I don't think I can express how much I love this restaurant. If it was ever to close, it would be like a death in the family. I look forward to coming here more than to any other restaurant that I've ever been to (and I live in Oakland/SF where there are endless excellent restaurants). My favorite dishes are the gemelli pasta (in the summer) and the baked lentils (in the winter). Â A million thanks to Carole, Jon, and everyone else at Good News for making such a huge contribution to the community and to my life and family.
Review Source:My wife and I really enjoyed our meal here. Â The waitstaff was super friendly and all the food was delicious. Â
I had the squid salad, which had the perfect amount of parmesan cheese and the arugula was a nice complement to the squid. Â The lobster mac and cheese was fantastic. Â There was a generous portion of lobster (I think there was an entire lobster in there, maybe even more) to go with the penne pasta.
My wife had the martha salad with the crab on top, which was also very good. Â The avocado was fresh and again a very generous portion of crab. Â She had the scallops as an entree, and those were excellent, also.
Can't wait to come back and try some of the other dishes.
We had reservations for 6pm, and was pretty quiet. Â By 7:30, the place was packed, which really slowed down the service level and it became very loud.
This was our first time back at Carol's in about a year. Â The menu has been seriously streamlined from multiple pages to a single page. Â The food was, good, but not great for what Carol Peck charges. Â
I ordered the Vietnamese-style pork salad as a starter. Â I expected cold sliced pork over a tangy salad. Â What I received was a warm and greasy crumbled pork sausage over bib lettuce. Â I was not impressed, and would have said something to our server had she returned to our table. Â Alas, she did not.
My $30 entree of 4 seared scallops followed. Â Yes, they were delicious, and while I don't mind paying for good food, I still felt swindled.
Ironically, the part that stings the most is the least expensive item: Carol charges a dollar for filtered tap water at your table. Â She could have hidden this fee in other menu items, but chose to put it right out there with a, "I'm charging you for tap water".
I love this place. My favorite dishes are the pecan crusted oysters, lobster mac n cheese, lobster bisque, and the mushroom & goat cheese toast. However, I was extremely disappointed recently to find that they replaced the toast in this dish with a plantain. I find this takes away the contrasting textures of the soft cheese and mushrooms with the crunch of the toast; it adds another soft soggy texture to the dish and isn't as good. Â Carol- if you read this- please bring back the toast for this dish! I craved this dish and would come back specifically for it.
Review Source:Wanted to have dinner here on a Sunday night. Apparently their kitchen closes 40 minutes before the actual closing time? But other tables are being served food? I was pretty put off by that. Took my business elsewhere for the evening. Â Still suggest going for the food - not the service.
Review Source:This was a wonderful resturant at one time. At present there is still an interesting menu and neat decor, but there is where it ends. Â The wait staff is so poor, basical rude and very unattentive. Â The 3 tables around ours were complaining loudly about the VERY slow service, but it fell on deaf ears. Our entrees were served while we were eating our appetizers...then we were never addressed by the wait staff again. Â I had to go to the bar and ask for the bill. Â Carole Peck, you need to wake up and realize your staff is going to totally ruin your reputation.........there has been serious damage done so far. Â Overall the experience was way too expensive for what we encountered.
Review Source:My fiancé and I went there for lunch on Valentine's Day. I ordered a medium rare burger and after a rather long wait got a well done, dry burger. My fiancé's burger was ordered as medium and he was ok with the almost well doneness.
I sent my back but got an initial snippy reaction from the waitress when I explained my unhappiness.
The restaurant's look is very very dated. Needs a major revamp.
I went to Carol Peck's Good News Cafe with high expectations. Â My partner and I were visiting from NYC, and looking for a place in the area that would have a decent vegetarian menu. Â When I took a look at the good news' menu I was totally excited to have a place to go that she and I could enjoy.
We were greeted by a nice hostess and our waitress was sweet. Â We walked to our table holding hands and laughing, ready to enjoy a nice meal. We ordered wine and began to decide what we wanted for our meals. Â It was at this point (after we had been seated and had already ordered wine) that a different waitress came to our table and informed me that the owner wanted for me to remove my grey hat. Â She was very nice about it, and I obliged as I was excited to order off of the menu which looked great.
