Wells Cargo

User Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Stone Mountain's Best Kept Secret-Highly Recommend: This quaint restaurant may well be Stone Mountain's best kept secret. I've lived in the general area for 16 years, this Wells Cargo Cafe has been around for 17 years - and I JUST discovered it!

The restaurant is cozy and romantic, with a lot of antiques and nostalgia around the room, and a fireplace strategically located for ambiance.

As you enter there's a 3-candle candelabra that serves as the "open" sign. If the candles are lit, they're open. The tables are a mis-matched variety of antique dining tables that blend nicely into their surroundings. Each table is candlelit as well.

It's a warm elegance, but not stuffy or uppity. The servers are casual, as is the restaurant. You are provided with a menu that could easily be used in any sandwich shop and burger joint out there, but for dinner there is a small chalkboard for each table that has the evening's entrees listed. There are easily a dozen items with something to appeal to just about everyone.

My wife ordered a Merlot by the glass, which she said was quite good.

I ordered the Chicken Roma, my wife had the beer-battered shrimp, and my 6-year old daughter had the Maple Salmon. Each meal comes with a salad, vegetable medley, and a choice of potatoes.

The staff was extremely accomodating as we made a lot of special requests. Instead of salad with my meal, I opted for the vegetable beef soup, which was excellent - full of carrots, potatoes, celery, tomatoes, and ground beef in a broth that was very full-bodied and thick. It was apparent that the soup had been cooking for hours, as the flavors were throroughly blended - the mark of a properly made soup.

My daughter likes to have sliced carrots and cucumbers with ranch dressing to dip into, rather than a salad. They complied with this request without question.

Bread sticks accompanied the salads and were served as bread is meant to be: warm, with butter pats that are near room temperature, and easily spread. We found that these went too quickly, but our server offered a second batch without our asking for them - she admitted that they were favorites of hers as well.

Instead of the vegetable medley, I asked to double up on the potatoes. With choices of mashed potatoes, twice baked potatoes, and fried sweet potatoes, I opted for both the fried sweet potatoes and twice baked potatoes. My wife also had fried sweet potatoes and my daughter had the mashed potatoes.

The twice baked potatoes were a creamy potato with a cheesy topping. The mashed potatoes were fresh, with bits of skin in them, with just a hint of garlic flavoring. The fried sweet potatoes were wonderful. All came piping hot. The vegetable medly was a mixture of summer squash, broccoli, and another random vegetable or two. These appeared a bit lifeless, but were tasty.

The entrees were all stunning, with generous portions and great, full-plate presentations.

The Maple Salmon was a thick filet, covered in a maple reduction sauce that was neither too sweet nor savory. My daughter, who absolutely LOVES salmon, ate nearly the entire adult portion, which surprised us since it was a sizable portion.

The beer-battered shrimp were jumbo and well-seasoned, cooked to the perfect texture, with crisp breading and tender shemp. They were served with a soy dipping sauce or a seafood sauce that appeared to be homemade. That didn't surprise us, as everything else there is made in the cafe with the exception of the butter.

The Chicken Roma was worthy of it's own review. A nice sized chicken breast was topped with prosciutto and covered with mozarella cheese, then covered in a marsala wine sauce with mushrooms. The plate was covered in this sauce, with a few stray scallions (real, not shaken from a plastic jar) mixed in for decoration. It was cooked to perfection and is the kind of entree that most restaurants would be proud to consider as their signature dish.

There's a lot more to say about Wells

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