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“The best fries EVER”
08/20/2008 6:00 AM by John M
The hungry ladies from Eating Out Richmond make a visit to the Hill Cafe and give the joint a solid thumbs up:
Although it’s not somewhere I’d go for any kind of special, exotic or fancy cuisine, the food we had was good, and we will be back at some point, I am sure. And it’s my unsolicited opinion that a Saturday brunch menu would bring a lot of folks in” of course then there wouldn’t be anywhere for me to sit.
If you want special, exotic or fancy at the Swill Cafe, then we’re calling all “hungry ladies” to show up on Saturday Night for Johnny Razz-ma-tazz’s Techno Dance Party! Johnny Razz’s hot licks are reknown from the Castro to the Faubourg to the Village!
Its not on the menu, but if you ask Staples for “off-menu” items when it’s slow. He makes the best “canadian” man-wich! I guess the “hawaiian” involves some type of pineapple?
What kind of a name is “Staples” anyway?
Hey Displaced- You have to admit it’s better than being called “Office Depot”…
I’ve eaten countless dinners and Sunday afternoon lunches either at or carried out from Hill. Needless to say, it’s always good. You wouldn’t expect a filet in there to be that great, but I’ve never had one that isn’t.
I hear they are remodeling turning a old boat into a Tiki bar.
boat? tiki bar? huh?
Best fries “ever”? Not sure about that. Their fries are good (the homemade chips better) but their fries border on being potato sticks like you get in a can.
At one time Style and others had written up that 821 Bakery Cafe (821 W Cary) had the best fries in town!
Eric
There’s something about The Hill Cafe that always has me leaving satisfied. Simple, consistently good food and a “tag team” service approach which rarely has my drink not refilled within seconds. The girls that work the floor are wonderful…always pleasant, friendly and efficient.
Again… not sure about “consistency”. When we first started going there 10 years ago, there was more of a cuisine chef working the kitchen and there were wonderful fare presented nicely. Like when you ordered a house salad it was filled up with chunks of veggies and if you ordered Blue Cheese dressing, you got crumbled fresh blue cheese on the top of the homemade dressing… not any more. And I miss those plate sized hot and oozing with cheese Quesadillas they use to make.
I have noticed some variances in how food was cooked lately especially brunch as well as portion sizes have gotten smaller. We have seen several management and cook changes over the years and things are starting to get a little off center concerning “consistency”.
They do still have a great Filet Mignon for a non steak house.
The noise decibel level is still overbearing if you try to have an intimate one-on-one conversation at the table and you end up exhausted trying to shout over it and give up at times trying to hear what the person across from you is saying.
Eric
Realizing that this is a picky post — why did the Hill Cafe have to switch their green beans? They used to be sautéed and yummy. Now they’re boiled and taste like canned. 🙁
But! The Fried Chicken Blue Plate (with gravy!) plus a good-n-gooey mac-n-cheese is still a treat! I just order the spinach now.
True story: one night, my husband had a burger and I had the chicken salad. The next night I was vomiting (among other things), so my husband went back to the Hill Cafe for a quick dinner. When he told the waitress why I wasn’t with him when she asked, she said “Oh, she must have gotten the same thing that we all got. …yep, that’s exactly what we got.” Needless to say, my husband ordered something steaming hot that night.
And that was the last time I ever ate at the Hill Cafe.
Regardless of that experience, we were eating there less and less, for a multitude of reasons.
It looks like management could care less these days and we had yet another bad experience for Sunday’s brunch. The waitress was not very friendly, when we ordered our meals she came back to say that they didn’t have any biscuits as we ordered extras. I said “did they forget to make them” and she said that they weren’t any good. She offered “toast” so I asked if we could have English Muffins instead? She said they don’t have that sort of thing so we settled on toast yet perplexed as their Eggs Benedict is served on English Muffins!
We had omelets but instead of the usual 3-eggs it looked more like 2-eggs and we received 3 “halves” of toast. Is that “extra” toast? I also ordered milk and the glass came not full (over 1 inch below the top of the glass). My friend had a glass of Chardonnay and when he asked for a second, we saw the waitress climbing the liquor rack looking for more! She had to open a different type and made it a point to say it was a “better” type.
Overall experience… unpleasant.
And did note that a couple of weeks ago at 11:00am the place was packed and we had to wait for a table. This week at the same time we could take our pick of tables… wonder why???
