The Vine Cafe and Market, South Grand - Visited May 2021

 

It was a beautiful Saturday and we decided it was time to start going out to lunch again! The only place we have eaten out in the past year has been the patio at Bandana's in Rock Hill (a few times), but we decided to visit a new patio, The Vine Cafe on South Grand. They were not seating people inside, but their patio had a number of tables of four with umbrellas, so we pushed two of them together to make a table large enough for our group of five.

We went inside to order and they said it would only take 10 minutes and we could come back inside and pick it up. They were not offering table side service like The Treehouse just down Grand, and instead they prepared the food in takeout containers which people could then take outside to a table themselves. 

We arrived shortly after they opened at 11:00 and we were the first ones there, but after we received our food around 11:20 am a number of other folks started showing up and grabbing tables on the patio as well. By the time we left well after 1:00 pm there were several groups dining and enjoying themselves. The food was as fresh as usual and they even gave us two bags of freshly baked pitas and we only ate one of them. I ordered the chicken shawarma lunch with the lentil soup, so I dipped a few of the pitas in the soup myself and they were as delicious as always. In fact all the food was excellent and plentiful, even if we had to eat it out of takeout containers and make sure nothing blew away with the breezes. Their fries are not the greatest however and nobody finished them, and my wife mentioned the chicken chunks from her kabob were not ideal (she preferred the more thinly sliced shawarma chicken.) Also anything tastes great with their garlic sauce! Their patio was well spaced and very comfortable and we had an excellent lunch on a lovely May Day in St. Louis.

Food quality, value, freshness, patio, safety