Kilgore Cafe

I so wanted Kilgore Café to be the home style plate lunch place Kilgore needs, but at this point it isn’t.
The waitress and a gentleman I believe is the owner were so hospitable and friendly, I really wanted to ignore the visit, but I also hope they will read this and perhaps make some much needed improvements to help them succeed.
First, the place has been cleaned up though it still smells like smoke. They are in the process of replacing the ceiling, and that could help the situation though, if they don’t take care of the condensation issues with the air conditioning, the new ceiling will be ruined in no time.
Salad bar: Needs some «fixins» but what they did have was fresh. Simply iceberg lettuce, but fresh and crisp. Add some coleslaw (at least on «fish Friday») and maybe some cottage cheese, macaroni salad, or potato salad. Every restaurant has leftover potatoes and they make great potato salad. Add at least one low fat salad dressing option for folks who think that is healthy.
Entrée: Oh my, the catfish (2 fillets) lunch special had two nice size fillets, but they were not fully cooked — still opaque. Sent them back asking for another 3 minutes in the fryer, but they brought new pieces and they were not cooked either. Did taste and edge piece and it was good quality, not muddy or fishy, nice crisp crust. Just cook it a little longer, please. Good tartar sauce and cocktail sauce on the salad bar, but lemon juice is in a package. At least on fish day, have some fresh lemons sliced and available.
Sides we tried: Boiled new potatoes — desperately needed butter and seasoning of some sort. Try Lawry’s season salt and pepper. Italian style green beans: Good and well seasoned, but had stems in them. Yes, yes I know that happens at times with canned green beans, but the cook who is doing the plating should catch this. Turnip greens: Very rough cut, well seasoned, not bad but some tough stems.
The cornbread muffin was very sad. Here is a basic cornbread muffin recipe and on the website you can change the number of servings and the recipe will adjust itself. Give this a try:
. Try serving some butter with the cornbread and hush puppies.
Hope this helps.

I have to say after seeing the burger and onion rings pic, I was excited to try this restaurant! I was very impressed… the burger was thick and juicy with two different types of cheese, the onion rings were hand battered and fried to crispy perfection! As I am new to the Kilgore area I asked the server a few questions… she is also new to the area so the owner came out and chatted with me. He was very professional and helpful in pointing my way to a few local spots that were of interest. The sweet tea was every southerners dream… haha! And the warm brownie and ice cream were the perfect ending to my meal! I will be back for sure!

They were so nice we went in at 1:50 realized they close at 2pm so we turned around to leave. They stopped is and said they were happy to feed us. Even made fresh fried fish for us and French fries. The buffet was standard fare but they were really pleasant.

Not impressed with the buffet… minimal choices. Apparently, this place doesn’t get busy based on the amount of food prepared on the buffet. Looked like powdered eggs and plastic wrap protecting the bins to speed cleaning. They were not prepared and had trouble handling our group. Ordering off the menu was a little better but not by much. I think you could do better some where else.

I’m going to start out honest and say this was not where I planned on dining for lunch today. The place downtown that I was going to was packed so I sought out another place to eat. I remembered having the breakfast buffet here once before and it being decent so I went with it. It is tucked in between a couple motels on the outskirts of Kilgore. I opted to not get the lunch buffet which was fried chicken and everything that goes with that. It looked really good. I was in the mood for a burger so I gave it a shot. I have to say my expectations weren’t great, maybe out of ignorance, but this just didn’t look like a good burger place to me. Boy was I in for a surprise. The bacon cheeseburger that I ordered was fresh and delicious. You could tell the only part of it that wasn’t homemade was the bun. The meat had a great flame broiled flavor like you would get from your home grill and was obviously a patty made there from fresh ground beef. The bacon was crisp and plentiful. It wasn’t the cheap microwave variety that many places use, it was the real deal. I also ordered onion rings with it. These were obviously fresh cut, homemade and the were delicious. I had figured I was going to get some stuff out of a bag or box, premade, typical of so many places these days. I was wrong. The people that work here are super friendly and the service is great. I would say it took about 10 – 12 minutes from when i ordered until i got my food. That is a plus as well because you know they are cooking it fresh. I will be back soon!

Quick service, low prices and great food. My pancakes were enormous, thick and had great flavor. The bacon was the perfect crispness and my eggs were cooked to order with no tough spots on them. My husband had the chicken fried steak and let me have two bites. (Score!) The gravy didn’t overpower the texture of the breading, the meat was tender and the Texas toast was the best I’ve ever had, awesome thickness, buttery and fresh. The buffet looked good but we missed it. Definitely stop by when you’re in Kilgore!