220 Cafe — Restaurant in Statesville

Last week my wife and I were in Statesville and went to The 220 Cafe for dinner with two other couples. My wife and I arrived first and we were not greeted by a hostess with a smile and warm welcome but with a short and curt question “do you have reservations”. When the hostess was informed “yes” she looked around the restaurant and abruptly asked “are you with those people at the bar”? When we said “no” she then seated us at a table.

When we were shown the table which was in the middle of the restaurant I asked if we could have an empty table that was out of the center of the room and we were told “no”. The hostess said the people at the bar already had the table where no-one was sitting.

When our other friends arrived we were blessed with a wonderful waitress that was friendly, polite and very accommodating. Everything was going well until our food arrived. The hostess, which we encountered upon our arrival, helped in bringing out the food. When she placed a rib-eye sandwich in front of my friend beside me, he asked her if it was medium-well done. He was asking this since the person on the other side of him had also asked for the rib-eye steak sandwich but had ordered his medium-rare so the question was in order.

We were all in disbelief when the hostess responded in a very rude voice “it is what you ordered”. My friend again asked her the same question and she did not respond.

The food was great and our waitress was wonderful. Knowing how important customer service is to a business I decided to stop by The 220 this week when I was back in Statesville. When I walked in another young lady, with no smile or greeting, asked if she could help me. I asked if Kelly (the owner) was in and she informed me Kelly was in the kitchen cooking. She then asked me again if she could help me and I informed her I had come by to speak with Kelly. The hostess then gave me the same answer in a short tone that Kelly was in the kitchen cooking and was not available. She offered no other assistance, suggestion or question as to whether I could come back by later or call back. I had to ask when would be a good time to try to contact her and was told to call between 2:00 and 2:30. I then took a card from the front desk, thanked her and left.

As shared earlier, our food was great, we had a wonderful waitress and there was a nice atmosphere with the exception of our hostess. One person’s attitude and treatment almost resulted in my friend making a scene and walking out. Others in our party had taken notice of this incident and commented during dinner. This lead me to want to stop by and offer feedback in person to the owner but the second time was almost as bad as the first.

It’s a great place to eat with the exception of a few...

This really is a good review. Please read past my rant. Music should not be amplified AT ALL in such a small venue. We were miserable one Saturday night. We could not have a decent conversation having to fight over the noise. That being said, I'm at fault for not bringing this to the attention of management. When food arrived...we were too busy enjoying the the wonderful experience of flavor to care if we talked or not. We've been there a few times. Busy, packed nights and near dead nights. Regardless of what type of night, you will get friendly professional service. Bring your patience on the busy nights. The staff does make an effort to spend some quality time with each customer to ensure personal attention. On the dead nights, expect some personality to shine through with that personal attention. Starting with the small plates, we highly recommend the tuna, beef and beets. You really can't go wrong with anything. I would save the fried goat cheese as a savory dessert. But that is just me. With the honey it's sweet for me. It's really good though. Because the small plates are so good, we have yet to move over to the entrées. That statement alone should tell volumes regarding the small plates.moving on to dessert. We can't move past the staple. The Berry tart served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. We truly want to try more but just love this so much. Now for coffee. No. They don't have cappuccino or expresso or anything frufru. Just brewed coffee. Drum roll here. We finally broke down and tried it after a big push from our server... if I cussed it would go something like OH MY DAMN! whatever brand this is....is mind blowing for brewed coffee. I don't even want to know the brand, because at home i would not get this wonderful experience of sitting there, dessert in front of me, slowly enjoying every sip. We are foodies from Wash DC. We dine there and in and around the Chesapeake Bay area. (Primarily in Anne Arundel, Calvert and Saint Marys Counties) we are doing our best to review all dining experiences here in Iredell and surrounding countries. I encourage you to read my rant regarding reviews. It can be found in a review of Logans. It is not about Logans. I just happened to go on a rant about negative people while giving a big thumbs up about a...

We ate here last week. It was a Friday so I made sure to make reservations because 2 weeks before on Friday they were packed. When we got there the place was just about empty. The host came up, I gave our reservation information and he just pointed and said, “There’s a table ready over there” and pointed. As I went to sit at the table that looked to be set and ready, he came up and said “not that table, this one”. This was probably one of the worst host encounters I have ever experienced.

I ordered the small plate Filet medallions with a side of risotto and an apple martini. My husband ordered the Wagyu Burger. My “medallions” were cooked and seasoned well, but was just one medallion cut in half. This was fine, that is all I really wanted, but the description on the menu could be more accurate because it says medallions. The risotto was crunchy (under cooked rice), but I said something to the manager and she took care of that. The sauce had a nice tarragon flavor to it. The martini was good.

My husband said that the burger was very good and if we returned he would order it again. However, we were a little surprised that is was so covered in cheese sauce because the description on the menu didn’t mention this. The menu lists grass fed beef, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion and brioche. He just scrapped most of the cheese sauce off and all was good.

Overall, this was a very disappointing visit considering Café 220 is thought of as the best restaurant in town. They could do so...