Bell Buckle Cafe

Reviews 3

A

A Private User

I read a bad review of this place and it astounded me. All of the things that they complained about are the things I find most charming at Bell Buckle Cafe. For anyone dissappointed with the wait time and hard working musicians passing around a tip jar, this place is not for you. Live music at small venues is funded by tip-jars. If you are not used to that, maybe you should only watch national acts that are highly paid, not starving artist like anyone that would play at a meat and 3 is. Also, if you do not like your family dinner inturrupted, you might want to enjoy your private family dinners at home. Bell Buckle Cafe is an institution. When you go, come in with a good attitude and expect to be seated at the same table with strangers. It is not an environment that is conducive to private family dinners. The environment is much more like crashing some unknown folks family reunion: good food and oodles of friendly strangers. Come hungry. Their food is absolutely delicious. I like the pulled chicken with red beans and rice, fried red potatoes and the spinach and strawberry salad with the homemade burgundy poppyseed dressing. Fried biscuits with apple butter make a great appetizer and their lemonade is the best. You HAVE to order it, even if you bring beer or wine to be served to you... at least order one jar of the fresh-squeezed lemonade! The owner is very friendly and hospitable. However, you must keep in mind that this IS NOT a chain restaurant. They have a way of doing things and their way of doing things is working because people are clawing the door down to try to get in. When you go, notice the worn patch in the stone step leading to the front door. If you do not like the way they operate, trust me, they can do without your business. Saturday is a good day to go. That is when they are broadcasting a live radio show. Come early or they might run out of spinach and strawberry salad. If they do, be sure to order a side salad so that you can at least taste their wonderful house dressing. I have never been dissappointed in the music, it is what it is. Some of it suits my tastes, some of it is not my favorite. I am most impressed with the hearts of the hard-working musicians that want to play there. If you are expecting Bruce Springsteen to be on the stage when you can get there, you can forget it. What you can expect are bands that are passionate about their particular music. They play it to the best of their ability and never give a half-hearted performance. For some reason, no matter how long it has been between visits, the owner always gives me a look of recognition. Maybe she does that to everyone, I dunno. When I cross that worn threshold I feel like I am coming to a family members home. Its comfortable, clean, lively and fun. I would probably go even if the food was bad, but lucky for me the food is spectacular! The wait staff is great. They are attentive and well-trained. They work together as a team and I have never had bad service there. The service is not stuffy, it is very comfortable. They serve you the same way you would serve one of your own dinner guests. To each his own, but anyone that does not want to go to Bell Buckle Cafe is only making more room for me. I go to Bell Buckle Cafe because of its eccentricities. If I wanted a quiet, uninterrupted, country family dinner accompanied with top-notch music, I would fry a chicken and listen to the radio at home with my shades drawn and doors locked. I prefer what I like to call "foodertainment" when I dine and that is what Bell Buckle Cafe provides..(at a very resonable price!). I love bringing in a six-pack, waiting outside in a rocking chair to be seated, sharing my table with friendly strangers, eating great food, being treated like family, watching a band that never "made it" give it their all, and leaving with a happy heart and a wallet that still has money in it. I love Bell Buckle Cafe!

A

A Private User

For many years thats all Ive heard is, you have to go to the Bell Buckle Cafe. From what people told me it stays really full so I called to see if they took reservations and to my surprise they said yes! I placed our reservations and later that evening here we go. We arrived with our family approx. 5-10 mins. before our reservations. I FINALLY got the hostesss attention and let her know we were there. She said ok I will let so and so know. We preced to wait and wait and wait. They continued to IGNORE us. After 30-45 mins. I asked the lady when would we be seated since we had reservations and all these other ppl were being seated. She informed me that their REGULAR customers had to be seated first. I was SHOCKED and ticked off. They DID NOT tell me this when I first made the reservation. Then they seated us by the "music". DREADFULLLLLLLL. Then to make it worse the man who was playing and singing if thats what you want to call it his WIFE yes I said WIFE went around to the tables and INTERRUPTED our family meal and everyone elses asking for tips for him! Are you kidding me?!? I really was SHOCKED! The nerve of this mans wife asking for donations. And yes I have ALL my facts straight. The food was okay nothing like I thought. Some things they had already run out of and this was on a Friday night and are reservations were at 6pm. Not that it meant anything because we got seated when they wanted to seat us. The lady host kept whispering into ppls ears..................like a child...............not sure who was waiting beside us but they must have been some BIG WIG in that big ole town and she was trying hard to smooth it over because she knew we should have been seated longggg ago and these ppl thought they should. Anyway I wasnt impressed with ANYTHING. Not the food, service, or music! WE WON"T BE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GE

Geraldine Carter

My daughter and I had dinner at the Bell Buckle Cafe on Railroad Street this evening. Although we dont live very far away from the Bellwood Cafe it has been a few years since we have eaten there. Of course it was the same very friendly very good food. To us its the quaint place to be to get away from all the traffic noise and relax while you eat. The cafe was pretty full everyone talking and enjoying themselves, and there were children laughing with their family a very pleasant thing to be around a family atmosphere. As we were leaving we enjoyed looking at the beautiful 1800 homes that had been preserved so carefully and so elegant. Places like these are the place to be often with family and friends. We both have decided to make Bell Buckle a place for us to visit more often and enjoy the serenity and the peace of mind you get while there. We are definitely going to book The Walker B&B a 1890s Victorian home with a real fireplace in the bathroom. We knew we wanted to linger we also knew we had to head back home to the traffic and noise and all that goes with it. Now we know we can get away most anytime we want.