Cafe at Pharr is a collection of cafe-restaurants in metro Atlanta serving healthy, light, and delicious food. There are currently five locations: Buckhead, Miami Circle (near Lindbergh), Westside (West Midtown), Vinings, and Brookhaven. The business got its name from the original location in Buckhead on Pharr Rd. This review is for the Vinings location, found inside the Vinings Jubilee shopping district (same shopping center with La Paz, Mellow Mushroom, Another Broken Egg Cafe).
Cafe at Pharr is a lunch place. Most locations close in the afternoon. This Vinings location stays open the latest, until 6pm, Monday through Saturday. The restaurant is closed Sundays.
The restaurant is small and casual. There's a bar in the center of the dining space and seating consists of a mixture of regular and high-top tables. Clean and contemporary environment. Big windows allow natural sunlight to fill most of the interior and photos of Atlanta serve as decor along one of the walls.
I like the simple menu. The specialties are salads and sandwiches, and they have soups too. The most popular item at Cafe at Pharr is the walnut chicken salad. If it's your first time, ask for samples. They'll bring various salads out in sample cups for you to try. Most sandwiches are priced at $7.50 each and most salad plates $9.00 each. There are several different bread choices (white, wheat, multigrain, baguette, croissant) and all entrees come with red grapes and housemade yogurt rolls. Take-out is a popular option.
I've tried a handful of salads including:
Walnut chicken salad
Celery chicken salad
Curry chicken salad
Tuna salad
They're all good, so it's hard to go wrong. The chicken salads are made with all-white meat chicken. The walnut chicken salad contains crushed walnuts and golden raisins. The celery chicken salad contains celery and mayo -- a very traditional chicken salad. The curry chicken salad is the most flavorful of the lot and perhaps my favorite, but only by a hair. It's subtly spicy. The tuna salad is similar to the celery chicken salad. It's another classic tasting salad.
If you order a sandwich, I recommend it on white bread or in a croissant. The croissant bread is tasty -- soft, flaky, and buttery. Speaking of croissants, Cafe at Pharr's yogurt rolls are made with leftover croissant dough. The yogurt rolls are essentially croissants filled with a semi-sweet, creamy yogurt. They are delectable and something the restaurant is known for.
I prefer the salad plates, which are just as filling as the sandwiches. Only one dressing comes with the salads and it's a housemade ginger dressing, which is served on the side in a neat little pour cup. The dressing is light and vinegary and contains tiny seeds. The salad itself comes with fresh, crisp lettuce, shredded carrots, and slices or ripe tomato. Along with the aforementioned grapes and yogurt roll, a slice of bread is included too.
If you like soup, try one of their soups of the day. I've tried the tomato soup and it is fantastic. It's a little bit creamy, which I like, and full of flavor. The chicken noodle soup, with shredded chicken, looks pretty good too.
Service is excellent.
All in all, I'm a fan of Cafe at Pharr's Vinings location. The food is healthy, affordable, and tasty and the service is terrific. A dependable lunch spot. read more