Caro-Mi Dining Room

A gem tucked away at the base of Saluda Mountain! Prompt service! Hot fresh food! Polite service! The steaks are grilled to perfection and so tender! The country ham is succulent and wonderful with a fresh made biscuit! The macaroni salad and Caro-​Mi special slaw is to die for! I always save the cooked apples for dessert and use a biscuit to mop up the juices! Thank you to the Staffords, Chef David, and our waitress for making my dads birthday dinner special! We will return AGAIN and soon!

Great southern hospitality experience with delicious ayce sides of biscuits, cole slaw, macaroni salad, green beans, and hot apples. Trout w almond butter good as is their own cured country ham and grits w red eye gravy. But you must try the chicken livers! Very family friendly and great service. Beautiful location.

It’s too bad you can’t give a place 0 stars. I paid $ 14 for a pretty river to walk across. The canned green beans, cabbage in white vinegar they call «slaw», school cafeteria macaroni salad, baked potato, applesauce, and biscuits they call sides where not worth $ 5 on any planet. My guests had broiled trout w/​butter and almonds on top. No seasoning and no presentation. No air conditioning either. I wouldn’t be so negative if there was a possibility I ordered poorly. These are the only sides available and nothing comes with the meat.

Yuk. Just yuk. The staff is nice but the food isn’t very good, portion sizes are small. You can have all the veggies you want, as long as they are either green beans, cabbage, or apple sauce. Nothing else. VERY overpriced as well.

Wow, it is bewildering that this establishment is so popular. There are so many better places in the region for Southern dining, it boggles the mind! This is a mediocre sugar and salt extravaganza.
Well, the good thing about Caro Mi is that it speaks to my grandpa’s generation — he feels so content & comfortable here, and loves to talk to other patrons about the «old days» while waiting for a table. It’s pretty cute.
Plus it’s located in a beautiful spot. That being said, I hope you enjoy looking at the river, because you’ll be staring at it for at least an hour getting eaten alive by mosquitos while you wait for a table.
As far as the situation inside, there is nothing going for this place. The food is terrible! Expensive! Tacky décor. Poor service. They run out of dishes every time we come.
Turns out, every person in my family under 70 has loathed this place over the years, but never said anything until now.
We all had a bad experience for one reason or another — it actually became laughable at one point. For me, they were out of the one thing that I would order: fried chicken. I said that I would just share a plate with my husband, for which they had to charge me a whopping $ 14. That’s so that I could partake in their bland «vegetable» side dishes (by the way, there are only 2 actual vegetables offered in this whole restaurant… grits and macaroni salad do not count!). How can such unhealthy food be so flavorless? What’s the point of all that lard if you can’t taste it?
They were also out of biscuits — I don’t even know what to say about that. This might sound harsh, but honestly the owners did not seem to give a crap about quality anymore, and just charge the maximum that they can get away with with the lowest quality ingredients on the market. It basically cost me $ 14 for coleslaw, apples, and macaroni salad: do the math on that profit margin. And I won’t get into what an attitude the waitress gave us because she was nearing the end of her 3-​hour shift.
Anyway, my husband ordered the Country Ham, which can be described as «Dead Sea» salty. Before I even made it out the door to leave, I noticed that I had developed edema in my feet from eating one small piece. Never had that happen before…
I think the icing on the cake was that to wrap up your leftovers, they bring you a clear plastic bag — the only thing you want to do with it is throw it at cars as you blast out of the parking lot.
We are putting our foot down, never to return to Caro Mi again. As my aunt properly said, «it’s so tragic to be in such a lovely setting but have such dreadful food.»

If you like Southern, think you might like Southern, or want to find out what old time Southern cookin’ even IS, this is the restaurant for you. I cannot remember the last time I saw red eye gravy on a menu — they have it. Veggies served family style — have it. Mountain Trout — check. Fried Chicken — none of that white meat/​dark meat stuff, you get a full, nicely sized half chicken. When I get a craving for the food my Grandmother served, I head to Caro-​Mi. Do not confuse this with some kind of new Southern Cuisine, it is not! You get more than you can eat, in a casual setting, where (chances are) the owners are sitting by the fireplace (winter) or the rocking chair front porch in the summer. If you want to see what mountain restaurants «used to be», park the car, cross the river, and enjoy.

I always enjoy dinner here! Bring my on beverage, food and service is always great! Always greeted at the door! Key lime pie is awesome.
Best to call ahead for reservations.

