Mills River Restaurant — Restaurant in Mills River

UPDATE 6/2020 I had to downgrade their rating. The restaurant changed hands sometime last year, and the new Manager(owner?) has a truly unfriendly, patronizing and unwelcoming demeanor. I understand prices for certain things (beef in my case) have gone up (ty, COVID19), but there was no need to speak to me as though I am an unwanted pest with no brain. We order from them all the time - take out or via a delivery svc. I ordered my usual "sauce on the side" (theyve never charged me) and got told 4x in a 5 minute conversation with him that the price of beef has gone up $4 p/lb. and therefore its $2.99 for extra meat sauce (for comparison sake, it's a very small cup; would take 5 or 6 of them to fill a Family-size $4 Ragu w/meat from the grocery store). Anyway, I was NOT arguing about the cost as he kept insinuating, so his attitude and reitteration was UNneccessary.

He finally says he can give me plain marinara (no meat) for free, for which I obviously agree - extra sauce is all I wanted to begin with! This was very unpleasant and was NOT my 1st encounter with this guy. The 1st encounter was months ago when I called in an order and found that prices had shot up by $1.50+ on most of their food, and then later, after it was picked up, he got very rude and irritated with ME when I called them back because I had not received everything I ordered. This was PRE-COVID19.

Since we dont eat there a lot, the price increase the new owner had instilled wasnt a big deal. But NOW, to hear they're grossly overcharging for miniscule portions, and the manager/owner is serving up attitude with the meal? As someone who had worked for over 40 yrs in Customer Service until my accident and knows how to treat customers, it will be a LONG time until I patronize them again.

The wait staff are still good and, despite the super high overcharged pricing, the food is still great - but their boss has NO business being in the Customer Service business - pun intended. I would not recommend MRR right now. Service WITH a smile, at those prices, can be acquired several other places. Its not worth it. #NOThappy

(Original review) : Eat-in and Take-out: A must-go-at-least-once place to eat if you are lookin' for good, ol' fashioned down home cookin', with a modern & uniquely Southern flair. Friendly staff, larger than expected food portions. Super fast preparation when ordering Take-out (within 20 minutes!) , with more than ample portions. Order has always been spot-on. When eating in or picking up Take-out, Ive never had to mention/call about a mistake. Their Biscuits & Gravy are just as mouthwatering as their Spaghetti & Meatballs. I would have given 5 stars but for little things here and there, but Im not going to nit pick because MRR is definitely a great...

We heard about the Mills River Restaurant, 4467 Boylston Hwy, Mills River (Henderson County) from a friend and we finally gave it a try. Went there for lunch today.

The restaurant is quite large with plenty of easy parking. We told our waitress extraordinaire, Ashley that this was our first visit. Ashley offered a number of menu suggestions. She was very polite, super friendly and helpful. Ashley didn’t rush us, was very informative and attentive. When we were paying our bill, we praised Ashley to a man whom we believe was the owner or the manager.

Be prepared, Mils River Restaurant has a huge menu! With this being our first visit, we went with Ashley’s suggestion of the “All Time Favorites” that had a choice of the one trip to the salad bar, a side vegetable OR 3 dailyvegetables. The entrees came with warm, slices of fresh bread with plenty of butter or a margarine type spread.

The Salad Bar I forgot to take a picture of. A large variety of salad toppings such as pickled beets, 3-bean salad, cottage cheese, chick peas, shredded cheese, olives, eggs, chopped ham and other endless choices. Their Salad Bar was so excellent!

I had to try their fried chicken breast and my husband ordered their grilled marinated chicken breast. The fried chicken were TWO 7-oz chicken breasts, with a nice, super crunchy breading. Not overly breaded, it was just right. My husband ordered the TWO 7-oz marinated chicken breast was amazing…great marinade, juicy and grilled to perfection. Both plates were $16.99 each.

Another nice thing was none of the food items were overly salted nor overly seasoned, which was a huge plus. The fried okra was lightly battered and fried just right. I asked for butter with my mashed potatoes, no gravy for me….well, this time anyway. The mash were made from scratch and were so tasty. Both chicken entrees were very flavorful and delicious. The chicken breast portions were quite generous. Since we had the Salad Bar, we ended up bringing home most of our chicken plates, which will be another meal.

Fabulous food, reasonably priced, great service, nice spotless atmosphere… can’t get any better than that! Highly recommend Mills River Restaurant!

Open Tues- Sunday 7am-9pm. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner! They also serve appetizers, steaks, chops, seafood, burgers, sandwiches, salads, ribs, Italian and Greek dishes and so much more. This restaurant runs like a well oiled machine, smoothly and perfect…they do it right. As I said, Holy Moly they have an extensive menu! Walked away extremely pleased with this restaurant. 😋

We...

I stopped for breakfast with a good friend of mine and we both ordered the same thing, scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, home fries, biscuit and a side of gravy. Our waitress was excellent, very attentive. However, I had 2 complaints: my friend's eggs had no cheese and we were charged an extra $3 each for a cup of gravy. If we had known that there was a charge, we would have only ordered one side and split it. Secondly, when the waitress brought my friend's food back, in a matter of seconds, the cook had thrown a slice of cheese on her eggs and didn't bother to heat it, so it wasn't even melted. How fast is it to scramble 2 new eggs with melted cheese throughout like mine was? A minute or two? And then we were both charged another $1.50 each for cheese on our eggs! I told our waitress that I wasn't going to pay for a cold slice of cheese and she took it off the bill, but I was mad that overall we were charged a total of $7.50 for cheese and a side of gravy, which was the only part of the meal that was tasteless. The food was excellent except for the gravy and a cold slice of cheese but we won't go back. I can't imagine why our waitress didn't inform us about extra charges after she knew what we wanted. She doesn't set the rules, and I noticed at the cash register to pay, the cook came out and rang me out, and I'm pretty sure he was the manager if not the owner. So he charges for every little thing while another delicious diner where we had the same breakfast a week before (The Waffle House, where the gravy was actually tasty sausage gravy and no extra charges) and other diners I can think of, clearly don't. It's a shame, since my friend lives in Mills River and this restaurant is quite close and convenient, the service excellent, the food delicious, but those extra fees are quite high and not worth it. I will add that the restaurant was quite empty at lunchtime and...