Augusta Eats: Looking for tasty downtown comfort food? Your lucky number could be 209
When Cassandra and Glen Brinson opened Café 209 in 2000, Cassandra Brinson called their new restaurant “the S&S of Broad Street,” after the popular Augusta cafeteria.
These days, loyal customers might tell you that S&S is the Café 209 of Walton Way.
Both eateries offer homestyle Southern food, but the edge goes to the family-owned Café 209 for paying the same close attention to their entrees and sides as your grandmother did in her own kitchen.
From fried chicken and fried pork chops to smothered hamburger steak and liver-and-onions, diners can pair their entrees with a broad choice of sides such as collards, black-eyed peas, macaroni and cheese and more. You should have little trouble re-creating your favorite homecooked meal from the packed menu.
Augusta Eats: Race to find classic Asian food in Columbia County ends in a Thai
Customer reactions have taught Café 209 what works and what doesn’t. For example, bottled sauces don’t work. The homemade sauces grew so popular that when the restaurant quietly switched to a commercial-brand tartar sauce, keen customers spotted the difference right away, and the homemade sauce returned.
Weekly specials definitely work. It’s not just fish and grits on Fridays, either. Regulars visit Café 209 each Wednesday expecting, and getting, savory slices of meatloaf. Baby-back ribs appeared for a few Wednesdays, but popular demand kept pushing meatloaf as the overwhelming favorite.
To get there, make sure you know where you’re going.
The restaurant’s first location, at 209 10th St. in Augusta, gave Café 209 its name when it opened in 2000. Since then, it’s moved three times – first in 2003, further down 10th Street, then a few years later to 4 Eighth St.
The café moved to 566 Broad in 2012, keeping the 209 that’s so familiar with regulars.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Augusta Eats: Café 209 serves old favorites; you might find new ones
