Shirley Mae’s Cafe — Restaurant in Louisville

We were in town for a few days and were leaving that day. We wanted to try something local before we flew out later in the afternoon. We drive over to “Smoke Town” a Black neighborhood in Louisville.

The cafe is walk up with a few tables in front. It seems most people do take away. The staff of the restaurant were awesome. The younger of the two men had an almost freakish ability to manage names of all the customers …I was sorta jealous. He was cool and busted my chops for not ordering any green vegetables with my lunch special (I'm not sorry though).

The other patrons were very cool and we met some of the locals who go there regularly, including an older couple clad in their Sunday church duds.

The only downside, the food took forever, We waited an hour or more. The wait got more pleasant when the younger man walked across the street and put on some great music at the bottle shop.

We had planned to eat there. The weather was amazing! But, we weren’t anticipating the long wait, so we had to take it to the airport and eat there.

Now, for the best part….the food was totally worth the wait. I got the meatloaf with Mac and cheese and sweet potatoes. My wife got the chicken wings with Mac and fried corn. The portions were generous and everything was outstanding.

The chicken wings are really fried chicken. They’re huge and some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever tasted. The sides were solid and the two fried biscuits were almost like a dessert!

The regulars told us the long wait that day was really unusual, so I wouldn’t get too hung up on that. Other than that, it was a cool lunch spot. I’d totally go back or recommend them to friends. Definitely fits the role of what I like to call...

AMAZING!! The whole experience was outstanding, from calling in the order, to picking it up, eating and recuperating afterwards from being so full! Lol! We first tried Shirley Mae's during the COVID-19 shutdown. From the moment the gentleman answered the phone, everything about the experience was enjoyable. He was very pleasant, didn't mind at all that I asked tons of questions and gave some great suggestions as well. The prices are INCREDIBLY AFFORDABLE, for larger than average portion sizes. We were in the middle of moving to Old Louisville, so our whole crew was exhausted and starving. There was not one dish that any of us had that we didn't thoroughly enjoy, and that we had to fave about to everybody! The greens are outta this world; the spare ribs, unbelievable; the hot water cornbread was delicious; the meatloaf, OMG it was incredible; and the peach cobbler was to die for! We are all very much looking forward to when quarantine is lifted, so we can all go there and eat in and have a few drinks. Definitely a new favorite place to eat. You could just taste the love, effort and time put into every dish. DON'T MISS OUT ON THE BEST FOOD IN...

I wish I could honestly give this place no stars! And chase down people that gave this low end restaurant in shady part of town five stars. And had me and my whole family hyped. Thinking we were in for good taste soul food on Saturday July 31st. When I called in the lady over the phone said my three orders two with pork chops one with chicken would be done in approximately 25mins when we arrived to pay for and pick up our food we were informed they no longer had pork chops available and they should have probably got callback number to tell us🤦🏾‍♀️ so we all decide on fried chicken remind you none of our orders hadn’t been prepared at this point we wait 30-45 more minutes for what was supposed be call in the gentleman that was sitting out front brings us our food and let’s us know it’s not his problem that we had to wait then worst part of all we get home sit down to eat after paying $45 dollars waiting over hour only to bite in chicken in discover it’s pink not just one meal all of them 🤢 we had to take our chicken out containers and throw it in air fryer to enjoy so yea I wish I could give this place zero stars and I highly...