The Cathedral Cafe is a lovely space, with quirky lights strung across the dining space, colorful chalk noting the day's specials on chalkboards and beautiful stained glass windows lining the walls up to large vaulted ceilings. It's a lively space, full of chatter, which is perfect to hang out for a leisurely lunch.



Tony and I stopped here because of all the good things I've heard. We luckily got the very last open table. In fact, someone had just gotten up, so it wasn't even cleaned up until we had already made ourselves comfortable.



The menu has items like hummus, salads, paninis, quesadillas and sandwiches. I was going for straight comfort food with this one: the Ultimate Grilled Cheese. It's made with three kinds of cheese, tomato and red onion. But I actually did the "panini special," which was half a panini and a choice of a cup of soup or tortellini salad. So half of my ultimate grilled cheese and a tortellini salad it was. Tony opted for a quesadilla, because of course. He loves Mexican food. I am not a big fan (unless the Mexican food is just used as a source to get sour cream into my mouth).

It took ... a long time for our food to come out. Like, a painfully long time. Maybe it was because we had plans and I was anxious to get going. But it was incredibly frustrating. I don't think our waitress came over after initially taking our order. Someone else even brought out our food. No refills, no small-talk. Nothing. It didn't make us feel super welcome, despite really loving the general atmosphere of the place. Weird juxtaposition, I know.

Tony liked his quesadilla. And I must say, any quesadilla that comes with sides of both salsa and sour cream make me happy.

My sandwich, however, seemed to be missing both the onion and tomato. Essentially, it was just a grilled cheese - just missing the ultimate part. The focaccia was pretty thick, and the cheese is rich - so having a little acid with the tomato would've been great. Or a little sweetness from red onions. But, it was still good.

The tortellini salad was definitely on the sour side, but I did like it. So overall thoughts, I want to like this place a lot more than I actually did. I love, love, love the space. The service needed some work. And my meal wasn't actually correct - but even in that state, it was tasty. Hopefully a return visit will provide improvements



Grade: B