This place has been around longer than God. In fact, my church brought me and the other kids who graduated from my high school here as a graduation gift!
The restaurant itself is in an old house with beautiful pine wood paneling that has been expanded a few times. You park on one side of the Pacolet River and cross a wooden covered bridge to get to the restaurant. While I don’t think the original family owns it, it does have the same menu since from whenever I can remember.
When you sit down they bring you out bowls of what they call slaw (I call it sauerkraut) and macaroni salad. Then you order your main course – country ham (and you get grits and gravy with the country ham), Fried Chicken, Chicken Livers, Shrimp (Friend or Boiled), and Delmonico Steak. Sides, green beans, cinnamon apples and biscuits are brought to you family style.
It was good 34 years ago the first time I remember going, and it’s still good today!
WARNING: They take CASH or CHECKS only! :-)

The Caro-​Mi Lodge is very unique, or at least we Yankees thought so! There is a charming front porch and covered bridge that crosses a river. Once inside, the décor is plain and maybe a bit dusty; you can definitely feel the age of the place (it’s been around for 60+ years). In some ways, it feels more like you’re dining in a home rather than a restaurant — the plastic cups and simple dishware, the series of small, interconnected dining rooms.
The menu is one small page, with (very reasonable) prices written in pencil. There are just a few entrée choices — trout, country ham, fried shrimp, fried chicken, maybe one or two others. I enjoyed my trout; the country ham was a hit with Mr. L. Oh, and they bring you a ton of sides to go with your meal, and you can get «seconds.» My faves were the slaw, biscuits, the green beans and the apples. Oh, and it’s BYO!

Great place to eat. Like I said in another review, if there is a long line to get in, it must be good. Car o mi in no exception to this fact. The country ham, fried chicken, and trout are all amazing. Yes it is not a sophisticated place to eat, and the menu only has a few selections on it, but so what. What they do prepare, they do right.

Classic southern food, simply and beautifully prepared. Wonderful service. Wonderful atmosphere. Country ham, fried chicken, green beans stewed with ham hock, stewed apples, macaroni salad, slaw. Veterans know that keeping the slaw and mac salad separate is a mistake – magic happens in your mouth when the two run together.

This place is quite popular, & I can’t imagine why. Since certain family members love this place & I haven’t been able to convincingly fake an illness so I could stay home & watch Monk reruns, I have had to go spend an evening in this establishment way too many times.
First off let me say that this place is rustic — not in any nostalgic way, but in a manner that makes one think that I’m sure glad for modern conveniences & I hope if I must use the restroom they don’t point me towards an outhouse.
2^nd their menu is short but not sweet. You have only a few options, must of which consists of something fried (chicken, shrimp) or country ham. They bring out an assortment of vegetables for the table, none of which are worth eating except for a truly exceptional slaw that is vinegar based instead of mayonnaise based. The slaw is this restaurant’s only saving grace. I usually eat this macaroni salad that is drenched in mayonnaise simply because I’m hungry. If you order the country ham (I have to order something), you will get your sodium load for a month. Their fried food is tasteless.
To make matters worse, this restaurant is quite popular among the elderly. It gives me an eerie feeling. I know I’m not a spring chick anymore, but do I really want to feel like I’m in a retirement home when dining? There are more hairs growing out of men’s ears than on their head. I’m just hoping someone’s abdominal aneurysm doesn’t burst when I’m there because I really don’t want to do CPR on anyone here.
Hope this helps you decide. If you ignore these warnings & end up here someday, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

If you live in the Piedmont area, chances are you already know about the Caro-​Mi. For those of you who are not in the know and are bound to be taken here by your family as one of their favorites let me tell you what you are in store for:
*A beautiful porch lined with rockers to pass the time while you wait for your table or to let some of the nosh you just chowed down on time to digest.
*Friendly family service.
*Sides-​sides-​and more sides. My favorite is the slaw. A perfect mixture of vinegar and garlic– trust me– it is perfect. I also loved the macaroni salad. And do not be afraid to ask for some apple butter to go with your biscuits.
* The main meal. My southern taste buds are growing, but I am not quite ready for the country ham (too salty for me), so settled on the fried shrimp. Next time I am want to try the trout. Do not worry if you cannot decide– the people around you will be ordering off the small but complete menu so you will get eyefuls of the different choices.
* Dessert? No way– I was so full of sides, shrimp and sweet tea!
*Time and money well-​spent.
Be warned– this place gets mad-​crazy busy on the weekends, but they do take reservations. So call them for your own bit of southern lovin.