After I removed my hat, and ordered food, I began to notice my surroundings in the room. Â There were two tables of very drunk middle aged straight couples being quite loud. At times so loud that you could hear them from across the entire restaurant. Â I began to wonder why my hat was seen as so offensive, when these people were clearly acting quite loud, and disrespectful of the rest of the diners.
My partner and I tried not to dwell on this, but we then also began to notice that the service was less friendly, and every time the hostess passed by she looked at us strangely, almost sadly.
We got our food, which I can honestly say was very bland. Â I ordered the vegetarian soup option and a winter salad. Â My partner ordered the same soup and the black lentil quinoa casserole. Â The soup lacked any spunk. Â It needed spices and flavoring it did not have. Â The winter salad was decent, but the maple-vinaigrette salad dress (which sounds delicious) had nothing to it. Â Very bland. Â The black lentil quinoa casserole, which was the thing on the menu we were both the most excited for, was awful. Â We have honestly not only made better quinoa in our own kitchen from a box, but have never been so disappointed in a veg dish.
Quite disappointed with the meals, and our treatment, we decided to skip dessert and head home.  We left a nice tip, because our waitress had started out quite nicely, and  decided the search would have to continue for a decent vegetarian restaurant in CT.
As I made my way from the table to the exit, I noticed a middle aged woman, seated in the front of the restaurant wearing nothing other than a BRIGHT RED HAT. Â I frankly, was disgusted. Â I stated very loudly to the hostess and the waitress who had informed me of the owner's wishes, that the woman was wearing a hat. Â I also stated that it was quite clear to me that it was not a matter of wearing a hat, but a matter of WHO was wearing the hat, that offended the owner. Â
In Connecticut, an owner cannot ask you to leave a restaurant because you are gay, however, I guess Carol Peck's next best thing, was to make us feel so uncomfortable that we would in fact not return.  The hostess was very apologetic, and made sure to tell me that she had told Carol Peck  it was in poor taste to ask me to remove my hat after I had already been seated, and had already ordered, but apparently, it was very important to Peck that I still be made to feel silly and uncomfortable.  I don't know why our waitress' behavior changed, and why she acted less friendly toward us, but I can only guess that it had to do with Peck's orders.
I know it may seem benign, something as small as a hat. Â But the obvious lack of consistency with the dress code policy (if there even really is one), made it abundantly clear that my partner and I were not welcome at The Good News Cafe, not for our attire (both wearing black pants, cardigan sweaters, and leather boots), but for who we were and our presence in her space.
I will NEVER return to the Good News Cafe, but I also STRONGLY encourage you NOT to go to this restaurant. Â The food is awful, and the owner, as a human being, is worse.
I took a friend to this restaurant as a birthday treat.  It is a cute space.  She had an elderberry martini  which she loved and I han a german white wine.  We then ordered lobster soup  The lobster soup was full of lobster but the broth was basically a tomato soup with a little cream and sherry added.  Not nearly as good as a true lobster bisque and no real taste.  I had the warm crab taco which was basically a mound of probably canned crab, topped with much too much cheese, on a overcooked and burned tostada, sitting on a little iceberg lettuce with some ordinary salsa on top.  I ate very little of it as the crab was fishy and the ingredients just didn't blend well.  My friend had asparagus ravioli which she said was good although not great.  We shared a cinnamon bread pudding and this was excellent.  Service was attentive.  I don't think the food was up to par especially for the prices.  I also found the menu uninspiring...many dishes listed ingredients that just did not seem to go well.  For a $112 lunch, including a 20% tip, there are many places that would offer a truly delicious lunch, unfortunately the Good News Cafe was not one of those places for us.  I had really wanted to like this restaurant!!
Review Source:We enjoyed a great Saturday evening dinner with good friends. Â The atmosphere is warm and inviting. Â A booth near the bar is best. Â The oyster appetizer is fabulous. Â Different and very tasty. Â I had the mixed game grille entre, consisting of quail, venison and wild boar. Â All cooked perfectly. Â The breads are excellent. Â Service was friendly and attentive, although our hosts were regulars, which may have helped.
I would definitely go back.
I LOVE the decor! The restaurant was quaint yet trendy inside. I loved the quirky accents and unique art.
