For decades my husband and his family were loyal patrons of Middleboro's, most popular pizza…read morerestaurant, Central Cafe. However, for the past 2 to 3 years, whenever we've visited my husband's hometown, Central Cafe has not lived up to those glorious memories of family dining.
In the past year on at least five separate occasions, we have had one bad experience after another ordering from Central Cafe. We've experienced burnt pizzas, stale sub sandwich bread, Caesar salad with NO Caesar dressing available (???), and now the latest order with French fries that tasted as if they'd been sitting in the car for a week!!
On top of the downhill trajectory of Central Cafe's food quality, in the past 5 years, their prices have skyrocketed, with some menu items, like their "Meat Lovers" pizza increasing more than 50% in price! On top of the price changes, for more than a year, with their new menu prices in full effect, Central Cafe refused to supply menus to customers that requested them. When my husband asked for a new menu, he was told that they only had the laminated ones available to those ordering from inside the restaurant. On this last occasion, my husband planned to take a picture of the menu when he went to pick up our order, but he was told that "so many people complained that [they] brought [the paper menus] back".
As if the doubly-priced subpar food wasn't enough of an insult to its legacy, Central Cafe charges an additional $3.00 "takeout fee", a hidden fee added to all takeout orders that nobody mentions until you question why your total is so high. And if you order "plain chicken fingers", an employee will kindly ask "mild or hot?" in reference to the buffalo sauce (that you did not order) that they charge an extra 75¢ for.
For a burnt meatball sub in stale bread comes with soggy fries, an order of chicken fingers, and 2 orders of soggy sweet potato fries, the total of our takeout order was $55 and some change. After calling to confirm the order was correct, that is when we were able to take the 75¢ sauce off of the order, and I decided that $9.00 was just too much for sweet potato fries, especially once we realized they were stale and l most ikely reheated in a microwave.
Needless to say, today's visit to Central Cafe is our last. Our previous visit would have been our last, but because of our last visit's lousy food, we were given a gift certificate for the next. In the end, the food we received today wasn't worth the money we paid even with the $25 gift certificate reduction off the total.
Longtime patrons of Central Cafe are aging and I would be surprised if they are gaining any new ones. It's time to make a change or they are doomed to fail.