Main Street Bistro — Restaurant in Hendersonville

My son and I wanted to try something different for lunch and searched Google Maps. The Main Street Bistro was listed and had an overall five-star review. Reuben (owner) was very welcoming and friendly. The atmosphere was elegantly simple and Cafe in style and provided a pleasant dining feel.

It seems that their specialty is meals made from exotic meats. They have chalkboard menus for breakfast and lunch that I saw. (There may have been others but I do not remember seeing them.) Since we wanted to try something different, the item we ordered was the Bistro Burger which is made from bison, elk, wild hog and wagyu beef.

I was a bit hesitant to pay the $13.99 price tag for the Bistro Burger, but my son and I decided to give it a try as it was something we had never tasted before. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to get the burgers cooked. The burgers were presented on a brioche bun with "flat fries"... steak fries cut in long pieces and are flat.

If the burgers had not been so overcooked they probably would have had a more defined taste. However, sections of my burger were cooked to the point of being hard to cut with a knife and fork. Very, very well done. Both my son and I said that we could taste no difference between them and a beef burger. In fact, I could not taste the meat at all. Disappointing when you consider we spent over $30 for a meal that did not taste any different than a regular burger (albeit a bit crispy and very bland meat).

On a positive note I will say that Reuben was very friendly and seemed knowledgeable about the different meats. My son gave the suggestion that customers have the option to order their meat to the level they want it cooked as you would with steak (rare, medium rare, medium, well done).

I wish they would have offered to replace our overcooked burgers but did not. I understand they are just getting started so costs and budgets are very important for the cafe. However, I'm sad to say we will...

The young lady who took our order at the counter and who brought out our food was very nice. I overheard the owner talking to a group beside us because they had said that their food had come out cold. They were offered new food to be made but they said they didn't wanna wait on fresh food to be made. The owner sounded very professional and friendly from what I overheard. So professionalism and friendliness is awesome from our experience! However, the food was lacking. We ordered two orders of biscuits and gravy and a bistro breakfast meal. The biscuits tasted like they were frozen biscuits and the gravy tasted like powdered gravy mix that was whipped up with some water. The bacon was a very flimsy thin type of bacon as well. I will say though that the skillet potatoes were very good! I regularly make homemade biscuits with buttermilk, White Lily flour, and butter and whip up some homemade gravy from my bacon grease that I keep in the fridge. Today, we were out running some errands and thought we would try a local restaurant that we've never ate at before that had awesome reviews. We we're sadly disappointed. On behalf of southern folks everywhere, please consider rethinking your traditional southern breakfast offerings. Maybe we just ordered the wrong thing but biscuits, gravy, bacon, and eggs aren't hard to get right if they're made fresh. I'm sure their other offerings are delicious, but...

I was excited to try this place but this was our first and last time. Our visit started off disappointing because they were out of the item I wanted. My son ordered the bistro burger (their most expensive burger with wild game meat and he was advised it would take 35 mins to make. He really wanted to try it so we were ok with it. 20 mins after we sat down, the waitress comes and says they are out of the bistro burger and he could get the cheeseburger instead and she insisted it must be the CHEESEburger. Hmmm, a little odd but ok. But here’s my problem. She did not apologize for the inconvenience. They waited 20 mins to tell us. She offered no refund which was due because my son ended up with a cheaper menu item.

And finally another small irritation was that I ordered a hot tea and they would only allow me to get more hot water. The waitress said I could not have another tea bag without paying for another cup. I’ve never been to a restaurant that does not allow free refills and new bags for hot tea. There are too many other great establishments in the area to patronize to waste...