My friend ordered a spinach salad with tofu, pineapple and shitake mushrooms. It was delicious! I'm not sure what kind of dressing was on it but it really made the salad. I kind of wished I had ordered it too.
I had the lobster mac and cheese. The half portion is $16, I guess, because of the lobster but it's somewhat small. If you want to be full, I'd upgrade to the full size, which is $29, unless you are complementing your main course with appetizers and dessert. The lobster mac and cheese was good but it was a bit bland for me. I'm more of a cheddar fan and provolone doesn't really cut it for me but it was tasty, just not what I was expecting. The dish was peppered with good-sized lobster chunks so  if you want lobster, you'll definitely get it.
I forgot the name of our waitress but she was very cheerful and friendly. My friend remarked that she was one of the sweetest servers he had seen in a long time. Our food came out in a timely manner and the staff seemed to be generally upbeat and enthusiastic about their work.
I would definitely come back here.
I went here with my wife recently for lunch while running errands. For my appetizer, I ordered the warm crab taco. It was good, but a little too cheesey for my taste. Next, for my entree, I ordered the antelope burger with yucca fries. Although I don't like yucca fries, my wife had them. I LOVED the antelope burger. It was cooked perfectly, and had just the right amount of horseradish mayo. Paired with an Allagash White beer it was a very good meal.
Review Source:A co-worker suggested this place when I told her that I was new to the area, and wanted to rent a car for a single day. I bribed my boyfriend to come visit from NYC with seafood lunch and me chauffering his lazy ass around Conneticut. He was convinced in 4 secs flat.
The food was fresh & new. I was blown away by their oyster appetizer (first try at oysters), which had a lovely apple, cranberry salad with like chili creme sauce. Perfect for a summer day! Their classic wok shrimp and lobster mac-n-cheese was delicious too. Perfectly sized entrees. We stuffed ourselves and left absolutely no room for dessert. After we left and hit up a wine store, perused for a bit, and got back to the parking lot, my boyfriend decided, he was ready for dessert now. Yep, we definately shamelessly crawled back into GNC, and ordered something a bit lighter for dessert: simple strawberry and blueberry ice cream. Let me just tell you, the best blue berry ice cream I have ever had. You can see/taste the fresh blueberry chunks swirled in there. It was a lovely end to a perfect Saturday lunch.
Thoroughly enjoyed an evening of food and drink at the Good News Cafe last week. Started off with a yummy martini to go with my gazpacho and then the beet/cauliflower/fennel/kale salad with bleu cheese. For my main course I had to go with their very unique, signature dish, Lobster Mac 'n Cheese (which came highly recommended by all the regulars). It was a delicious and unique twist on an old favorite. And it was generous with the lobster bits, I dug up lots of real lobster meat and it was definitely fresh. I really enjoyed my meal. I think one of the best recommendations for the restaurant is that is has a vast and devoted local following. It takes real value and quality to win over those Connecticut Yankees, and Carol Peck has done just that!
Review Source:I was wary about this after having read reviews here, but it was a convenient meeting point for friends, and I had always wanted to give it a try.
Well......let's see. We were seated promptly (had a reservation), given menus (no commas, really hard to read the descriptions, I don't even see it as a "statement" that they use no commas in the descriptions, punctuation makes it easier to read things and that would be why it was invented, right?).
It took forever and ever for our order to be taken, and then forever and forever for our order (and our beverage refills), to be served. Like, 3 reminders for each? During one delay we were told there was a large private party in another room and the kitchen was struggling to get those dishes out. Um. Sorry, not my problem - staff appropriately or don't book the large events. Lotsa ppl out there looking for work, right?
Our waitress was fine but she had some snide remarks to make to indicate she herself was annoyed with the kitchen. Well, keep it to yourself, please, we would just like to be served.
Food was okay - my friend and I had identical salads and they looked thrown together with no care, were different sizes (quite small regardless), and had barely any of one of the featured ingredients. The service was so bad we didn't even bother to ask for this to be rectified.
And it's not cheap.
Won't be back.
We were at a wine tasting and stopped by for dinner. It was late and we did not have time to try any of the appetizers or deserts. They looked wonderful!
