The Big Barn - Dosey Doe

Category:	Cafe
Address:	25911 Interstate 45 N, Spring, TX 77380, USA
Phone:	+1 281-367-3774
Site:	doseydoe.com
Rating:	4.4

Location

Photos 100

Reviews 4

Michael Burke

We made our first trip to the Dosey Do Barn to see Candlebox play an acoustic set this past week in the Woodlands. I was not prepared for the awesomeness of this venue both in how it is setup and how it can deliver such an intimate and pure sound. The host indicated that it seats about 400 guests, many who are on the first floor seated at long tables. The tickets required a reservation for your seat in the restaurant, which turned out very nicely. I liked being able to guarantee where I was going to be sitting. They have built a balcony area just above the raised stage on the first floor. We chose our seats here on the far corner to the right of the stages front face. These were some of the best seats in the house as we had a table for two and we could easily watch the show and hear everything perfectly, while not being crowded at the longer tables with other guests that filled the place. We could not stop talking about our experience and told many friends and co-workers. We will likely watch their event list to try and revisit in the future. All of the staff were helpful and friendly. We had pretty good service from our waiter who was helpful and attentive. When the show begins though, the waitstaff do fade back and try to interrupt as little as possible until between songs. But they alerted us to this when laying out the rules to the show at the beginning. The Dosey Do takes the no talking policy pretty seriously and will ask you to be quiet if you are being disruptive given the nature of the acoustics in the barn. This is a good thing given you are there to hear the show, and not converse with everyone throughout the set. I did knock them one star though. You can arrive early for dinner, which we did. We ordered the ginormous chicken fried steak dinner and a catfish sandwich meal. Both of the dishes were lukewarm. I was convinced they cooked the chicken fried steak ahead of time and over held it. It could have been good if it was hot and fresh. I personally found the dinner sub-par, especially given the costs. My wife did order drinks through the night and was generally happy with most everything she received, although she thought the sandwich could have been hotter, but was good. We will probably choose to eat elsewhere in the future and then make it in time for the show. We absolutely want to return and hear more music here!

A Private User

From all I have heard and read this is one of the friendliest places in The Woodlands or Texas. The building is wonderful the idea for the business is great. From the minute we walked in it went down hill. There is no one to greet you as you come in,ok for old customers but for new customers this leaves you wondering where do I go? Then a gentleman says you need to check in with the hostess over there and points in a general direction. The tables are small and are lined up right next to each other forming one long table in front of the stage, the seating is very crowded, (the gentleman across from us commented I thought airline seating was tight), the center tables are the good viewing areas (as long as the persons closer to the stage lean in or out differently from the way you are leaning. The food is slightly over priced for the quality, or the temperature (ours was mildly warm). The service is very lax on checking on customers in 3 hours the wait staff came by 3 times. The music was good with both the main band and the warm up band. Leaving was fun it took 30 minutes to get a check and then the change was short which is ok because it got added into the tip. While in the Rest Room and during smoking on the patio a few other people who were there for the first time were very disappointed and were not coming back. Maybe it is different on name band nights or for breakfast but for me for over $100.00 this is not the kind of service I want or expect. I may try them again but only because I know so many that brag about the Dosey Doe. Definitely not a good first impression on several people.

Wondervista Studios

What an expensive mess! We paid $200 for a MoTown dance band on New Years eve and got a surprise warm up "band" that was 45 minutes of Hillbilly, Mighty Wind wanna be crud! When the Next Level band finally got on stage the first five songs were out of this world awesome and everyone was dancing, then they slipped into gangsta and line dancing junk. The band left the stage 30 minutes before midnight and we had to sit through the owners long winded talking leading up to the count down. We have seen great shows in the past and thought Doesy Does was a great, small venue experience, but the last couple of shows have been dreadful! They are really going downhill fast. I think the owner wants this once nice little spot to be some mega concert hall. He kept bragging about all the extra floors and space he was adding on. He has really gotten in over his head and needs to figure out if hes going to serve food and have a nice venue or have some sort of big bar deal. Speaking of the food, glad I am not sick this morning. The food took over an hour to come out and when it did it was cold and tough. They need to figure out how to make good on what they are charging people for before they go all big time in a small time venue. If I havent been clear enough - the food was aweful! Toughest chicken fried steak Ive ever had. Yuck! Bottom line is the owner should spend less time on stage and more time back in the kitchen watching his business.

Jean Schildhauer

OK, so this is just my opinion. I was going to let it go until last night when I had dinner with friends. The same friends my husband and I took to see Marshall Tucker a few weeks ago, which by the way, was client entertainment. We purchased 8 tickets all together, not cheap I may add. So, the meal was great, server did very well, all good there. Marshall Tucker, not so much. I think it was just a few months ago and we saw them and they were good, kinda like the old days. I realize that the most recent performance was a Sunday night and they may have been worn out from the weekend or the road or whatever. I feel that wasnt my problem, it cost us the same either way. If they played 10 - 12 songs, Id be surprised. All the talking that was done wasnt what we went to see not to mention they barely played anything that we wanted to hear. They should have turned the sax, flute, keyboard singer dude loose and let him carry the show. He could have easily done it! One of the couples we took with us graciously made an excuse and left, the others had no comment at the time but expressed their feelings last night. Not sure what else I can say other than we were disappointed and embarrassed that we made that choice as client entertainment.