were also there at 6:30 PM. There were 4 people at the bar and about 6 more in the booths and tables; total seating is probably about 100 including the relatively sizable bar. There is a small stage and also a jukebox. There are frequently bands but tonight a DJ was scheduled at 8 pm.
The restaurant is well lit and the menu relatively broad, including soups and sandwiches, barbecue plates and salads. We didn’t try any of the appetizers but we did settle on a Philly steak sandwich made with brisket and a BBQ combo platter that included pulled pork, ribs and brisket. The sandwich came with sweet potato fries and I opted for the beans and rice to go with the vegetable side on the BBQ platter, as well as a balsamic vinaigrette on my salad (which came with a truly outstanding cornbread).
I wanted to give a better rating. The meats are excellent here, the jerk chicken I’ve had twice and it’s unbelievably good. And the owner is always there and she’s very friendly. But here’s the problem I had: there are many, many places to go eat. And many, many of them have talented chefs making really good stuff, like at Caribbean Cowboy. So it’s little things that can really sink the experience. For the meats and the sandwich alone I would easily throw out 4 and a half stars, maybe five. But…
1) Sweet potato fries were served with no kind of sauce at all. Dry. They were good enough as sweet potato fries but I have never seen them served without a condiment, usually a creamy honey-​mustard sauce. And I am sure they have all the components for a honey mustard dipping sauce on hand, so when we asked the helpful bartender, who listed all the salad dressings twice and then asked the chef and got a «no» when there were less than 15 customers in the place… that just looks like purposeful avoidance of effort.
2) Beans and rice — I liked the idea but two things stood out. First, they came to me at a temperature so high that they had to have been microwaved. Well above eating temperature, which I discovered by burning my mouth. And once they were cool enough to eat, the black beans and peppers and rice had a very weak flavor profile. Kind of sweet, maybe citrus? But insipid and timid, not a bold flavor you would expect from a Caribbean-​inspired dish. I could taste the potential of this dish but it wasn’t well executed. Adding some sofrito could help a lot.
Now, the green beans were fine and the meats, as mentioned, were top notch as was the sandwich. (And that cornbread!) But as a diner what I’m likely to remember was that I paid money for food and some of it was really good but some of it was, frankly, wasted. And that’s money wasted.
3) When we finished our entrees, we debated dessert there or elsewhere and we wound up ordering chocolate cheesecake and coffee. The chocolate cheesecake was good. But here again we run into the overall execution problem because the coffee was bitter, so bitter that I assume it had been there all day. Also, the coffee was brought to us with no spoons and no sugar, just cream. It was undrinkable and, to their credit, the server took it off our check.
4) Despite the very small number of people in the restaurant, our check was not correct and had to be redone. This baffles me every time it happens; how can we be among so few people in the place and not get a correct check the first time?
I will say that we got pretty good service (despite the check being wrong, and despite the coffee service) but it would have been truly tragic had we not given the number of people there. I would not say don’t try this place; like I said the entrees were very good and I think they have great potential to be a truly unique experience — on a previous visit I had a salad and a jerk chicken skewer and both were really good — so this review being two stars is based on this experience alone, which had too many miscues for me to give more than two stars despite their excellent work with the entrees.
We paid about $ 58 including two beers and two mixed drinks, dessert and meals for two people, which includes tip.
I would recommend trying this restaurant, because the meats are very well done. None of the other issues with our dinner were major issues, there were just a bunch of them.

First time we tried Carribean Cowboy after reading up on it in the Royalton paper. Sorry we did not find it sooner. Very nice interior, new décor, in the cowboy/​carribean theme. Lots of roomy booths. New woodwork, cool decorations. We got there early so we were not there for the band or entertainment. But it looks like a perfect spot to meet up with a group of friends for drinks, food and music. It was pleasantly quiet when we were there.
MANY menu choices. I definitely want to go back to try some other tempting offers. I decided on the salmon, rice and beans, salad and green beans. All came with the meal. Also had a corn muffin which was absolutely delish and homemade, and did not even need butter, Husband got the steak, baked potato, salad, green beans and a beer. You can judge a good restaurant by the salad and dressing. The salad was a mesclun mix, tomato, cucumber, cheese. HOmemade house Italian had a slightly sweet with garlic taste, which I will order again. ALso got the blue cheese dressing on the side which was very good also. Salad was fresh and nicely presented.
Salmon was «wild» not farmed which is very important to me and hard to find in restaurants. Done perfectly as was my husband’s steak. Green beans were fresh and not overcooked or over buttered, rice and beans had pepper, onions and a carribean jerk «kick». Loved it.
We had a friendly server, who was excellent and on the ball.
She said the half chicken was a great deal and huge. Also recommended the homemade mac and cheese. which was made in different ways. I want to try the mussels next time.
This place is a hidden gem, has lots of parking, very clean and new.
Varied menu, lots of choices.
I will be returning with family and friends.
I wish this owner the best. This is quality food and not just any old «slop» thrown on a plate.
I’m tired of going to places that are below par.
TIP… some items can be a little spicy for some people. If you want it less spicy, I am sure you can tell them to hold the heat (jerk spices).
we were both very happy to have tried this place.

Recently went for lunch with a group of ten people. One in the group recommended it, but from the moment I pulled into the parking lot I was underwhelmed.
From the outside, it reminded me of a strip club. We were the only people in the restaurant and were greeted immediately with our friendly server.
The menu was more extensive than I would have thought, but it was typically bar food. I’m guessing it might get more of a bar crowd than an eating crowd.
All of us agreed that the food was just OK. Our server was very friendly but not efficient. As I said, we were the only customers and we had to ask where our food was after waiting almost an hour.

Terrible, terrible service. There was only one waitress who apparently wasn’t even supposed to work but all the others called off that night. The owner called her and asked her if she could work. She was the only waitress there and had to take care of the bar, the dining room, and the patio. The owner was there but didnt seem to help at all. Our salads came out at the same time as the meal. Some of the food was wrong and it took long time to come out. Owner never came over once to apologize. Waitress did her best but the fault is with the owner. Will not return!

Service was ok, food was something not horrible but yet not something i will ever eat again. My stomach and bathroom concur!

Terrible service. When I told the owner he told me that I should have sat in the dining room. Will never return.

My family’s been there an unprecedented three times this week the food is remarkably fresh especially for midwinter. Everything is fresh fresh fresh it’s immaculately clean. Everything’s been cooked to perfection so far. On our first visit last Tuesday we were surprised to find out there was karaōke starting at 8 o’clock that was very friendly and encouraging due to the karaōke host who remembers and uses your name after hearing it once. He is very gracious and seems to be very good at putting people at ease and making them feel comfortable. I believe his name is Bobby Bruno, and somebody I was speaking to in the restaurant told me that she’s known him since she was a little girl and he was always great like that. My daughter pointed out he had the best microphones we have ever seen anyone use for karaōke. Tuesday and Sunday were dead Friday was very busy. The service was extremely friendly and efficent on Friday and Sunday I was surprised about the comment about the servers, Tuesday server was efficient and professional, not as outgoing as the others, but none the less she was very good. The food is extremely well made and fresh

Appetizers were very good. 6 taps at the bar including a few craft beers. Dinner was flavorful. We will go back again

We were so excited to try this place, we didn’t find out our servers name until we found it printed on the check.
We were never offered anything more than water drink wise.
We ordered an appetizer that came out after our dry tasteless burgers and that was only because we reminded the server Valeria that we ordered an app to begin with. We were never told that they ran out of the appetizer and had to make more. We got a free dessert when the manager came and asked us how everything was. That and the app were good but I really don’t think we will be back.