Wild Goats Cafe 
 Kent, Ohio        Date of Visit  01/15/11              http://wildgoatscafe.com/

Not so long ago I was introduced to the Wild Goats Café in Kent for a lunch meeting. I had a pretty standard club sandwich and the meeting went well. I remembered a number of more interesting offerings on the menu and we decided to stop in for lunch after a weekend class. Well, the place was packed at 1:00 on a Saturday with nowhere to park and people waiting outside. Not having much time we ended up going to Rays but had decided we would stop back and see what all the hubbub was about. Another weekend class, familiar mid-afternoon hunger, and here we were back at the Wild Goats. Still very busy during the weekend lunch rush but the wait was shorter, we got the last parking space and stepped inside.

The Homemade Hummus is Really Pretty Good
 

The interior is not overly comfortable or snazzy by any stretch. In some areas it appears that basic maintenance is not high on the to-do-list. This is particularly true of the long wooden wall that separates some tables from the service line. If you were to sneeze on it you might crush a server as the wall will come tumbling down. Our server was busy but he was efficient and although he rushed between the tables he had a calm and professional manner at our table.

I had checked the website before leaving and they had two fabulous soups listed as their du jour options but when we sat we learned that soups are “hit or miss” on the weekends. This weekend was a miss. No Soup For Us! Instead we settled on their homemade garlic hummus which is served with slices of their housemade flat bread and pita topped with cheddar and pepper jack cheeses. The hummus was smooth and had an herby green tinge with a mild garlic flavor. I didn’t expect to like the combination with the cheesy pita but it all worked together very successfully.

Steph ordered the Goat’s Bleu Burger which is served on their flat bread. The burger turned out to be much less successful than the hummus. The patty itself was exceptionally dry which is odd as the menu says all of their burgers are made of Kobe beef which should be so well marbled it drools delicious fat. The bread, while tasty, only magnified the desert-like lack of moisture. I ordered something a little more unique than my previous experience. The Bavarian consists of jalapeño sausage links topped with onions, kraut and cheddar cheese all held together by a pretzel roll. Here the Café redeemed itself to some degree. The sausage was chock full of flavor and had a nice bite of spice to it. In this case the soft pretzel roll turned out to be a nice touch and the veggies brought it all together. I ordered the potato salad which didn’t have anywhere near the completed touch of the hummus. Instead of functioning as a binder the additions to the potato resulted in more of a loosey-goosey soup than a bound salad. I should have gone another way. Much like our trip to Mike’s Place in Kent it appeared that nearly every other table was ordering breakfast. It seems breakfast is likely a better explanation for the consistent business at the Goats.