Main course was great. The chicken most and flavorful, scallops not overcooked  and a nice selection of local and well done vegetables. I had wild rice - you don't see that very often any more.
The Good News cafe displays art from local artists, has three separate areas to dine an and they each seem to have their own vibe.
Staff was friendly and very pleasant to deal with. How many places on a Friday night, when you tell them you don't have a reservation smile and tell you no problem!
I look forward to trying them again and updating this review - meet me at the bar section - looked like great fun!
Three for food, one for service so two stars is average. The hostesses are rude and seat their friends before customers with reservations. The only redeeming employee was the bartender who was fabulous and tried to make our night great. The food is good but not great. We would not return
Review Source:The first time I came here was about 8 years ago and I had a good time back then, and my food was good too. About 5 years ago me and a date started coming every so often and I had noticed the food was not cooked as well nor did it taste nearly as good. Now a days Carol's is just a pathetically bad shadow of its former self.... with bland, badly cooked food.... some of which is obviously near or past expiration. The alcohol selection is still excellent, but the bartender seems fairly clueless as to how to make drinks. Even non-alcoholic drinks came out wrong. The decor and setup is nice, but aging. I've met the owner several times over the years and while I can tell she never remembers me she is pretty much the best thing about coming as she is always very nice and easy to talk to.
The service overall, other than bartender, is very good which is why I am giving it 2 stars instead of 1. But I certainly hope the owner reads this and realizes that her entire menu needs to be updated, revamped, and her cooks need to be retrained to do their jobs correctly or fired all-together. Also I think she should pay a visit to her walk-in freezer because I have the feeling that there is a bit of expired food being stored in there.
This has to be one of the most pretentious restaurants ever. Don't be fooled by the warm lighting, or homely entrance. The main dining area resembles that of a diner, and you never feel a sense of privacy, because they sit the patrons relatively close together, even when the restaurant isn't busy.
Despite all this, the place still manages a thoroughly stuffy ambience. The wait staff was helpful, but appeared more sombre than pleasant. I don't remember our server ever cracking more than a couple smiles. The only perky person in the whole place was Carol, when she stopped by our table to greet us.
The food is probably one of the major reasons that makes this place so incredibly pretentious. My party had the taco, flash-fired beef, and pork belly as appetizers. The portions were miniscule, to say the least. However, that would have been fine had the food been good. Unfortunately, for the exorbitant prices and faux classy menu descriptions, they were pretty underwhelming. The beef was pretty bland, and the pork belly was actually tough. Fortunately, the fatty portion still retained much of its decadent consistency, but seriously, how does a relatively well-received restaurant mess up pork belly?
Next came the main courses. Like the appetizers, they never lived up to their prices and (once again) faux classy description. I had the wild boar and root vegetable stew. The rest of the party had the short ribs, salmon, and lobster mac & cheese. The stew was definitely nothing to rave about. It looked like old split pea soup, with a couple small pieces of boar, and half a stuffed plantain in the middle. Normal would be the best description for it. The short rib and salmon were both unfinished. Just about the only thing that looked good was the lobster mac & cheese.
All in all, had the food matched the expectations set by the menu, and the ambience less stuffy, this would not have been such an overly pretentious restaurant.
I would never go back again.
Bad news for Carol Peck's Good News Cafe: Our last dining experience was memorable in that it was one of the worst dining experiences of our lives. I'll start with the good... interesting menu and decor. Now onto the bad. Our waitress, Kerry, was one of the most condescending people I've ever met in my life. She was snide and wore an expression of one who smells something foul, she huffed and puffed impatiently when we asked questions about items on the menu. And she got all defensive when we requested butter as an alternative to the olive oil that's automatically served with the 'bread.'
It was a special occasion, my father's birthday, and other positive yelp reviews that brought us here. If I knew then what I know now, I would have stayed FAR AWAY. The service was painfully slow and it seemed like we were invisible when we attempted to flag someone down for a status update on our order. An hour must have gone by between our appetizers and main course. We were ravenous, and my parents were grumbling about how we should have just gone to Red Lobster. For once in my life, I agreed with them. My dad got something like antelope balls, I ordered the salmon. The food was NOT spectacular in the least and, in fact, my meal was so salty, I think it's a conspiracy for patrons to order MORE carafs of the $1 or $2 tap water.
