Blue Bonnet Cafe — Restaurant in Marble Falls

I've eaten here somewhat regularly since I was kid in the 60's. It's been unfortunate to watch it deteriorate in the last 15 or so years from a top-notch hometown favorite cafe to a tourist trap that shuffles huge crowds through at a frenetic pace.

While some of the pies are still ok, many other things, especially lunch/dinner, have become generic, bland and tasteless. Think cafeteria food. Worse yet, the hamburger steak my wife just had was so tough and dry that that it was inedible, and she gave up on trying to eat it. How is that even possible? My chicken fried steak, which these days comes as either one or two small overly breaded pieces, was a mix. One piece was ok, but the other was tough to the point that I had trouble sawing through it. A sure sign that it was not made with decent quality cube steak. A negative for both was that all the breading fell off. Quality Texas CFS is fast becoming a lost art. In tune with all of that, my mother's catfish was 90% breading. The fish itself was wafer thin, and she had to look closely to even find it.

The vegetables weren't any better. The carrots were boiled to mush and had no taste at all. Same for the spinach. My wife, who loves fried okra, didn't bother to eat half of hers because it was so bland and tasteless. My mash potatoes were dry with a small amount of cold congealed gravy, and a ridiculously skimpy portion considering I ordered the large CFS lunch.

Earlier, after watching other tables get their roll/cornbread basket after they placed their drink orders, we waited and waited for ours until we finally got to speak to the waitress again when our food came out. She acted surprised and literally said "Are you saying you want some bread?". Prior to that she had barely made time to take our order, and was impatient with any questions we had, like which pies were available for dessert. But she turned all smiles and friendly later when it was time to calculate the tip. This is not how the Blue Bonnet used to be run. These days it's just a conveyor belt of mass produced food designed to keep the line moving as fast as humanly possible. Again, think cafeteria food.

It's been sad to watch the small Hill Country towns turn into overcrowded tourist traps, and the Blue Bonnet has definitely become a part of that. Looking at the many five-star reviews, I can only guess that a lot of the reviewers did not grow up around good quality Texas home-style food, and have not experienced how much better it can...

After hearing from some local people about the food and pies here, decided to give them a try. I was initially worried the place would be crowded on a Sunday morning. Arrived around 10:45 and there were about 10 people standing in line outside the restaurant. This was a little uncomfortable on a Texas summer day, but wasn't too bad. After about 20 minutes, made it inside the door, then continued to wait in the inside line for about 10 minutes. Once inside, the wait was pretty quick while reading the numerous news articles and awards they've won throughout the years. Right before arriving at the hostess stand, you see the open kitchen and their homemade pies in a glass case you cannot access. This was a good teaser to have dessert after your meal.

The inside is pretty large, so the tables move quickly. Immediately upon being seated, the waitress took the drink orders. She brought out the orange juice and took the food orders. The orange juice tasted very fresh; it was thick, rich, and had a medium amount of pulp. For the meals, ordered the French Toast, hash browns, sausage, eggs, blueberry pancakes, bacon, grits. Each plate came with a meat option, but ordered the eggs and hash browns as side items.

All the food came out within 5 minutes which made me a little hesitant, but it was all very fresh and hot. I assume due to the amount of volume that's being ordered and also efficiency, they're making these items all day long. The blueberry pancakes are a very large portion and very tasty. They were fresh and full of actual blueberries. The French Toast used the thinner slices of toast and were very fluffy, fresh, and flavorful too. The bacon definitely stood out. It was a thick cut of bacon that was very meaty. It reminded me of jerky, but in a good way as it was just that meaty. The side of eggs, grits, and hash browns were all good, but what you would expect at a good breakfast restaurant.

I heard about the pies quite a bit, so ordered a slice of the banana cream pie. The pie slices are a larger portion, so they'll cut it in half if it's being shared. The pie reputation lived up to the expectations. It had a rich banana taste while the cream was whipped perfectly. If I wasn't so full from the breakfast, definitely would've ordered another slice or ordered a different pie to go. There was a sign for pie happy hour during the week which sounded interesting.

Great service and food, will definitely come back, hopefully during...

or a diner, it simply doesn't get any better! We recently moved to the area and this shows up all the time when searching for places to eat. We've heard about it from people we have met so it was time to give it a try. The short of the review is if you are in the area or plan to make up trip to Marble Falls, you MUST come here!

It's rather big and there's plenty of parking. We've been here a few times and it's either not very busy or it's almost completely full. But regardless, you'll always get great service.

Walking in, you'll catch a glimpse of what others are eating and if you don't already know what you want, prepare to be overwhelmed. As we walked to our booth, I saw three or four dishes I wanted to order just look at what other people were eating. But for our first visit, I had a club sandwich and in my opinion, it's hard to find a "great" club sandwich but fortunately for me... I've found the best one! It might seem simple to make a club sandwich but honestly, to many places try to make it with some different kind of bread, use weird spread, etc... but here, they make it simple and traditional. The best! I had it with fries and they are crunchy, hot and fresh.

The next time we came, I had the Chicken Fried Steak. I saw someone else have this and I just had to try. It looked absolutely amazing when I saw someone else eating this and it really IS amazing! They use a white gravy (my favorite) and I honestly don't think I have had better chicken fried steak. For the sides, I had the red potatoes with gravy, fries and a mini corn on the cob. It also came with corn bread muffins.

On our first visit, we had the banana cream pie and it was spectacular! So, the second time we ordered a whole pie! It you want fresh, wholesome food... look no further! The food is delicious, the servers are super nice and you won't have to wait very long. And don't leave without trying a...