The Garry House Cafe

Finally got to have dinner here.  Restaurant is only open M-F for lunch and on special occasions.  It's in a beautifully redone house in Pell City.

There were two of us, both having the "Aussie Chicken" which was chicken and vegetables in a pastry parcel, served with a side salad.  Both of us selected Melissa's Signature Salad which was mixed greens with dried cranberries, candied pecans, thin sliced red onion,pear and crumbled blue cheese with honey mustard dressing.  The food was quite good, not extraordinary but very nice.  The salad was excellent - we did have the dressing on the side since most places put far too much dressing on their salads.  The chicken pie was good, a bit too much crust for me, but tasty.  Also had a glass of the house chardonnay.  

Unfortunately it showed in the wait staff, and the kitchen that they were very inexperienced with a crowd.  I would imagine that during the weekday lunches, there are few crowds.   This restaurant does have special dinners on occasion, and has started opening with a regular evening menu on Pell City's Fourth Friday celebrations.  We were here on a Fourth Friday for dinner, arriving around 7:00pm.    When we arrived, we were not greeted.  in fact, it took several minutes for two waitresses to finish at the cash register before they even acknowledged we were standing there.  It took at least another 5 minutes to get seated, and probably another 5 to have someone bring us water, and ask if we wanted something else to drink.   Then the wait for the food began which was very long, and by the time the food had arrived, we had completely finished the water bottle full of water.  We requested a refill which was forgotten.  About halfway through dinner, we stopped another waitress to request more water which she brought fairly quickly.  Had we wanted dessert, we wouldn't have had any due to the extremely long waits, and the staff practically ignoring us.  The long wait for the check completed the night and we immediately handed over the credit card so that we wouldn't have to wait on anyone to return to pick it up.     I honestly don't think that the waitstaff is somewhere goofing off, ignoring customers.  I really believe that they just don't know any better, and can't possibly learn by working 2-3 nights per month with a full restaurant.  I do hope that this restaurant can get their act together, and train their staff.  In my opinion, the only way that this will happen is if the restaurant opens at night on a regular schedule.