After our meals, Kerry finally made an appearance and she seemed really out of it, to the point that I wondered if she was high or drunk, or both. For dessert, I had prearranged with the hostess when we arrived that we would each have slices of chocolate cake, one with a candle, to be presented as 'a surprise' for my father's birthday. Well, Kerry stumbled over with dessert menus and when I tried to pantomime that we had already made a special request, she still tried to shove the menus in our faces. Botching the surprise element, she acted flustered when I waved her (and the menus) away. Realizing that there was an obvious communication breakdown between the hostess and waitress, I calmly got up from the table to resolve the issue. It was a series of unfortunate events, to say the least. We finally received our cake, but by this point, it was closing time.
So, after paying over 200 dollars for 4 people for dinner, NO DRINKS, we left the Good News Cafe. And just when I thought the nightmare was over, the hostess happened to be going home for the night as well. Our long drawn out dining experience is evidenced by the fact we were leaving along with the restaurant staff! Well, she pulled out of the parking lot RIGHT behind me and tailgated our car so closely for several miles, my hands were like claws on the steering wheel. She ended up viciously speeding around us when we turned at the light. All I could think was that SHE, too, wanted to get as far away from the Good News Cafe as possible, even at the risk of other people's lives.
We came here with our friends from Georgia on a recommendation from the concierge at the Mayflower Inn and were glad we did. The atmosphere is casual, eclectic, with modern art and beautiful paintings on the wall, and it is a bit noisy. The service was casual, but the food was great. I had  a dozen fresh oysters on the half shell to start and a clam pasta dish that was light and lemony. For dessert the mocha pecan pie sent me to heaven! This accompanied by their locally roasted coffee. Oooooh so good. Make sure you make a reservation.
Review Source:Unlike some others, we found the service (Amanda) to be excellent. Also, equally as important, the food was delicious. We had the lobster soup and portobello mushroom goat cheese toast. Then moved on to the braised beef short ribs. The atmosphere was relaxed, the decor somewhat eclectic and the wine list plentiful! I would definitely recommend this place to friends.
Review Source:It's a 30 minute drive for us but Good News cafe has been consistently amazing each time we went over the last 10 months. We prefer to eat at the bar here, which is very cozy.
The staff is incredibly nice and accommodating - flawless service. John behind the bar is a rockstar with the best sense of humor.
The raw oysters are fab, the deep fried oysters are great, too. Flash fired beef is one of the best things I ever tasted and so is their lobster mac-n-cheese (no, really - I die). I love the swordfish with ravioli as well and the preparation of their daily catch is light and incredibly tasty.
The desserts are huge and we're usually way to full to order them...
With that said, I've eaten around the area in the last year and found Good News to be a rather solid step above the majority of the restaurants around here. So confused by the low ratings.
After moving to the area i heard many mixed reviews on the place. Some loved it others hated it. My first experience will probably be my last. Menu is very unique. Make sure you look at it first to find things you like.
We arrived to an empty dinning room at 7pm. Service started out slow with seating, waters, drinks and bread. Then the place filled about 3/4 and service GRINDED to a halt. There were plenty of people running around but nothing seemed to get done. Waiter started off ignoring this (and us) but turned it around somehow and actually turned it from a 1 star to a 2 star night. First round of drinks sent back twice! (and we RARELY send things back, especially a drink!)
Lobster soup had little lobster but great flavor.
Asian ginger chicken wonton rolls soggy and bland.
Short ribs were tough and bland but the yucca cake was GREAT!
Strip steak was ok.
Honestly, the best thing I tried was the Gratin of black lentil with kale sunchokes leeks and carrot cauliflower sauce & manchego cheese that our friend ordered. I am not a bean fan and would have never considered this as an entree but it was delicious and unique. Bean lovers should make the trip and get this in the bar just to taste it! Or for lunch.
Let me get this out of the way first - my wife loves this place and it seems to have a consistent local following. I think a bit of the Alice Waters vibe (female chef, local ingredients, wacky menu) is attempted to be recreated 3000 miles away. We are frequent diners as my wife picks it for all her special occasion dinners.
