This restaurant has been in my hometown for years, but I had never been there until a few weeks ago when I took my mother there for her 80th birthday. We heard the food was fantastic, and there is a certain novelty in having dinner in the old AMC garage where your parents bought a 1976 Matador and your brother used to be a mechanic. The food was good. That's it--just good, not spectacular. Granted, it's the best restaurant in East Springfield, Ohio, and maybe even the entire upper Ohio Valley. But, I'm not really writing this review because of the food--I'm writing it because of the pricing. I knew the menu was on the expensive side, but I was prepared for that. What I found so distasteful was the nickel and diming. We visited on a Sunday, a day on which they feature a $14.95 "pre-fix" menu. You get a salad, entree, and dessert for $14.95. There are about eight different entrees to choose from. Good deal, right? Well, two of the entrees cost an extra $3 on the $14.95 pre-fix menu, and one cost $8 extra. My mother and I each chose a $14.95 entree from the $14.95 pre-fix menu, and my son ordered a meal that cost a good bit more. I got the bill and saw an add-on charge for $1.25. When I asked the waitress what it was for, she explained it was for my son's salad. The creamy gorgonzola dressing he ordered was $1.25 more! In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. Several years ago, I ordered a $100 gift certificate from J.C. Wine Cellars over the phone and asked them to mail it to me. One would think they would be thrilled with a $100 sale and accommodating about mailing it, but they charged me an extra 50 cents to cover the cost of postage. Like I said earlier, the food was good, but I won't be back. If I'm going to spend money on a pricey meal, I'll do it in a place that isn't so cheap!
Pros: Smalltown location
Cons: Extra charges
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