Sweet Relish Cafe - Villa Maria — Restaurant in Bryan

🥪☕️🥧

I've driven by this place so many times & always been curious, & finally decided to give it a try! It was kinda a gloomy cloudy morning & I was one of the first customers to walk in after opening. Before I ordered, since I noticed on the online menu they had their pies listed as 'everyday pies' & 'nondairy' pies, & then it said 'ask about today's selections,' I did just that. The guy working the counter was not super friendly or outgoing. I tried to point to a specific slice to see if it was a nondairy pie & he listed the ingredients he knew & then made a comment about how he didn't make it. At that point I probably should have just passed on the pie & probably gotten the banana pudding as it's a popular Texas dessert & I am a big fan, but I unfortunately didn't see the advertisement until I was paying.

Since the place is called 'Sweet Relish' I wanted to try something with the sweet relish 😉. So I picked a half chicken salad sandwich. [ As advertised: made with white meat chicken, sweet relish, boiled eggs, mayo w/ lettuce & tomato on whole wheat bread. ] When I ordered the guy taking my order asked me what type of chicken salad sandwich I wanted. Not realizing there was more then one type he began to then mansplain me in detail each different sandwich instead of simply saying the classic or the almond. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot somehow with the pies? Maybe it was just early & he wasn't feeling it yet? Anyway I added the green apple slaw which came with a drink. [ As advertised: Green Apple Slaw - shredded cabbage, julienne granny smith apples tossed with our apple citrus vinaigrette. ] It definitely would have been a better bargain to just add chips & a drink for $2.25, or just add chips for $1.25. He asked if I wanted a regular or a large & I said regular.

My order came out fast. More customers were coming in after me which is always a good sign. It was quite a lot of beverage for a regular. You could pick between coffee, 4 different teas, or fountain drinks.

My food was tasty, It can be hard to find chicken salad, tuna sald, etc without onions, so that was a win for me! The apple slaw was good, the apples blended in, & by the end of both it felt like A LOT OF MAYO! [ Especially for a half a chicken salad sandwich, you couldn't really taste much else on the sandwhich. ] I think with the cloudy morning maybe a soup might have been a better pairing with it as a palet cleanser.

They advertised for bluebell ice cream ( it is TX! 😄 ) I happen to have some at home , & didn't eat all my pie. I warmed it & tryed it ala mode. No matter how I ate my slice of pie it was just meh. The pies topping- some kinda Oat & sugar crumble was the best part. The rest of it was dry. I don't know if it was day old but it didn't taste freshly made. Maybe a different flavor would hold up better?

🍴 All in all could be a better value, definitely not TX sized portions for the price, but the food itself was good. Maybe don't go right at open & hopefully you'll get better...

The review is for my daughter, and her dishearten moment when she thought she got a bag of chips with her Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich, and … did not. I asked about this, on her behalf and he said it is $7.00 for just the sandwich - ok - then my brain would just not let it go. WOW! $7.00 for two slices of bread a swat of peanut butter and a smidgen of grape jelly. Well, maybe the profit margin is so close they cannot afford to add the chips. So off to Walmart, I went to look up the cost of the 3 needed ingredients. This is what I found: Name Brand - Mrs Baird's white sandwich 24.6 cents top and bottom, Jiff Peanut Butter 19 cents for two tablespoons (1 serving) and Welches Grape Jelly at 7.5 cents for 1 tablespoon (1 serving) for a total of 51.1¢ and a markup of 1369.86% of the profit. How about the Generic Walmart brand? Bread 12 cents. Peanut Butter is 10.2 cents, and Grape Jelly is 4.3 cents for a total of 26.5¢ and a profit margin of 2641.5%

I will say that the buttermilk pie is fantastic and not am not going to do the breakdown on that one.

I do not mean to be rude it just hit me hard that a kid does not get a bag of chips with her PB&J sandwich.

I will continue to eat at Sweet Relish - I like the food. There are times when curiosity must be explored in order for the brain to …...

My favorites: the Ruben and a slice of pie...any pie...must have pie!

There's really no bad choice on the menu...although I can't really say the same for eatery's name choice...

Formerly--and more accurately--known as "Must be Heaven," a literal, definitive summation of the grub, and rebranded as "Sweet Relish, " (Huh?!? 🤔🤯) only the name has changed. Not sure why or if that was necessary or whimsy, but the 'nee MBH was a Helluva good moniker, for God's sake! Just one bite, and you'll think you've died and got your wings!👼

Whereas, unless I missed it, "sweet relish" isn't even a plate garnish, let alone a side option...TISK! TISK! 👿🤥🤐it's a sin to lie, but there's enough goodness to be found among the tasty items to persuade any pearly gate keeper to let it slide🙏😇...in fact, the sign on the front of the building could say "Must be Hell," and I'd still tell you to go there!

Nitpicking aside, these folks get a thunderous round of applause because serving heavenly bites isn't the only thing they do religiously. They're still closed on Sunday in observance of the...