Family's Main Street Cafe — Restaurant in Walton

While I wouldn't consider us as "regulars" my wife and I, and sometimes our adult children, have diner there about once a month. As the title on TripAdvisor reads, "Family's is one of a dying breed of American restaurants: A good locally owned and operated home style place to eat." That said, go there expecting good home style cooking, large portions, reasonable prices, and an occasional negative or two; just like at home.

By the latter I mean this: First, they allow smoking, but it's never been bad enough to cause my wife and I (non-smokers) to leave. Just think of it as the old uncles at the annual Thanksgiving dinner who still light one up after eating. You complain, but they're still family. Second, as a family owned and operated restaurant the help is rather casual. No uniforms or aprons; not even a name tag. Remember... "Family" not chain store restaurant employees. Third, on a Friday evening in June at 6:45 PM, expect a good local family eatery to be crowded, and if they're short-handed that night, expect to wait for your meal. It happens, but not very often. Last, Family's stopped taking credit cards after the banks started doing charge backs to merchants for "rewards points." While the banks make their millions, small restaurants are charged these fees, sometimes months after accepting a "rewards card" for payment of a meal. If paying by cash, or a local check, is a major financial burden for you, then patronize any of the dozen or so chain restaurants at each interstate highway exit. They do the volume of business necessary to absorb these charges and pass them back to all their customers through higher prices.

So, if you want fast service, high prices, and institutional food, visit the chain store restaurants... not a locally owned and operated "Family Style" restaurant on Main Street in...

3 stars because if I'm being fair there was nothing wrong with my breakfast. I had pork tenderloin with eggs, home made biscuits and potatoes . The pork tenderloin was breaded to order (fresh) and it was all white meat. The home potatoes was fresh sliced up potatoes and the biscuits were made from scratch. So the food only I have to be fair and give 4 1/2 stars.

Now the rest that drops the stars

They allow smoking in the resturant and we didnt realize until we were almost finished with our food! ! This older man came and sat next to us at the counter and lit up a thin cigar while waiting and eating his food. Not good at all!

Also everyone seemed to know each other inside the resturant and they look at you when you first walk in It feels like you went to someone's house and ate dinner, while they were serving there family and friends that you didn't know..felt a bit like you are an intruder.

I can say, I have never been or experienced this type of resturant before. I didn't know you can still have smoking resturants in 2018. As far as the resturant being rather clickish so to speak/a bit uninviting at first... I cant say we were treated differently or unfairly. The server was nice respectful...and our food was served immediately; was fresh and piping hot. ..I also didnt feel like they were trying to rush us out.. the cigarette smoke did that for us.. wont be back again...

Today was the 1st time I'd ever ate there. Our server must have assumed we were local as she never bothered to tell us about the daily special. They only accept cash and when we checked out the man in front of us owed a few dollars and a small amount of change (.13 cents) of which she quickly retrieved from the small jar next to the register. Our bill was $18.09 but she never bothered to grab any change from the jar for our tab. This place is very local yocal oriented. The server was not very friendly and I saw 5 other (local) customers who came in after us get served before us. I may go back but I'm not sure. Servers should focus more on providing better service to everyone and not just individuals she knows personally. She actually yelled out to someone coming in the door while standing at our table taking our order. Food was good and portions were plentiful. I would have liked to be told about the daily special as I'm sure any good server should tell the customers about anyway when...