Latrelle's  Restaurant

Latrelle's is a small family diner restaurant about a mile or two west of Rte. 29 in Gretna, VA.  It is apparently family-owned and clearly pretends to be no more than it is- a local country diner.  It is located next to the more well-known C & E's Restaurant, which happened to be closed on Mondays when we intended to go there, so we went next door to Latrelle's.  There is little or no "ambiance", merely a dozen or so tables, a TV on the wall and a counter which seemed to serve no function.  

The food is "country pre-fab."  There is little or nothing home-made.  Imagine little portions of food, pre-cooked, pre-breaded, uniform in size  and frozen.  The mashed potatoes were apparently "instant."  We were there for "dinner" time and the dinner plates averaged $5.99.  The flounder, which I ordered was thin, dry and over-fried. The breading was the same as the breading on the fried okra, which was nearly tasteless.  Accompanying the plates were your choice of canned veggies.  I chose beets.

My partner's choice was a ground beef patty, pretty much over done and greasy, with canned brown gravy over it.  

Overall, think of the food you might get at a convalescent home and you have a good image of Latrelle's.  It is not as good as Denny's on a bad day.

Service was fast and friendly in the country way and, as noted above, prices are low. .  

I don't think we'll go back.   Still, it must be borne in mind we don't go to Gretna for "fabulous gustatory adventures", and when we do go there to eat, we expect no more than what we get.  For that reason, my rating is a generous two stars,