Candy Shack

We drove in to West Jefferson and wanted a quick lunch before hitting Ashe County Cheese and being able to check in to our cabin. We parked and started walking down main street and saw this place. The front of the place caught my wife’s eye because of the «old timey» stuff they had and when we entered we saw that they had a food counter so we decided to take a chance. We are so glad we did. We both had fried bologna sandwiches and chips with fountain drinks. I had actually forgotten how much I loved those because nowhere around our hometown serves them. I was also impressed at the friendliness of our server. She was perhaps 18 – 20 but was very friendly and attentive. This will now be added as a standard stop whenever we come into town. One word of warning, if you sit at a table directly in front of the A/​C unit, you will freeze!!!

We have property near W. Jefferson and we visit the area several times a year. This is a new place that has only been open since March ’13. There are just a few girls that own the place and they work there too. The food is great and the serving more than adequate. The front of the place is a candy/​sweet shop and the rear is the restaurant. There was no entertainment there as we visited on a Sunday, and Fri/​Sat evenings is when the music is presented, so I can’t comment on the state of the performance. But I will add this «duh» moment. When I go into a candy shop/​snack bar I am not looking for music or entertainment. I’m usually in the middle of shopping and I just want a snack or a quick bite. They provide both. There are plenty of restaurants in West Jeff and the surrounding areas, so evidently the one reviewer and her friends/​family do not know the area well.
I recommend the beef tips when they have them. The snack shop in the front has a bag of «sweet indulgence with mixed nuts» that I highly recommend. You pay by the pound for the goodies.
I’m glad 2 young girls decided to try and make a go of having a business. I think we should support a local business that provides a needed service for anyone downtown. (there’s only one other sweet shop, and it’s just ice cream.)
So, if you dont’ want to take a chance on the music, just don’t go on Fri/​Sat nites. Otherwise, enjoy the food. We sure did!

We went in today for the first time with some family we were visiting. This place must be fairly new, because they had never been there before (and there just aren’t many places in West Jefferson to eat. It’s a place where pretty much everyone knows everyone.) They were doing a special menu in addition to the regular menu for a church fundraiser. The special menu had 6 different choices and I ordered the roast beef which turned out to be pot roast. The food was good, but the service was super slow and the «entertainment» was bad. We ended up having to wait 45 minutes just to get our food. The prices were decent for what you got (pot roast, garlic mashed potatoes, corn and a drink) all for under $ 7. The entertainment, and I use the term loosely, was a local guy playing guitar and singing. Lets just say he’s not going to be winning American Idol or America’s Got Talent any time soon. The place was really tiny and super packed because of the fundraising event they were doing, so we ended up having to sit at the bar, which made it hard to talk and catch up with the family. I don’t know if this place just didn’t have the proper facility to accommodate the lunch crowd or not enough properly trained staff, but I would not go back if I was super hungry, in a time crunch for a lunch break and the entertainment didn’t change. Delivery was an option, but just know that it takes a minimum of 45 minutes just to get your order ready and then however long it takes to deliver. Overall the experience was eh, and hopefully they can fix the issues that were happening.

I’m grading this business as a 3, rounded from a 2 ½. I’m also giving them the benefit of the doubt that they just haven’t worked out all the kinks.
I’m not sure how long this place has been open, but the people we went with (who are residents of this town) had never heard of it til today.
We all ordered one of the lunch specials, which read, «Beef roast, garlic mashed potatoes and corn.» The price was quite reasonable at $ 6.95. The small seating area was packed, so we had to sit at the counter. We weren’t really happy, since we see each other so rarely, but busy is busy. We should still have been able to chat. Not so. They had live «music,» in the form of a gentleman with a keyboard and a microphone. To say that he wasn’t ready for «America’s Got Talent,» would be a very polite understatement. It was just short of painful to hear. To make it worse, the volume was quite high for such a small building. Friendly banter was out of the question.
We finally had our orders taken, then the waiting began. We had all ordered the same meal, so everything should have been pre-​cooked and just needed to be put on plates. We ended up waiting about 30 min. My family was getting a bit cranky, as two of them only had an hour for lunch. When we finally got our food, there was only about 20 min. left to eat and get back to their jobs.
The food was actually pretty good. I was expecting roast beef, from the entry on the menu, but it was actually pot roast, which I consider to be a different entrée. But it was really good pot roast, tender and juicy. The mashed potatoes were real, made from red potatoes, but I thought they had a bit of an «off» taste and I couldn’t find even a hint of the promised garlic. The quantity was more than adequate.
I’m hoping that this little business will work on the service glitches and ditch the «entertainment.» We won’t go back until at least the second one is taken care of.