Strawberry Street Café

Wound up here, somewhat by accident. Trying to grab a meal without a plan sometimes can bring a pleasant surprise.
Driving thru VCU & Fan trying to find a place that is open on a Monday is often difficult but on a Monday Holiday proved a challenge indeed.
Though we were trying to go to «8−½», which was closed it was right next door to the Strawberry Street Café.
Throwing caution to the wind we decided to give it a try.
Immediately upon walking in the door I find myself standing in front of a vintage Claw Foot Porcelain Bathtub. Certainly a unique first impression.
Opted for the Monday night special, $ 6 Burger with the $ 5 salad bar upgrade.
Calling the Bathtub a salad bar is certainly unique, but so unfair. This was not your typical chopped iceberg with obligatory accoutrements. This was a bar of Salads! Curry Chicken, Shrimp, Tuna, Italian antipasto and sesame noodle salads to name a few. Plus a rich Italian seafood chowder that in itself was worth the entire price of admission.
Quaint neighborhood place, tastefully decorated, though a common menu but extremely well executed and reasonable priced.

I came here for Sunday brunch with my parents and boyfriend (they take reservations FYI). We really enjoyed it! We split a pitcher of mimosas. I ordered the fried green tomatoes eggs Benedict with the cheddar cheese hash browns. The eggs Benedict was so great. It also came with a blueberry muffin on the side, which was great too. While I didn’t order this, I’ve heard their bathtub buffet is pretty good too. As we left, I took a peak and it looked super tastey (especially the donuts and cinnamon buns). I really enjoyed what I ordered, but I might be tempted to try the buffet next time I go. Our waitress was really nice and friendly too, so between the good service and yummy food, I will definitely be going back.

This place is average. It isn’t delicious and it isn’t bad by any means. It is a good, safe spot to go when you want to play it safe. It is also located in a cute part of the fan, so it is a great spot to go for lunch or brunch and then walk around after. Really, there is nothing inherently wrong about this restaurant, just don’t expect to be blown away with culinary greatness.

This has to be my new favorite brunch spot! The bathtub brunch bar is unique! I had a Belgian waffle and my friend had quiche! Excellent service and food. I took one star away because it’s so cramped if you aren’t in a booth.

Honestly, I wanted to love this place, but the food is so salty. It really upset my stomach for a few days. I’m not too sure where they were trying to go with this food, but it wasn’t very good. I had the fried chicken with sprouts and greens and my wife had the pot pie with sprouts and sweet potato fries. The fries were delicious, but that’s about it. The food tasted like someone had dumped a bottles of salt in it. We also had a baked fruit pie thing (I can’t remember what it was called, sorry!). It was very tarty.
I guess this place is a hit or miss, and I definitely had the miss.

This is your average brunch spot.
Some items are decent, while others can aren’t up to par. The bath tub bar is underwhelming. Service, however, is outstanding.

I love this place! The bathtub salad bar is obviously the attracting factor, or at least what gets people in the door. And dont let that throw you off, its delicious. They have a great selection if you opt for the bathtub bar, but also have lots of yummy choices off the menu. The pot pie is one of my favs! Its the best when you just need some comfort food. Otherwise, great staff, great wine, great food!

So like every other brunch place in Richmond, it was a wait to get into the Restuarant. That wait wasn’t as long as the wait for the food though. Oh my goodness, it took sooo long. I only ordered potatoes and fruit. The waitress got the potatoes from the buffet so I don’t even know why it took so long for us to get our food. My friend said she’s been there before (this was my first time) and what she ordered looked good, she got the chicken wrap. Maybe on a day and time when there isn’t as many people I will try Strawberry Street again.

Vegetarian spouse’s first time visit
Delicious bean burger and beers
There’s a reason they’ve around 40 years

I love their nachos. They’re salad bar is so good, especially the chicken salad.

We’ve been coming here for years but over the last couple of years things have really slipped. The salad bar just doesn’t seem as fresh. I often order steak tips and the cut, cook, and flavor are no longer good… much less for $ 16.50. The broccoli soup was not good at all.
The service was average tonight but Mark, our waiter, was a total zero on the personality scale. I really hate watching my waiter walk past my empty glass four times after I’ve moved it to the edge of the table for visibility.
The restaurant is a Richmond staple and we come back I think based on the faint hope it will be like it used to be. The one thing that hasn’t changed is the décor and it is definitely in need of a facelift and deep cleaning.
Tonight was probably our last visit, unfortunately.

Strawberry Street is a great café. Beginning with the bath tub salad bar, quiche, and crab soup that is one of my favorite things.
BRUNCH REVIEW
On this visit we decided to try it for brunch. I ordered my usual eggs benedict and added crab. It was decent. They had a really good hollandaise and I love it when it’s on a buttery English muffin. One of my friends ordered the brunch buffet which I thought was a very affordable price at just $ 14. In addition to the breakfast items they had a yummy selection of donuts. I would like to give a shout out to their bloody mary. It was not excessively garnished and had just the right amount of spice. Overall with the service and food it was a good brunch experience.