And I know a couple years past I complained in a letter about lousy service and was only offered an apology with no complimentary meal to make up for it like most places would do. Doubt complaining about Sunday would make a difference nor with your food poisoning incident other than taking it to the Board of Health.
Don’t think the Hill Cafe is trying to make the “Best” lists any longer and have noticed a change ever since they opened Deluxe and when Acapello closed.
Eric
Eric, since you have never had anything good to say and have a complaint list a mile long, why in he!! do you keep going back there? Do you just like to fins fault with the place?
Because I am a forgiving type of person and keep hoping things will improve. I don’t go there that often so things could change between visits. I just keep hoping for the better.
Oh but I am not the “only” person complaining. Ruth mentioned food poisoning but did you attack her? No… just me.
Eric
I emailed the owners about my experience and they apologized, spoken to the employees so this type of thing doesn’t happen again, and are sending a gift certificate… the way things should work!
Now if they could just replace the small booth seats (never understood why they cut those benches down to reduce seating capacity) where you have to nearly upset the table to get out of as well as noise levels.
Eric
The only real complaint I have about The Hill is the bartenders ridiculous choice of music during the weeknights.
I’m not asking for a jazz or piano bar but my friend and I had to get up and leave because neither of us speak sign language and verbal communication was out of the question with the volume level of 1980’s Heavy Metal.
That pissed me off so badly I haven’t been back since….Note to the bartender…It’s not about you buddy, it’s about your paying customers. I rarely complain about the food but I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay money and be subjected to that bullshit all night.
What a joke.
I dunno. I been there a few times during the week, heard all different types of stuff. Can’t say hair metal was one of them. Sometimes the place basically becomes a bar as the night goes on…the later, the louder. To be fair, I’ve heard 80’s metal at the other two Church Hill spots many, many times. Maybe the guys at the bar, who, like you, also pay and are also there alot more…requested it. Both Poe’s and Accapella could be as loud and as rowdy on any given night. Louder, even.
I didn’t bother reporting my food poisoning to the board of health because I didn’t have any leftovers for them to test. My husband and I simply vowed never to go back and we haven’t. Fortunately, there are some new reasonable restaurants that have opened in the bottom, and that’s where we’ll go if we don’t want to go far. Or we will go to Que Pasa, which was fairly crowded on the Saturday night we went. The mojito is the best in town, in my limited opinion.
I would like to thank you all for your comments and concerns from your recent visits to The Hill Cafe. We value and cherish our Church Hill neighborhood and take our reputation and all complaints very seriously. On behalf of my staff and myself I apologize for any unpleasant visit you may have had. We try very hard to make every visit to the Hill cafe a perfect one and listen to our customers when we fall short.
I would like to address a few of your valid concerns one by one.
Rick, we try to give the chef some creative license to try different approaches in the preparation of the food. But this situation falls under the category of “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Therefore I agree with you and they have been switched back to the previous sauteed “al dente” version.
Andrew, I, like you, want to be able to talk to the person that I’m next to in a restaurant. I have had conversations with all of the bartenders about the approved type of music and levels at which it may be played. None of which includes any kind of heavy metal or head banging music as being acceptable and certainly not loud. The bartenders are however given more freedom after 10:00 p.m.
Eric, I would like to thank you again for your understanding and personal correspondence in the matter of your complaints.Please allow me to answer your last question about the booths. The change was made in order to accommodate multiply large parties at one time as well as a large group of up to twenty. This could not have been accomplished without making the booths smaller. And although there are fewer seats we now have more tables, which makes the wait time less.
Ruth, I am very sorry that you were ill after leaving the restaurant. We obviously take these complaints the most serious. That being said, what was meant by the server when she stated, “Oh, she must have gotten the same thing that we all got.” Was not in reference to food poising but rather a virus that had plagued much of the staff in which may were out of work for days recovering. I would love the opportunity to regain you as a loyal customers and hope you will contact me at the e-mails address below so that I can attempt to make that happen.
And finally to those of you who left positive comments. Thank You. Our great staff tries very hard to keep our neighborhood cafe running smooth and although we cannot please everyone all of the time it is our goal to continue to try our hardest to leave everyone satisfied and happy.
I apologize for the lengthy reply and appreciate your feedback and continued patronage.
Sincerely,
Jared Golden
TheHillCafe@aol.com