From my perspective:
- the beer is warm. Even Bud Light is served at best 45 degrees
- the wait staff is not professional. Second jobs or students. You need ask for everything and will sit for over 10 minutes before being approached after being initially seated. Instead of combining orders, say from the bar and checking the whole wait station, these guys make one off trips by table that result in an endurance test for patrons; even on slow nights.
Majority of food is odd and no value:
The familiar choices (3): Choice (supermarket) strip steak goes for $3 an ounce (Carole- I've sent you an Allen Brothers catalog), I have also tried the short ribs (read pot roast on a short stick) and I got one rib period! No kidding, $20++ for less than 6oz's of meat. The 1/2 chicken has nothing on Boston Market and at least at Boston Market you can get gravy - here its served dry.
After the familiar items above things get weird (everything else) the descriptions below are cut and pasted from the on line menu(the remarks in parenthesis are mine):
- antelope & lamb mini burgers(antelope?),
- Â flash fired spiced beef grilled romaine wrapped mozzarella & roasted tomatoes ( I don't know and am afraid to try. Is it beef wrapped in salad w/cheese?),
- Tofu coconut curry sticky rice bok choy & corn(oh please, this is a bit much),
- Mache salad roast rhubarb mango berries & crisp wonton noodles (what? May I have a warm beer?).
The atmosphere, decor, parking, etc are all fine.
Excellent. The best restaurant in Woodbury. Thoughtfully crafted, imaginative dishes. In-house chocolatier and pastry chef. Both do a great job. A plethora of vintage TV's and radios in the back room. The main room showcases art by local artists that is usually on sale.
I remember having breaded salmon and haddock "chicken fingers" here and they were delicious. I remember having the half-chicken and it was divine. I had the cassoulet, but it was just okay.
Still, this is the best that Woodbury has to offer. Slightly pricey, but totally worth it. A little classy, but in a way that works for me. It doesn't feel stodgy or forced. I highly recommend eating here, and trying a few different dishes with a group of friends.
So totally overrated it's painful...
If you can actually say that the food  here is outstanding, then it must be because you have never ventured outside of CT and have come to expect less.
My opinion is not being formed by just one meal.Over the last 10 years or so we have experienced quite a few meals, sometimes just the two of us and sometimes with a group of friends. In the earlier years some of the food we tried was tasty....the onion bundles, and some egg roll thing they offered ,were nice. However the 'off ' meals and  spotty service far out weighed the good over the course of time. Why so many meals here then? We found ourselves coming back because other people that we had planed on dining with wanted to go there, or because it might have been convenient as we live close by. At some point I feel like I have to take a stand and say enough is enough. We won't be returning.  I have had far better meals for less money than what is being charged here.
We came out here for a trip from Los Angeles, and were looking to get some good Northeastern food.
Yelp reviews looked promising, so we took a look at the menu online and were enchanted by the pairings and mouthwatering promises of culinary creativity.
The decor of the place was interesting. Â Great service and art on the walls. Â Very large, and there were a lot of people there.
This is where the magic ended, unfortunately. Â The food, while having fairly good presentation, was disappointing to say the least. Â The flash-fried (fired?) beef was overcooked and dry. Â The grilled mozzarella was bland. Â Dishes were overwhelmed with melted cheese to the point of losing all other flavor.
The bartender, while providing excellent service, made horribly sour lemonades.
Overall, if they re-branded themselves as a nice comfort-food restaurant, they'd be just fine (if a little overpriced). Â But, as a restaurant of culinary mystique and ethnic fusion, Carol's fails miserably.
I'm hoping Carol Peck reads this and gives her kitchen staff a brush up.
Good News Cafe was recommended by a friend in New Haven so I decided to take my folks out for dinner on Father's day. I drove in from Boston. Well, it started off ok, but got progressively worse.
