Nene's Soul Cafe — Restaurant in Virginia

Let’s get one thing straight: I wanted to love this place. I’m Black, I support Black-owned businesses, and I pulled up ready to eat good. But what I got? That mac and cheese was so offensively bad I felt like I owed myself an apology for ordering it.

It was dry, flavorless, and looked like it had been punished before it got to my table. I’ve had more soul in a Saltine cracker. And every time someone leaves a factual, polite review, y’all respond like we’re trying to dismantle the civil rights movement. Please.

Yes, you’re Black-owned. And guess what? So am I. That doesn’t make your food immune to criticism. Being Black doesn’t mean we have to accept mediocrity in the name of solidarity. If anything, it should make you want to deliver excellence even more not hide behind identity every time someone calls out a dusty dish.

Fix the recipe. Stop the clapbacks. Stop gaslighting your own customers. We’re rooting for you but not at the expense of our palates.

Until then, I’ll support Black-owned spots that season their food and handle feedback like...

We visited this restaurant toward the end of March and placed our order in person, not over the phone. While we were curious to try the combination of soul food and Ethiopian cuisine, we were left disappointed — especially with the soul food.

My in-law ordered the tilapia sandwich and didn’t enjoy it at all. The bread was hard, the fish portion was very thin, and the mayonnaise had a sour taste, which was off-putting. The overall flavor and quality did not reflect what we expected from a place promoting soul food.

The inside of the restaurant could’ve been cleaner, which added to the underwhelming impression. The lady at the front was very nice, and we appreciated her friendliness — but unfortunately, that was the only highlight.

In our opinion, soul food is not their specialty. We had higher hopes, but this visit...

I wanted to support a small business so we found this one on line. We ordered take out. We were extremely disappointed. Ordered meatloaf. It was burnt and tough. Tasted like burnt hamburger. Dry like sawdust. Mac and cheese had no cheese. It was buttered small elbow noodles. Greens were ok. I am sad to have been robbed by them. Since they deceived us about the meatloaf and so called Mac and cheese we couldn’t trust them so we didn’t eat anything. They shouldn’t do this to anyone. They should have either closed or recommended another dish that was better quality. They didn’t...