Mildred’s Cafe – Restaurant Review

I heard about Mildred’s Cafe from the owner of South Jersy Subs.  It is in Cascade, just before the toll booth for the Pike’s Peak highway so it’s a bit of a drive, but for the curious or adventurous, it isn’t too far.  Owen and I decided to make the trek.

It’s a very small diner, but very easy to find.  You really can’t miss it.  First impressions were good – it appeared to be well maintained, clean, and had a decent menu – not too many items but enough of a variety, and reasonably priced.  It was pretty small, only containing about half a dozen tables, and a few seats at the counter.  Also, there was a sign proudly proclaiming that they make their own pies.  Sure enough, there was a beautiful looking pecan pie in a glass pie dish protected by a cover sitting on the counter.

I ordered the Thanksgiving sandwich, and Owen chose the Italian Sausage & Provolone.  We agreed to swap sandwich halfs, so we could each try both sandwiches, which is fast becoming a regular tactic.

The Thanksgiving sandwich is pretty ridiculous.  I had to prop it up so that I could take a cross section image of it to show whats inside.  Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and cole slaw.  On my first bite, the entire slice of cranberry sauce squeezed out of the sandwich and slid onto my plate.  It was pretty slippery, and I couldn’t figure out a tactic to keep it in the sandwich as I ate it.  I ended up breaking it up and trying to have a little bit of it with each bite.

Overall, the sandwich was very good, and totally reminded me of Thanksgiving meal!  My only issue (aside from the slippery cranberry sauce) was that it seemed a bit dry – the only moisture on the sandwich came from the cole slaw, which was perched at the top.  I feel like some gravy between the turkey and the stuffing would have added a lot.  What the heck, throw some mashed potatoes in there too!

The Sausage and Provolone sandwich was interesting.  I’ve eaten a LOT of sausage sandwiches (maybe hundreds), and I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen one made with ground sausage.  Not necessarily bad, but different.  Also different, was cold lettuce and tomato underneath the generous portion of ground sausage topped with provolone.  It added a nice hot/cold contrast to the sandwich.  Personally, I felt like the sausage was underseasoned.  I don’t want to call it bland, because I could definitely taste it, but I would have preferred something a bit spicier.

So the food is pretty good, but why should you bother to drive all the way up here?  I’ll tell you why: the pie.  A slice of pie runs $3.50 – if you want ice cream with it, its a dollar more.  Very reasonable dessert prices.  Owen and I both chose to get a slice of pecan (it was the only pie we saw, and we didn’t ask if they had other options), with a scoop of black cherry ice cream.  They warmed the pie up, and put the ice cream on top and it was amazing.

This was the best slice of pecan pie I’ve eaten in my life.  Now I’ll admit to not being a pecan pie expert, but I think I know a good pie when I eat one.  The syrup was perfect – not too fluffy, and not too sticky or hard.  The pecans were huge, which was actually the biggest obstacle in cutting bites off, but it was something I could deal with.  It was awesome.

Overall, I really liked Mildred’s Cafe.  It’s a cute little diner thats worth the drive.  From the Colorado Springs tech center area, we were able to drive up there, eat lunch, shoot the bull with the owner, and drive back to work in about an hour and a half.  Not too bad!