Phenolates and their substituted analogues are important molecular motifs in many biological molecules, including the family of fluorescent proteins based on green fluorescent protein. We have used a combination of anion photoelectron velocity-map imaging measurements and quantum chemistry calculations to probe the electronic structure of the phenolate anion and difluoro- and dimethoxy-substituted analogues. We report vertical detachment energies (VDEs) and quantify the photoelectron angular distributions. The VDEs for phenolate (2.26 +/- 0.03 eV, 3.22 +/- 0.02 eV) are in agreement with high-resolution measurements, whereas the values for the substituted analogues (2.61 +/- 0.03 eV for difluorophenolate; similar to 2.35 eV for dimethoxyphenolate) are new measurements. We also report adiabatic excitation energies (AEEs) of anion resonances and discuss their contributions to the overall photoelectron angular distributions. The AEE of the lowest lying resonance in phenolate (similar to 3.36 eV) is consistent with previous measurements, whereas the value for the next resonance (similar to 3.7 eV) is a new measurement. The AEEs of the resonances in the substituted analogues (similar to 3.74 eV for difluorophenolate; and similar to 3.74 eV for dimethoxyphenolate) are new measurements.