Ashland Cafe

The world would be a better place if there were more restaurants like the Ashland Café. Not that we Americans need any more gravy fries in our ever more inactive and rotund lives, but inexpensive local restaurants with marvelous home cooking seem an increasingly endangered species. The Ashland has been a favorite of mine for several years, and the gravy and the cheapness are only part of the reason.
Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the Ashland attracts a dedicated clientele of Cockeysville-area workers, blue- and white-collar, who fill the place before 9 a.m. and again at noon but recently they have added a dinner schedule and menu, nice! Along with the new dinner hours they went and got a liquor license now you have the chance to buy a beer, some wine, or assorted liquors. The café is decorated in a B&O Railroad motif, complete with a model train endlessly circling the dining room on a track suspended from the ceiling. Paper place mats advertise local businesses such as Elmo and Elly-Fant (professional party clowns) and Frisky's Wildlife Sanctuary. There's little time for contemplating the ads, though--no matter when you visit, bustling, efficient waitresses whisk your food to the table in minutes, and attentive bus persons top your drink off with endless free refills. They even remember what you're drinking. It's that kind of place.-Patron I. G. 2008