Home Cooking at the Homeside Restaurant

Florence, Alabama – Thanks to a recommendation by one of our friends and a request that we try the Homeside Restaurant we set out to give them a visit.  Restaurant reviewing is a tough job, but heck, you know how it is, somebody has to do it. 😛

We made our first visit shortly after noon on a Thursday, there were still several customers in the restaurant, but there were plenty of seats available. The waitress welcomed us and took our drink order within a few minutes after we were seated. I decided to try out their daily plate lunch special and ordered the country fried steak (sans gravy), cream potatoes, Cole slaw, white beans and Mexican cornbread. All was very good and the cornbread was notable in that it was chocked full of jalapeno peppers and had a nice bite to it. My wife ordered a club sandwich with onion rings. The sandwich was really good and made the way a traditional club is supposed to be made. Before ordering the onion rings, we asked the waitress if they breaded the onions in house or were the onion rings of the frozen persuasion. The waitress stated they were frozen but were very good. We ordered the onion rings and as frozen onion rings go they were exceptionally good, even better than some locally prepared onion rings that we have tried in the past.

On our second visit, we decided to try out the breakfast menu. On the day that we went we arrived a few minutes after nine am and the parking lot was crowed with vehicles. We parked and went inside and there was a lot of folks at the tables that were finishing up their meals and discussing local events. Again, we sat down and within a few minutes the waitress was welcoming us and taking our drink order. Debra ordered the country ham with two fried eggs, biscuits and gravy. I opted for the sausage patties and two fried eggs with toast. In a relatively short time the meals were delivered to the table. Everything was pleasing to the eye and the portions were more than adequate for anyone. The eggs were prepared just as we had requested (over medium) which was a surprise since most of the time when we order over medium it comes out over well, bonus point for that one.

My sausage patties had a good taste, but was a little bland since I’m the hot sausage type of guy, I like a little spice to the patties. Debra’s country ham was a nice center cut slab of ham that was a plate full. The ham had a very pleasing taste without being too salty and didn’t make us hunt the water barrel the rest of the day like some country ham does.

The biscuits and gravy were good and had a middle of the road taste to them. I’m not much on gravy so I was relying on Debra’s observations for it. She kicked it up with a little more black pepper and liked it better. I will say the biscuit was a biggun’ and most folks won’t want but one of them.

After our two visits, we would give the Homeside Restaurant a solid “You gotta try them” and would recommend them highly. Prices are very reasonable, with the sausage and eggs being $3.99 and the country ham and eggs valued priced at $6.99. Breakfast is served all day long with a couple of exceptions. I think the exceptions were Friday’s when they have the All you care to eat catfish and on Saturday when their special is all you care to eat Shrimp. We’ll have to check out those two specials in the near future.

So, if you find yourself thinking “Gee, let’s go somewhere different to eat for a change”, then head on out to the Homeside Restaurant, located at 3711 Cloverdale Road in Florence. You can give them a call at 256.768.1138 and find out what their lunch special is for each day. They’re located just past the Listerhill Credit Union office on the same side of the street. When you go, tell them you read about them here in The Quad-Cities Daily and they’ll give you a free smile. And, as always, don’t forget to leave your server a nice tip because they’re working hard to please you in these tough times.

If you know of a restaurant that you would like reviewed, just leave a reply or send me an email to dreasons.qcdnews@gmail.com

John Derek Mitchell