I tried the Eggs Benedict and really enjoyed it.
The food was great, and the mimosas were delicious.
I wouldn’t make the trip just for the brunch bar though. That was our main reason for going, just to check it out. The small amount of breakfast foods on the bar caused us to just order from the menu.
Enjoyable but not anything to write home about.

A family friend introduced us to Strawberry Street when she moved to Richmond back when I was a kid. It quickly became a favorite, and we would stop here whenever we traveled to or through town. Unfortunately there has been a change in ownership and the new owners seem intent on making «improvements.»
The menu items sound really enticing, and the friendly servers will tell you everything you ask about is good, but time and time again we have been disappointed by the quality of the food. We keep coming in for nostalgia’s sake (the beautiful chalkboard drawings and the old bathtub still exist), but lately I’ve taken to just ordering the salad bar, as the menu items consistently disappoint.
Besides the food downgrades, the ambiance was taken down a notch, in my opinion, by the change in the front entrance. The old wooden door with the quirky revolving peephole is gone, replace by cold hard modern glass.
One thing from the original Strawberry Street that was screaming for change was the men’s restroom. It had a truck stop or gas station filthiness about it. I can report that it has received an overhaul and now seems clean, but in an apparent homage to the original, the sink has one of those faucets that you have to hold down a button to operate, rather than the more modern and sanitary motion-​activated kind.
I’ll keep throwing money at the place, and hoping the owners wise-​up and take it in a better direction. Otherwise, I don’t see it being open for much longer.

Went here for RVA Sandwich week for the Hanover tomato and bacon fatty melt. (Although this sandwich was a special for Sandwich Week, it is basically the grilled cheese with bacon and thick slices of Hanover tomato — yum!) The sandwich was delicious and our service was great! We tried a few different sides: cole slaw, mashed potatoes and onion rings. The cole slaw was especially good. A great place to try in Richmond!

Love the location and the atmosphere. The area is characteristic of a small town. Menu selection is not bad. Diverse food options. My partner and I ended up getting the salad and soup option. She switched up the soup option for the white cheddar mac and cheese, but it tasted similar to the Kraft mac and cheese.
I had a cup of the crab soup, which I loved, but it came out only warm (almost as if it had been microwaved). The salad bar was good, and made the dinner worthwhile. Service was somewhat slow. I’d go back, but would try some of the entrée options.

Yum!!! I enjoyed this place! To start off the cute calm neighborhood before you walk in is adorbs! The parking was not a problem most likely because I came here earlier in the day but I can see it becoming a problem during busier times…
The food was good! The crab dip was yummy I’d highly recommend. The crab cakes were good… but not great… the steak tips that my bff got; however were very tasty and perfectly cooked. The salad bar in the bathtub was good! They had this curry chicken salad that was pretty good on the salad bar… I’d return and try other things on the menu and the salad bar!!! Nom nomnom…

I would like to just say that this place was very much hyped up to me by RVA locals, but I do not believe it met my expectations. So take this with a grain of salt. First of all, the service was alright. My waitress was really sweet but was not attentive and there was not much business there.
Secondly, the food was really good, but not much different than other local food options in Richmond. I got a turkey sandwich with the sweet potato and smoked Gouda grits. The grits were definitely creative, but still nothing to make me want to go back. The atmosphere was cool though. There was a lot of cool local artwork on the walls.

Small, local restaurant, that is tucked away on a side street. Hard to get a place to park.
Very diverse menu. My meal was excellent. Wait staff was attentive. Storefront was clean.
Very enjoyable. Recommended.

I was recently in Richmond on a girl trip with my ladies. We found this adorable café on Unilocal and decided to make a day of it. To our surprise, we discovered thousands of historical Victorian homes in the area. Around 6,000 + to be exact (learned that in the history tour).
We ended up getting lost on the way to Strawberry. Thankfully we did, it was a sight to see. When we finally arrived it was super packed. I mean, it’s clearly popular place on the weekend. We got a chance to overlook the menu while we waited. That was only around 20 minutes. This place is pretty big and they seem to have really great service.
We were so lucky to snag a killer booth by the oversized window for people watching. That truly made our experience there more memorable. The food was great. We had omelets. We did not get the buffet b/​c we were a little pressed for time. However, it did look pretty damn good. We were sad to cut our brunch short, but the overall experience was stellar. Total thumbs up.

Late evening craving at the bathtub salad bar for me and my friend led us to the Strawberry Street Café. I’ve been coming here on and off for years! The bathtub salad bar is all you really need but we also ordered the French Dip and a Blackened Chicken wrap. I’d rather order too much food, than not enough.
Service was personable and timely. We were satisfied with the food and the fact that the salad bar was full, even toward the end of the service day.
Yes I’ll be back. Love the vibe here and I know that bar has stories! Be patient with parking on the street! Neighborhood can sometimes be busy.