If you want good "home cooked" food this is the place!! Steak & gravy...mashed potatoes..green beans...muah!! Hashbrown casserole. ..fried okra..meatloaf....are you hungry yet?? I am.....see you there!! read more

Shelby Cafe is everything small town. It's not gourmet, it's rather straight forward, home cooking. It's one of the few places in the American south that serves veggies without pork. I know; that's a shocker. Well, it surely hasn't reduced their huge and faithful patronage. No place is perfect. Sometimes people leave any establishment disgruntled about something. But living in Shelby, driving up and down Lafayette St., eating at least twice per week at Shelby Cafe, you will know they're doing a lot right. It's a people place. Everybody knows everybody, so to speak. Diners stand around other's tables and enjoy good times. The restaurant is not in competition with the chain restaurants on 74 bypass. They corner their market extremely well. Country style steak, turnip greens, green beans, cornbread and iced tea at Shelby Cafe is half the reason I go. The other half is the small town atmosphere. Just plain folk. I didn't say poor; yes, some are. I said plain, not snooty, highfalootin' patrons everyday. May they continue another generation. See my sidewalk night picture of Shelby Cafe on this site. read more

Shelby Cafe - Looking south on Lafayette St at Shelby Cafe and evening customers. - Breakfast & Brunch Near Me - Shelby, North Carolina

I Love Shelby Cafe in Shelby NC. Its an amazing home town southern classic food restaurant that is mouth watering and delicious down from the delicious biscuits toast grits and liver mush from the cube steak and gravy and black eyed peas with cabbage and cornbread which is my classic favorite there. I don't mind giving a review at all of my opinion about this place. Now from me personally I'd love to see more races conjoin and eat together at this all time local favorite. I also would love to see more booth spaces and tables. Expand the restaurant this can bring in extra money and more tips for the waitresses and more money for the company. I have had to wait a while before for a table but all in all....I love it!!!!!!!!! I've also applied to work there a lot but hey I'd rather eat!!!!!! Love you Shelby cafe! Great service great food great living people. read more

Disappointed.. the type of home cooking from 60' when everything came out of a can.. my stomach hurts already and we just left the restaurant.. read more

Slow slow service and overpriced food is what I got here. Ate here for last time tonight. Waited way too long for our order and service was really bad with an attitude. Food was cold when it finally arrived. Place wasn't even busy. Wonder why? read more

We went based on reviews and were not disappointed. We both had the mushroom swiss burger, mine with fries, my sisters with half fries, half onion rings. The burger was cooked perfectly (med. rare) and was hand made, not some pre-formed frozen burger. The fries were perfect, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside and my sister said the onion rings were the best she ever had. Even the pickle was crisp and tasty. We got there just before noon and got a table right away, but by the time we left, there was a small line, but the do get you in and out pretty fast. Our server didn't have a name tag, but the bill said she was server # 14. She was friendly and our glasses never got less than half full. We drove over an hour from Asheville to go there and will go back again. The other foods, breakfast and lunches we saw go by looked wonderful. read more

Classic burgers and meals. The wait staff is always super friendly and the prices are good.

Cool, authentic, local place to eat. Breakfast was great. Nice time I will try one of the daily lunch specials. They were busy, but I still got great service. read more

Well, this might be 4 star if you don't get out of Shelby much. I will give them kudos for the biscuits, coleslaw, and green beans. The chicken strips and chicken fried steak were interesting, but not memorable. They do get credit for keeping the salt content down in the food, so for heart conscious people, this could be a good choice. read more

Lunchtime. Steak and gravy ehh, squash casserole was amazing and fried okra was perfect. Can't go wrong with that type of lunch for under 10$. 3.5 Stars. read more

I ate here while visiting friends. They really talked it up so I had high expectations. It was supposed to be home cooking with a good dessert selection. Supposed...Well in reality first of all our waitress flipped between being non-existent and non-friendly. The pork I ordered was thin, overdone, and absolutely full of pepper. The mashed potatoes were watery and the gravy tasted nothing like anybody's grandma ever made. The bread was absolutely horrid...biscuits totally overdone and hard, and the rolls were only a little bit better. We never, ever were offered desserts and finally left when we realized our hand written check had been slipped under a plate on our table of dirty dishes. My friends assured me they go there every week and this was out of the ordinary, and the tables were very amusing and helped the time pass (we needed that!) because they had old newspapers on top of them that were pretty cool to read....the two saving reasons I have given this place 3 stars instead of less. read more

We got there around 2:10 pm on Tuesday. There was not many people in the cafe. A waitress took our drink order, and it took a long time to get to our table. Finally another waitress took our food order. Twenty minutes later we received it. The cheeseburger and French fries were cold. The vegetable plate with fries, okra, onion rings, and sweet potato casserole was cold. It was 3:15 when we left. We will not eat there again. read more