Mimi's Cafe — Restaurant in Murfreesboro

January 2020: Been wanting to try the Coq au Vin dish at Mimi’s Café for a while now, you have to get there early to enjoy this classic French dish. Now is this the “Classic Coq au Vin” you might get from restaurants in Montreal or Paris…nope. Is it worth going to Mimi’s early to try this dish…without a doubt!!! This has a rich, thick and savory Burgundy wine sauce with a bit of sweetness. The mushrooms, onions, carrots, and mashed potatoes (not a standard part of Coq au Vin) were perfect. I was very impressed with the chicken part of the dish…a whole half a chicken draped over the potatoes. The bird was very moist and fork-tender…perfect for this dish. Overall this was an impressive presentation of Coq au Vin and I feel would pass muster for any French palate out there…to include folks here in Murfreesboro!!! Add to this my server Zoe who took great care of me makes Mimi’s a place to enjoy great food at reasonable prices!

November 2019: Unusual for me to have dinner at Mimi’s as the breakfast and brunch foods are so darn good. Color me surprised when I found the breakfast offerings were also available at night! So initially I was going to have the Chicken Pot Pie that Mimi’s is so famous for…only to learn it was no longer on the menu. So I was going to try the Coq au Vin chicken…sold out. I settled on the Ribeye Steak which is touted as a 28-day-aged 10 oz. USDA Choice ribeye steak. Added the house-made Herbs de Provence butter along with sautéed onions and mushrooms. While the steak was tender and cooked perfectly, it was on the thin side. So if you are expecting a thick ribeye, this is not going to meet that expectation. If I were to have this dish again I would not add the sautéed onions and mushrooms as they did not improve the overall flavors of the steak. For the sides I selected the Potatoes Au Gratin and Green Beans…and both were very good. I also ordered (to go) a 4-pack of their blueberry muffins…they are exceptional. My server Amy was excellent and took great care of me and overall the meal was OK but not as good as other dishes I have had here before. I will go back as I really want to try the Coq au Vin chicken…looks like a delicious meal.

2017: Mimi’s Café is a throwback to a time when restaurants really cared about homemade dishes and quality ingredients. The Chicken Pot Pie is incredible and freshly made all day. So if your server tells you it will be 15 minutes…it’s well worth the wait. The crust is so flaky and buttery and when mixed into the filling (roasted chicken, peas, carrots, mushrooms and onions)…DELICIOUS. Their brunch menu is great and the homemade muffins are legendary. I enjoyed a 3-egg mushroom, onion, cheese, and bacon omelet and it was perfectly cooked and the herb roasted potatoes are the best. For dessert...the Birthday Crêpes Cake with more than 15 layers of French crêpes, vanilla cake and sweet cream. Sunday brunch can be a busy time, but well...

I am writing to formally express my outrage regarding the way my family was treated at your Mimi’s Café location on Medical Center Parkway on Saturday, September 20, 2025, at approximately 7:00 PM.

My mother, teenage sister, and grandparents, including my grandfather who is a 100% disabled veteran and cannot walk well and uses a cane, arrived for dinner. The restaurant was nearly empty on a Saturday night at 7 PM. This should have been the first red flag. Out of respect for my grandfather’s disability, we asked the hostess if we could sit at a table closer to the entrance. She initially agreed, but then proceeded to lead them all the way to the back of the restaurant. When my mother politely reminded her about the request and asked again about a nearby table, the hostess abruptly said, “This section is closed.”

There were clearly other patrons sitting in that section, so the explanation made little sense. I understand that servers may be cut and sections closed, but in this situation the professional and compassionate choice would have been for the server to walk a few extra steps to accommodate a disabled veteran. Instead, my family was met with resistance and attitude.

The hostess, a short, heavy-set white woman with short hair, threw down the menus, scrunched up her face, and not jokingly but rudely and dismissively said to my mother, who is in her 50s, “Whatever bro.” My mother responded appropriately, telling her, “You are very disrespectful, young lady. This is not how you talk to customers.” The level of disrespect was so out of line that my family decided to walk out.

As they were leaving, the manager, a white woman with auburn-brown hair, followed them outside to see what had happened. At that point, a server who had been sitting at the bar listening in, a white woman older, possibly in her 40s, with black hair and glasses, came outside. She interjected, taunted, and harassed my mother in the parking lot, shouting, “You’re rude. You were the problem.” Only then did the manager tell her to go back inside. This sequence of events was not only unprofessional but humiliating for my family.

The manager briefly asked what had happened, but she did not seem interested or apologetic. She failed to address the mistreatment, made no effort to correct the situation, and offered no assurance that it would be handled. Her indifference was equally unacceptable.

This entire experience was humiliating and infuriating. The blatant disrespect shown to my disabled veteran grandfather and to my mother is something I will not overlook. To be clear, you are lucky I, the oldest daughter, was not present for this interaction.

The lack of action and accountability from the manager must be addressed and corrected. I strongly believe the two employees should be formally corrected if not...

The Mimi's crew was struggling during our most recent visit. The wait time upon arriving was 15 minutes and this was with much less than half of the tables in the restaurant being occupied. The hostess/waitress was asked by another patron - who too had been told of the 15 minute wait and who too obviously took note of so many empty tables - was everything alright at the restaurant tonight. To this query, the doubly tasked employee replied "all is fine; we are just trying to give our cooks a chance to catch up". Despite these foretelling omens, we stayed and were seated within the quoted timeframe. Our waiter we initially gave grace assuming he was relatively new working as a server. By the end of our meal, we concluded that he was simply not in the correct job as he didn't truly grasp the concept of a garçon. Our first sign of trouble was when he took our orders via scribbling notes on a pad, left to put in our order and get our drinks, and to only have him return to our table shortly after leaving to clarify what we ordered and to ask yet again for a reminder of the items we ordered. From there, we solidly had what had to have been about a 20+ minute wait for our entrees. When the food arrived, it was prepared as requested and tasteful. That is, the food that was brought out to us. We simply needed to remind our poor waiter that we were missing items (i.e. my side Ceasar (pictured)). Once we recieved all of our food, getting a drink refill seemed out of the realm of possibilities. We were able to get our server back to the table to bring the kids' desserts but dared not complicate the matter asking for drink refills. At this point, we thought surely our waiter would end the escapade of our dining adventure as quickly as possible by bringing us our check with our desserts but, no; such normalcy was not meant to be on this evening. We did eventually summon him over and he intuitively deduced that we were ready to settle up. The check was missing one of the kid's meal and I refused to give ill-fate the pleasure of witnessing further anguish. I simply added the missing amount to the tip. I only hope the waiter did not see the tip as a reflection on the quality of...