Clara B's Kitchen Table — Restaurant in Belleville

This restaurant shares space with a coffee shop and you have to wait in two separate lines to order food in one and drinks in the other. Parking is limited and seating is extremely inadequate. The layout and the type of seating available was designed for the coffee shop, not a busy restaurant, and definitely not both. We were a party of four and arrived on Sunday at 9:20am. One of us waited in the coffee shop line while two of us waited in the food line and the last of our party eyeballed the tables like a vulture, waiting to pounce on the first one that became available. We stood, waiting over 20 minutes for a table, over 30 just to order our food, and after ordering, we waited an hour and 11 minutes for our food to be served. RIDICULOUS! If we hadn’t had to pay in advance and the line wasn’t so long, we would’ve stood back in it to get a refund at the 30 minute mark.

The worst part is that our food was served cold. Two of us ordered the biscuit with duck fat gravy and eggs over easy. We were extremely disappointed that the biscuit was hard and ice cold and there was barely enough gravy to cover the top of the biscuit. The gravy was ice cold and our eggs were overcooked, too. The other two members of our party ordered the crispy chicken sandwich with a side of mac & cheese and the gluten-free breakfast burrito, which they reported to be pretty good tasting.

Overall, our experience with the exceedingly long wait, cold food and lack of seating was a big disappointment, and I doubt we’ll return.

As a sidenote, I’m not sure what the maximum capacity of this establishment is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it exceeded the allowable by law. And although they have a wheelchair access ramp, anyone in a wheelchair would have a hard time getting around inside the restaurant, in my opinion from my...

My rating is not for the food or service, as we did not get a chance to experience either. My family was hoping to try both Clara B’s food and LongStory Coffee for the first time today, as we are new to the area. I know weekends are typically busy for brunch, but we had no clue what to expect with a new place. Upon our arrival around 1pm on a Sunday afternoon, all seating was filled, except for the coffee bar and the lines to order were lengthy. The concept of 2 separate service counters and self-seating in a restaurant/coffee shop hybrid is a little chaotic. Especially when it’s a somewhat small space shared by 2 seemingly popular businesses. Are the tables are meant to be primarily for Clara B’s customers, and the bar primarily for LongStory customers? It was unclear to us. But we would have been customers of both businesses if we’d had a suitable place to sit. We had our infant with us, and taking the food to go wasn’t an option due to us living 20 minutes from the business. After ordering coffees and waiting around for about 20 minutes, a family had offered us their table as they were leaving, but someone swooped it out from under us as we were waiting for it. That was just the cherry on top, so we left and ate somewhere else. It was an overall unfortunate and somewhat frustrating experience. We hope to return in the future when it’s not as busy, if...

My family loved Clara B's! We went for a birthday lunch for my grandma and found out while there and from reading a magazine article about the restaurant that the style inside is called "hipster grandma," so we chose the right spot for lunch with our hipster grandma. 👵😆

The food was INCREDIBLE! Probably the best I've ever eaten in Downtown Belleville. It's authentic southern cooking, the biscuits tasted exactly like my Texan mother-in-law's. I hope this place gets more press and is successful. The last several businesses in this location failed quickly. But I'm eager to see an already successful business and delicious menu thrive here in town.

I had the minestrone with gnocchi and grilled cheese and plan on getting the turkey cranberry brie toasted sandwich next time. I plan on going back next week because I just know that sandwich will taste like Thanksgiving and it's making my mouth water just thinking about it. The other meal pictured is the loaded...