Getting on track at the Depot Café

ADAMS CENTER — There's a really cute little restaurant in Adams Center that you should know about.

It's the Depot Café, and it's been around for quite some time. A new owner acquired it just a few years ago, carrying on the tradition of serving casual food in a unique setting.

As the name would suggest, it's housed in the old railroad station on Depot Street. And it's easy to find — get on Route 177 between Interstate 81 and Route 11. You'll see it as soon as you get to the railroad tracks.

Once inside, use your imagination and you'll be walking into the waiting room of an old train station. If you have no imagination, there are plenty of photos on the walls of the Adams Center depot from years ago to help you out.

It's even got a model railroad train that runs around the perimeter of the room about 10 feet off the ground.

The menu could best be described as upscale diner-ish: hot and cold sandwiches, soups and salads, subs and wings, Pepsi no Coke, burgers no beer (darn...) All your fried food favorites, too, which accounts for the greasy smell as you enter the building.

Pizza, too. In fact, Depot Café is "Home of the Iron Skillet Pizza." They start with fresh pizza dough, roll it out, toss it in the air, hand press it into a cast iron skillet, add the toppings and slam it in the oven. We know all this, because you can watch it all take place in their open kitchen.

Wings also seem to be a specialty of the house. You can get them breaded, chargrilled, boneless or Buffalo style. Choose from 16 sauces — all the standard stuff plus some interesting ones like teriyaki, chipotle ranch, butter garlic and XXX-HOT.

We shared a small order of wings with teriyaki sauce. The wings were a decent size, quite meaty and not greasy. While most people will order wings with the basic hot sauce, the teriyaki made for an interesting taste experience.

Pizza was a must. You can choose from a list of 15 toppings, or order one of their "iron skillet specialties." We customized a veggie pizza with fresh tomatoes, red onion, broccoli and green pepper.

While we appreciated the truly fresh veggies, the pizza seemed overly doughy. Too much bottom and not enough top. And for the life of us, we couldn't figure what being cooked in an iron skillet did for it. There wasn't anything pan pizza-ish about it.

We asked our waitress (more like our food deliverer) what was popular on the menu and she immediately responded "the Reuben."

We gave it a try. It had all the right elements — corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing on rye. It was tasty, but could have used more of the stuff between the bread. Commercial seasoned fries were predictably yummy.

A side of cole slaw could have used more vinegar, for our tastes. Pepper rather than celery seed gave it a different twist, too.

The marinated and grilled chicken breast sandwich was outstanding. What must have been at least 8 ounces of thick and juicy, perfectly cooked white meat overhung the Kaiser roll. Great roll, too, from Mr. Rick's Bakery in Watertown.

A friend told us the burgers at the Depot were great, so we went for a cheeseburger. It looked a little small, especially compared to the humongous chicken breast, but it was lightly seasoned and cooked to our request of medium-rare.

All plates were nicely presented.

For dessert, we sampled three locally made pies: strawberry rhubarb, blueberry and cherry. The crusts were pretty good but as far as the fillings go, comments from pie makers around the table ranged from "too sweet and goopy" to "too gummy and gelatinous."

Our waitress was barely friendly and less than attentive, even though there was only one other table occupied in the restaurant. At one point, we had to grab replacement forks from an adjacent table, and to make room for dessert, take our own dinner plates to the kitchen area.

Depot Café serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. Breakfast is served all day every day.

You can contact restaurant reviewer Walter Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net.

Depot Café

13449 Depot St.

Adams Center, NY

583-6555

A cute little diner/restaurant in the old Adams Center train station serving breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week

HOURS: 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday

6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday

7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday

RATING: 2 and one-half forks