Restaurant review: Babe’s Chicken Dinner House in Frisco

by Nancy Krabill of Blog From Afar

After salad with a sweet vinaigrette and biscuits served with honey and sorghum molasses, our pinched-nose, “that’s silly -- too much food” antennae had retracted.

Photo by Laura Seewoester

From a Dallasite’s perspective, we live unimaginably North of town. North of Northwest Highway, of LBJ Expressway, even of Highway 121 (only Highway 380 serves as a northern border of our McKinney outpost). We are not privy to the cornucopia of delights and choices that our more urban friends take for granted. BUT! We have discovered Babe’s Chicken Dinner House in Frisco.

Owned by the same good folks that bring us Bubba’s just off Snider Plaza, Babe’s is an almost-all-you-can-eat establishment in Frisco near Pizza Hut Park. Now, I’m no fan of the “trough”: Whether it’s the Golden Corral or Maggiano’s, if the end in mind is to overwhelm with choices and numb the eater with a sheer quantity of food, there’s a price to be paid in terms of discernment and quality.

So when our perky waitress informed us that we would be selecting a meat from a limited selection (such as fried chicken, chicken tenders, chicken fried steak, fried fish, etc.) and the predetermined sides (salad, green beans, mashed potatoes, cream corn, biscuits) were “all-u-can…” I was a little skeptical, but there we were, and almost late to our movie matinee. When we heard that the fried chicken entree consisted of a breast, thigh, drumstick, and wing (that would be for one diner), we chose to order one entree with meat ($10.99) and a second with only the vegetables ($6.49). Good call, as it turned out.

My food snob antennae were raised high and practically saluting when the salad arrived: iceberg, of course, swimming in something or other. But! The sweet vinaigrette reminded me of my Nana’s cucumber mix and it was great: light and tasty. I wanted more! As we munched, the waitstaff serenaded us by singing the “Hokey-Pokey.”

Then, out came the main course. First, biscuits! They were good, not perfect, but at Babe’s they have the good sense to serve them with a choice of honey or sorghum molasses. As it should be! The fried chicken was fine, wonderful crunchy crust flavored with herbs a la Bubba's. The sides were great! Big Kentucky Wonder green beans with plenty of pot likker and salt. Sweet corn so satisfying and mashed potatoes and gravy full of volume and flavor.

Need we say that our pinched-nose, “that’s silly -- too much food” antennae had retracted and we dug in for all we were worth. Sure, it was only lunch time, sure, we had a whole day of activity ahead, not to mention a movie for which we needed to stay somewhat conscious. We finished it all, rubbed our happy bellies, and wandered out into the bright blue Frisco daylight.

If you’re going: Babe’s is BYOB, which can be a good thing if you’re planning ahead. Click here for a menu and more locations.