Pampell's - Kerrville Texas

Pampell's Restaurant (category Italian)

701 Water Street
Kerrville, TX 78028-5319
(830) 896-2000

Open Tue-Wed 11am-9pm; Thu-Fri 11am-2am; Sat 5pm-2am; also open Sun

This is a restaurant seated in an old building off of Water St in Kerrville dated back into the early 1900's. My husband and I decided to simply drop in to sample it as we had passed it by so often as it has the character of what looks like a slash of an old Italian Food location with the outside hinting almost as though it surrounded itself with an Irish looking pub straight out of the Boondock Saints. The whole setting for this restaurant, at the intersection of Water St and Sidney Baker, traveling down this small little block you get a strange feeling of nostalgia hinting at you as you wonder at the age of the boutiques traveling past the old 1901 restaurant.

Lots of energy of those who joyously walked before you lingering, reminding you of a time where quality mattered. My husband and I are assuming we arrived on an immensely off time, late night on a Tuesday. Besides a bartender, and one waiter there was us and only one person at the bar. The old adage came to mind that the food is only as good as the crowd that surrounds it, and we were apprehensive that for such an old and established restaurant with so much character it was worrisome that only a total of three diners including ourselves were there.

The menu is obviously intricately planned, which is important because it's also a limited menu. Perhaps it's just limited in the late evenings; I would have to go back for an early lunch and dinner to determine if we simply had received the "late" menu.

However, late night, limited service and anemic atmosphere aside we ultimately fell away into a world of food and the quaintness of the environment helped us to feel as though we had somehow reserved the whole restaurant for ourselves. We could hear ourselves speak; the one waiter was always available. I ordered the Crab Cakes which the waiter was logical and enthusiastic enough about his own restaurant’s menu to make suggestions to make a meal out of the Crab Cake appetizer. Everything was prepared to perfection. Complexities in the sauce and the special little salad greens offered a fresh contradiction to the deliciously warm Cakes that were seasoned in such a way that you felt you were eating fresh off the beach after gathering the freshest of ingredients.

The service was excellent, immensely attentive. Never once did we need to ask the waiter to back away, nor did we have to ever ask for a refill on anything. This is what I call the perfect Yin/Yang of service. Not so much 'help" that you feel the waiter waits until you take a bite to assault you just so you can't answer, not so little service that you wonder if the waiter got locked outside smoking a ciggy.

His care and attention to detail made the feeling of us being VIP all the more real.

This is definitely a restaurant I would suggest and is thus far the closest to 5/5 one could get. My complaints, immensely minor, perhaps a little more to offer on the menu. There is nothing wrong with specializing is a few dishes so perfectly done that a customer base can easily come back for that one dish that's made perfectly and simply cannot be made anywhere else.

If you are wanting to get away as a couple, with the feeling of VIP without having to make the trouble of setting up a reservation or extra cost I would suggest visiting during the mid week, after 7 PM. There is no slacking on the service or the food preparation and the chances that you will be able to hear that special loved quest with you speak over such a lovely ambience is greatly amplified.

Sans my petty quibbles, I give this a 5/5 as they did what they did with excellent service, food, perfect ambience and it obviously doesn't matter what time you do....the water is always fine.