Venues Cafe — Restaurant in Carefree

This was our first time at the Venus Cafe. When we went to carefree to pick up some flavored balsamic vinegars and olive oils, we didn't realize that it was bike weekend! We probably saw more than 5,000 bikers! What a nice treat to look at 🤣 so we went out of town just a little bit to have lunch and pick the Venus Cafe. They had a really nice menu to choose from lots of options, when we arrived we didn't know that they were having fryer issues so anything that needed to be deep fried was not available on the menu and we're thinking that's why Linda's taco salad did not come with a tortilla shell but she said it still was very delicious. My veggie panini had a lot of great flavor points to it. The sourdough bread had a nice tanginess and the crunch added some great texture to the sandwich. Reading back over the menu I noticed that my panini was supposed to have mushrooms and a pesto mayo. It was funny when I was eating the sandwich I thought you know this would really be good with mushrooms! The zucchini had a thick texture to it that held up against the grill, and had a nice smokiness to it and added a good depth to the flavor of this sandwich. The spinach was fresh, not cooked. I like how the tomatoes were sickly sliced so you could get a really nice taste of the tomato. The tomato was ripe and had a very nice heirloom flavor to it. The mayonnaise on the sandwich did pick up the smokiness from the grilled zucchini that rounded out the sandwich. Our waitress was very informative and very attentive. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this quaint cafe. Would I go...

Update 12/23 While I have been a patron here for years, that has ended. Really the primary reason for visiting the place was because of the bar manager, who they cut loose lately. She has a huge following, and the operation at Venues since her departure has really gone downhill. But even more, I was recently charged 20% tax on my drinks. The legal amount of tax is 9.3%. I asked both the bartender and the owner, and they assured me the amount charged (20%) was tax. The owner even went so far as to be derisive of other establishments that don't charge this. By chance I was wearing a personal digital recorder, and I have the entire episode recorded. No question of error or misunderstanding. So no - I won't be going there anymore. end update Maybe not what you might expect for a place located in Sundial on Easy Street. I expect a tourist spot, and this is a locals favorite. They know you here. Mix between a sports bar and a nice dinner restaurant. Terrific service. Good Happy Hour. Really cool huge stone wall. And essentially two bars where you can have a small group facing each other, or the long bar with less intimacy. Good food, casual. Parking in Sundial can be rough. And very important - from outside this place always looks like it is closed - they need to work on that. So don't be fooled, give...

Disappointed, again!

Venues had become one of our “go to” restaurants, however we are now questioning returning

During a recent Tuesday evening we were sitting at the bar. It was apparent the lone bartender was completely overwhelmed by the number of patrons. Usually there are two bartenders on staff during the evening hours. Unfortunately, yet another bartender has left Venues. It appears they have a difficult time retaining quality bartenders. Another bartender was in the restaurant, however was assigned to wait tables for the evening

It took the lone bartender 15 minutes to come and get our food order (along with 2 other couples), another 10 minutes for him to have time to enter the order and another 45 minutes before the food arrived. We don’t fault the bartender, as it was all he could do to keep on top of drink orders for the bar and entire restaurant

Sadly, the manager (and owner) didn’t look to shift staff to help the bartender through the rush. In fact, one of the other servers spent most of her time at the bar folding napkins. The manager/owner also didn’t come by to apologize for how late food was being delivered

We understand how difficult it is to find/retain quality employees these days. Sadly, the owner/manager of Venues don’t seem to value...