Apple Valley Cafe

On Tuesday, June 1, 2010 I had lunch at the Apple Valley Café at 674 North Loudoun Street. I had recently learned of its opening from Wincfood.com, and was prompted to visit it by reading a feature article in The Winchester Star that morning. I used the small off-street parking lot behind the stand-alone building.

It has about a dozen tables. It is open from 6:30 AM to 10:00 PM every day. One other patron was there when I arrived just before noon. By and by he was joined in his corner by friends who filtered in one or two at a time.

Eventually there were half a dozen people, all sitting together in the corner. They appeared to be regular diners, and were greeted by some of the staff who came out of the kitchen to talk to them.

The menu's breakfast items were eggs, waffles, French toast, biscuits and gravy, three-egg omelets, and breakfast sandwiches. It also had a choice of three kinds of home-fried “messes”: vegetable, meat-eaters, and ultimate.

For lunch there were sandwiches, subs, hamburgers, chicken wings, and also New York style pizza and stromboli. For dinner, you could have steak, roast beef, salads, chilis, and soups.

I ordered a Reuben sandwich with potato chips. The large pieces of rye bread made it a very generous sandwich. It came with chips, and a pickle spear and banana peppers on the same platter as the sandwich. The Reuben was good, but the bottom layer became soggy from juice with the pickle and peppers.

I told the waitress that using a side dish for the garnish would eliminate the problem. She promised to mention it to the kitchen, and when I checked out later, the chef said that they would use the extra dish in the future.

I learned that the place had been open about for about two months. The bill came to $9.18 with a Dr. Pepper and the tip. The Apple Valley Cafe is worth another visit, and may be a keeper.

The premises at the southeast corner of Oates Avenue and North Loudoun Street was originally a Donut Castle. Its later occupants included a short-lived Korean place called the Seoul Garden Café, which I didn't try after visiting it, the North Loudoun Diner, which was OK, and the Peckish Caribbean American Restaurant, which my radar never detected.