After being seated, our waiter brought us a bottle of "sparkling" water, which was not sparkling, it was purified tap water. Apparently, they reuse the Sparkling water bottles (ew!). We sat there for 10 minutes without bread and olive oil which everyone else seemed to have on their tables. I stopped a bus person to see if she could find our waiter. I wish the bus person was our wait person!! She was awesome! After she brought us the bread and oil, our real waiter came to take our order. It seems that we could not order drinks and appetizers first, we had to order everything together! Drinks, Apps, AND Main Course all at once! (REALLY??) He brought out the wine and proceeded to splash it all over my glass and out onto the table. Ok, so let me say something good now. The lobster bisque was great. The sea bass was very good! It was a tiny portion with too much spinach as filler, but it was very good. The soft shell crab was also very good but the cold veggies served would have been better hot. The coffee was ok. The cappuccino was weak and bland. Oh, one other good thing about this restaurant. There were real flower on the tables!! I would think that for the price of the meals here, the service would be a bit better. I will not go back.
Though the first time I tried this restaurant I had been completely wowed, my last experience was less than thrilling. Â I ordered the Lobster Mac & Cheese, which was once again the same dish I ordered the first time I had been here, but I found the mac and cheese portion of the dinner to be lacking compared to the lobster. Â The lobster was perfect, but the mac and cheese was watery and the pasta was overcooked and dull. Â I also tried a taste of a friend's Antelope cheeseburger and found it to be identical in taste to a meatloaf lunch I can get at the deli near the place I work.
Despite my issues, I still would like to go back and try something else, I think I may have just gone on a bad night.
It was you, Yelp, that brought us to chef Carol Peck's restaurant . We were on a group snow tubing trip, in suburban/rural CT, at least 2 hours away from NYC and Boston-- which is scary for us city folk. Prepared like a boyscout, I researched our food options ahead of time. I was expecting to find Dairy Queens and diners, but I stumbled across the Good News Cafe instead. I jotted down the name and address before we left. And predictably, after a day on the slopes, we were all starving, and ready for a feast.
Still decked out fully in snow pants and winter hats, we happily immigrated  to the restaurant with high hopes. But when we arrived, something was very very wrong. We were grossly under-dressed for this establishment. Nicely-dressed patrons eyed us as we surveyed the "cafe." The name had deceived us. It's not quite as casual as the name might imply.
The resilient group that we were, we grabbed a menu and decided to make a to-go order. This was probably not commonplace for a restaurant that charges $30 an entree, but they were quite accommodating. We then took our 4 star provisions in paper bags (yes, you heard me right) back to our hotel, and ate it in the lounge area.
Okay, okay, you want to know about the food. I had the lobster mac and cheese, which was like a party in my mouth-- if it was an 80's themed  debutante ball in Ibiza, with robot dinosaurs and candy. What I mean is, it was really really good. I was too consumed by own meal to bother assessing what the others had ordered, but they seemed equally as pleased.
Should you go? Yes. Should you wear nikes? No. Should you be in a financially stable time in your life when you eat here? Oh hell yes. Will you love it? Probably.
We all end up in CT sometimes in our lives, and people like Carol Peck make it just a little more tasty.
If i wasnt convinced before that Connecticut has amazing restaurants, I am now. Â Carol Peck's Good News Cafe is every bit as good as most New York restaurants. Â Long story short-- creative, top notch ingredients, everything outstanding. Â And the simple entrees were so well prepared that they tasted like some divine chefs secret recipe creation.
The menu is insane. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out which of the salads to get, and annoyed that I couldnt get them all. Â Can you imagine wanting salads that sounded SO GOOD Â that you were willing to forego grilled chicken livers, pecan crusted oysters, and smoked salmon with cornbread pudding?
I went with a rare seared tuna with a mixed asian green salad and it may sound standard, but it was anything but. Â The tuna quality and the unique taste and texture combination of the seaweed salad with other greens was melt in your mouth delicious. Â We also ordered two appetizers that focused on grilled pear. Â One was off the specials list with bacon and goat cheese that we lingered over as long as we could and just savored it. Â
For entrees, the fishes were great, and the lobster with baked macaroni was as good as promised but the real suprise came from the simply perfect Henry s organic roasted Chicken half with buttermilk mashed potatoes & wok seared seasonal veggies. Â Long after we were all full, we were still composing forkfuls of crispy perfectly seasoned chicken with a mouthful of the very buttermilky potatos and passing them around the table. Â If you want the epitome of farm fresh ingredients, and you want to taste the flavor of the ingredients, this dish will blow you away. Â Dont be afraid that its too boring to order, because its heavenly and if you could have chicken this good everywhere you go, you'd never tire of it.
