I've been chomping at the bit to go to this place, so I was very pleased when I convinced my chum to mosey over here for lunch yesterday. One of my favorite restaurants in the area is Vonda's in Newark (which serves the same type of soul food/Southern cuisine), so I was hoping this would be just as tasty, but in a more convenient area. It was really good, but with all due respect, it's not quite at the level it thinks it is.

We decided to split the cornbread with strawberry butter app ($6), along with a separate order of mac and cheese ($8). I personally think the mac and cheese should also be available as a side, and it feels a little like upselling (it reminds me of a burger restaurant that has an additional charge for French fries), so hopefully they consider that in the future. How can you not go to a place like this and forego the mac and cheese? The cornbread was delicious. I'd never heard of strawberry butter, but it's amazing and was a perfect complement to the cornbread. My friend was a little disappointed that parts of the cornbread were cold (presumably it was baked beforehand and refrigerated before being warmed up for us), but I didn't mind too much. They should warm it up more though, which obviously wouldn't be difficult to do. I was disappointed by the mac and cheese - I thought it was dry and pretty bland. For what it's worth, my chum loved it, so we quickly negotiated a 70/30 split of the mac and cheese, which was acceptable to both parties.

I got the Crispy Catfish entree ($23), with candied yams and collard greens as my sides. The catfish was excellent, with an exquisite cornmeal batter, and the tabasco-like condiment was very strong, verging on overpowering, but worked well with the fish. I loved the candied yams; great consistency and extremely tasty. This was actually my first time having collard greens. They were fine for what they were, but just not my cup of tea. I'm sure they have enough fans to go around without me. A lot of this food is top-notch, and you can definitely understand why it's popular and getting a lot of buzz in the area.

Unfortunately, the service does verge on subpar. I think you should expect lengthier turnaround times for some of this food, especially the chicken (and to their credit, there is a disclaimer on the menu about the projected 30-minute cooking time for that specifically), but we intentionally picked other food because we were hungry and didn't want to wait 30 minutes to eat. It didn't matter - we still had to wait at least that long for the entrees. Additionally, the dessert menu looked amazing and we both opted to go somewhere else because we knew that ordering something else would lengthen our stay considerably, so Sweet T's is literally leaving money on the table because of that.

We weren't too affected by this because we came in right around when they opened, but I do have concerns going forward that the rules of this restaurant don't really mesh with the culture they're ostensibly trying to promote. I've lived in the Deep South and I've been to my share of Southern comfort restaurants like this. By definition, it's leisurely - it takes time to make a lot of this food, and by and large, it's worth it. But in turn, you should be able to leisurely eat that food. If you're going to be really hardcore about reservations and time limits for meals, it will inevitably bang up against the lengthy food prep time. That's a really tough balance to manage, and hopefully they figure it out. My two cents? I think they should take the middle ground between the required reservations route and the Cuban Pete's, no reservations route - have a specific, limited number of reserved tables but be open to the walk-ins. If the restaurant is too busy at a given time to serve everyone who wants in, too bad. That's life sometimes. Those people will come back.

There's a lot to like here, but my inclination is to go to Vonda's, knowing that their food is as good if not better than this, without the service issues.