1st Place Cafe LLC — Restaurant in Nitro

1st Place Cafe is a fast casual restaurant located in Nitro, WV that understands the concept of doing a few things excellent instead of many things mediocre. Everything on the limited menu seems to be a star especially the chicken and fries. Their tag should be good things come to those who wait or patience is a virtue. The menu suggests call ahead ordering. I was politely told when I arrived to a fairly full dining room on a Thursday evening that my food would take at least an hour. I had my phone and headphones to entertain me so I ordered the Nashville Blue with fries and a Fat Tire beer. I added some homemade spicy mayo for my fries.

The portions are huge and dare I say family style. I highly recommend splitting a sandwich and fries. Each sandwich has two breaded chicken breasts, topped with bib lettuce, tomato, red onion, and homemade pickles. It is sauced with a perfectly spiced Nashville butter sauce and a homemade blue cheese dressing. This sandwich will make your hands a mess but it is worth it.

The fries are a natural cut shoestring that are seasoned with salt and pepper. You are served a literal mountain of fries. Fresh, hot, and delicious.

This sandwich is actually inexpensive at $13.99. It would cost $24.99 in any other city. I did feel the beer was pricey at $9.95. Next time I’ll order tea.

The menu includes a newer chicken sandwich called the sweet and savory which adds bacon, cheese, pickled red onions, and a homemade honey mustard sauce. There are off menu specials which today included the a Rueben and a Rachel.

After the dinner rush the owner came into the dinning room and talked to each table. Being the last table served we had a nice extended conversation. Why did I rate the service as a five for a fast casual restaurant with an hour wait? Because they were friendly, attentive, and honest about the kitchen time. You should check...

Terrific food made to order. Decent service. Great amount of food for the price. Late Thursday lunch. Orders take longer than similar restaurants, but the made to order food is great.

Ordered the American Classic Steak Cheeseburger, Original Chicken Sandwich, Nashville Blue, and the Reuben for entrees.

American Classic Steak Cheeseburger- tasty fresh toppings on a great burger.

Original Chicken Sandwich - huge sandwich topped with fresh toppings. Great taste, very satisfying.

Nashville Blue - similar to the original chicken sandwich, but with more tang. The toppings really make this sandwich truly tasty, particularly if you like bleu cheese and spiciness.

Reuben - misses the mark, the roast beef and bread are perfect; but the sauerkraut and dressing could use some improvement. The sauerkraut didn’t really come through and the dressing was too messy/thin/watery. Still a sandwich worth getting, just non-ideal in my opinion.

Fries - so good and plentiful they’re worth addressing separately. It was hard to stop eating the fries, particularly when dunking them in the sauces (extra charge for the extra product). We had two adults and two kids when we ate here, two orders of fries coupled with the four sandwiches we ordered completely filled us up and left us with snacks for later. The fries were surprisingly good cold when we ate them later that day.

Minor gripes - food is ordered at the counter, take out and dine in. On the plus side, staff let us know this as we entered. Pre-pay (and for those that use credit/debit cards, tip) is before you’ve enjoyed or didn’t enjoy the meal. Personally not a fan of this as waitstaff rely on tips and walking up to a counter, ordering and paying before you eat forces the customer to guess as to how great the meal and service is...

This was only my second time visiting. I had a Rachel (a turkey sandwich) that was pretty good. The Rachel comes with Russian sauce, cole slaw and Swiss cheese, but I really wanted a good ol turkey club and was thankful they obliged to change my order. I was confused, when I was told told the sandwich was grilled, I thought that meant the turkey too, like maybe a pulled pork sandwich, but with smoked turkey. Instead the turkey is more like lunch meat turkey. And it was fine, but the turkey (and I can't recall which turkey they use) had a slight bologna aftertaste to me. The bacon was perfectly fried though and totally makes me want to order a BLT next visit. It was so much sandwich I was lucky to eat more than half of it.

I also ordered French fries. My first visit taught me that their fries are plentiful and taste great. However, the amount of seasonings on my first visit made it difficult to eat as many of them as I wanted. So this visit I asked that the fries be "slightly seasoned" and they turned out so much better and I was almost able to eat them all. The amount of fries you're given is a lot, their shape is slightly smaller than shoe string style.

I also had an ice water to drink. The ice melted fast so you may want to ask to receive your drink and food together. Or maybe ask for extra ice.

Overall nice restaurant with great food. Kinda costly, but it's because their portions are meant to be shared. I've had their original chicken sandwich and now their Rachel (turkey sandwich) and can say they're both hard to finish alone. No matter how hungry you are when you arrive, you will not leave First Place Cafe hungry...