We were much too stuffed for the desserts, but there was something about the "Better than Yankee doodles chocolate cupcake
chantilly cream & chocolate sauce" that i couldnt get out of my head. Â It tasted EXACTLY like a yankee doodle or devil dog or whatever you want to call it, only much much better because the cream was real homemade cream with a texture to match, and the cake was made with eggs and flour and butter and lots of real chocolate instead of the chemicals that go into that supermarket stuff. Â So YES if you care about what you put into your body, and subtlety of flavor, it is worth 8 bucks for this 'cupcake'.
I'll never underestimate Connecticut again, and I'll never underestimate simple foods again thanks to Carol Peck.
So I'm sure I'm going to end up sounding like a food snob (if it sounds like a duck...) but on my first visit to this area it seemed most people seemed to survive on old-school red sauce restaurants. Â We stumbled on The Good News Cafe however and we were delighted by everything we found. Â Definitely diamond in the rough.
Review Source:Ok, so I guess everyone is just SHOCKED that a place like (gasp) CONNECTICUT can have a good place to eat. What's so shocking - people live here, people who like to eat good food. Those people come to Carol Peck's.
The atmosphere is funky and fun. The food is better than almost any other place you will eat in town, and the drinks are fantastic. Whenever I come home to visit my parents, I end up here, sharing many many cocktails with a friend.
You should come here. You should drink many of these drinks - as many as it takes to wonder if you, too, should paint your walls bright green. Then snag some of the fabulous food. You will NOT be sorry.
I agree with a lot of the reviewers when they say "What is this great restaurant doing here?" Â I've eaten here maybe 30 times in the last two years and have never been disappointed. Â Some dishes are better than others, but two words of advice "LOBSTER MAC". Â The baked lobster mac and cheese with white truffle oil is to die for. Â I usually order a dirty vodka martini at a new place to gauge the bar. Â This place gets them right every time. Â
My suggestion would be if there are only two of you and you'd like a bit of interaction with the crowd, have your dinner at the high top tables at the bar. Â Service is quicker and it adds a dash of fun to the dinner. Â You can reserve the high tops like any other table by the way. Â I've also found the staff to be pretty honest about what's good that night so be sure to ask.
Carol is a hoot if you get a chance to talk to her, especially if you don't mind a little colorful language.
If there were a catagory between dressy and casual, that would be the attire, more or less business casual.
Like a lot of people have said - the Good News cafe is a bit out of the way but I think it was worth the trip, and we definitely will be back ..
we are vegetarian and even though the cafe isn't a pure vegetarian restaurant it had a few exceptional vegetarian choices - all the things we had were excellent. Most of the restaurants that I would say are my favorites in the state are vegetarian-only, but I am glad to add this non-veg place to my favorites.
The building looked very small from the outside - but inside it was big, a large main dining room and the bar cafe room, not too crowded or noisey when we were there - the overall attire was dressy but casual. the interior has all sorts of funky stuff on the walls, some i thought looked kind of cheap and kitschy in a not-good way.
In the end, the bill was a bit more than expected for lunch (the portions were very big) - and the service was a bit less than attentive especially for the not-so-crowded dining room.
This is a terrific find! The Good News Cafe is good news for your tastebuds! Portions are generous, fresh and delish! The Good News Cafe tries, when possible to use locally-grown organic ingredients in their dishes. On my most recent visit, I enjoyed the Adult Mac & Cheese with lobster! You MUST give this dish a try if you are a lobster fan, as there enough lobster for two servings! The other fun part of dining here, is the space doubles as an art gallery! The walls are adorned with works of art available for purchase. I would recommend anyone put this unique spot on their list of must-visits!
Review Source:A large selection of organic foods serves as only part of Carol Peck's Good News Cafe allure. Â Lunchtime fills this bright, artsy space with both business clientele and retirees from Heritage Village. The eclectic, changing menu offers exciting departures from what you would expect at a restaurant. Â Unique soups, salads and sandwiches, like the banana and curry chicken salad I had last time I was there, show almost incomparable inventiveness and exciting burst of flavor. Â
Spread the good news, this place is a winner.
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