Location: 7901 Forest Pine Dr. Charlotte, NC 28273
I write this review with a heavy heart and sadness in my eyes, for I have lost one of my bedrock restaurants. Café South was one of my regular, go-to restaurants. The food was usually good, especially with their ability to serve up a rather tasty salad. It wasn’t an establishment I would sit down and eat in often (although I did occasionally), but rather a place where I would grab take-out when we were too lazy to cook. It delivered quality food, at a reasonable price, for some time. To say it was a regular in my rotation is an understatement; but Café South no longer has me as a customer, for reasons that will soon become apparent.
The Good: It bears repeating that Café South served a tasty salad, their food overall was good, but I found their salads to be exceptional. The Greek salad with chicken or salmon couldn’t be beat for the price; another stand out item was the fried green tomato appetizer. The entire place reminds me of an old school diner in New York; there is nothing commercial about this restaurant, it was just good food. The servers are always friendly and treat the customers well and are usually pretty quick. Additionally, they reward their regulars: the restaurant offers a gift card, where if you buy $100 worth you get $120 on the card. I know that I personally saved $80 at least by this card, as mentioned I was a regular.
The Bad: Consistency and care are the major flaws with this restaurant; I am not sure how many chefs they have, but it seems they are confused as to how to make certain items. I had been ordering the same dish for about 6 months, three times a week. Most of the time it was pretty standard, but there were many times it had variations. One time the Salmon would be skinned and seasoned well, then another time it would have the skin on with no seasoning. I have had various vegetables make an appearance on one salad and find them absent in the next salad. The restaurant’s problems started to get worse as of late, when they started mixing up the their own salads. Two weeks ago, I ordered two Greek salads, and ended up getting cheddar cheese melted along with hard boiled eggs -atop salmon.. To their credit, I called the next day and they gave me a free order, recognizing I was a regular. Fast forward one week, and they made the exact same mistake, this time I caught it before I left; while they “fixed it”, they left the same proteins. Which I discovered when I opened my highly anticipated salad, and the protein still had melted cheddar on both it and the lettuce. Now, I know these are first world problems, but dammit, I live in the first world. In spite of all of this, I STILL considered them to be my regular spot, until this last time…
The Ugly: I am aware that things happen in a restaurant, but this last time I had an extra ingredient I couldn’t ignore….a long hair. After two ingredient screw-ups in the prior weeks, I was now being served hair. The worst part about this, is that I had found a hair in my food a month earlier and just threw it away. It took me a bit of time to mentally get over it, but I did. To find a second hair in my food, was too much for me to overlook.
The Verdict 4 out of 10: If you desire food that you could potentially eat with a fork or a comb, and the taste of gel is appetizing: Bon Appetit`; these kinds of obvious mistakes say they are not too concerned about what they serve to the customer. For this reason I can not recommend them, which if you asked me a week ago, wouldn’t have been the case.