Lefler's Place

This is the kind of place that I routinely search out for a food adventure - a reto-style Mom & Pop restaurant, especially if it serves up barbecue, hamburgers, and hot dogs. As the oldest operating cafe (established in 1922) in the Montgomery/Stanly counties area, this place seemed like a natural, especially considering that their web site touts their pit-cooked, hickory smoked Pork Barbecue, Hamburger, and Hot Dog thusly:"We are probably most known for the pit-cooked bar-b-que that we cook. We use hickory wood and people in the community often comment on the delicious smell coming from the pit on firing days! We make our secret recipe sauce to top off our bar-b-que. Our burgers are absolutely "to die for"! We buy local fresh hamburger and pat out our burgers daily. We top off our burgers and hot dogs with our own secret recipe chili and slaw. The recipes that we use can be traced back to the early 1940's. At this point none of us are sure exactly where the original recipes came from."Sounded like a great food experience, but it was hardly that as once again Anticipation was greater the Participation! The Pork Barbecue has some smokiness to it, but there is little to recommend it after that. It is basically under sauced out of the kitchen, and neither the 2 house sauces or the commercial hot sauce helped much. The texture is very different - the meat is neither chopped nor pulled, but rather cut in to small cubes. I would assume to accomplish this by slicing the meat into "steaks" and then dicing it. I don't care for that approach. The slaw was not a favorite, rather bland with some chopped tomato - not the first time I've run into slaw with tomato being served with pork barbecue ( some in the Salisbury area), but it didn't help this version.The Cheeseburger was also sub-par, with a very mushy texture, little flavor, and very little cheese. he meat may have been secured locally and hand patted, but not recently! The Hot Dog was decent - nice wiener, and what there was of the chili was good. The service was reasonably good, but then again, we were the only ones there.All in all, a very disappointing experience, not one that will be repeated.

We have a lake house close to Lefler's and never knew it was around. We wanted to explore our breakfast options one morning and found this spot. Breakfast only on Friday and Saturday mornings. Basic breakfast menu. I love a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich. Seems like everywhere I go they can't get it right (really?) Anyway, they nailed it spot on. Sounds funny but I was very happy. My husband got the usual 2 egg breakfast. He said it was good as well. The lunch menu looked like your basic diner stop....bbq, burgers, fried chicken and so on. We agreed that we would return one day for lunch and give that a whirl. Their coffee was really good too! So all that said, nice country stop. Wait staff very friendly and accommodating which is refreshing these days! I say give them a try you may find you like it too!

Good classic dive spot... Food is always fresh and fast and prices are very reasonable!

Love the old gas station style country diner. Baby back Ribs were killer. Great staff!! We were on a road trip to Lexington, NC and looking for an old country barbecue type joint, so We stopped for lunch and was not disappointed. Wish there was a place like this in Camden, SC.

The chicken on Thursday night off the smoker is delectable but the sides fall way short only a couple to choose from and they straight from the can no love put in them cheese burger and hotdogs best in our county service is always good and it's an old country store that still has cheerwine in the bottle and great banana pudding

One of our favorite places for excellent BBQ chicken and pork BBQ at the lake. Love to pull up and see the pig cooker smoking at full speed as you walk in the front door. Really friendly owners .... Hot spot for locals.

Known for their great hotdogs, burgers and sweet tea, Lefler's also has ribs. In an old gas station, it is small and long overdue for an update.

I have eaten here my life. Recently, 2021, they stopped making their famous BBQ sauce and are trying to market their name-brand sauce in the bottle. It's tomato-based and not good like the excellent vinegar sauce they used to make. Everyone is complaining. In my opinion, the sauce makes the BBQ. I will not be eating their BBQ or BBQ chicken until they being back the good sauce. You don't have the same sauce for over a lifetime and change unless there's a problem.

We love going to this local restaurant, enjoy the food and the service. Great prices!Wish we could get there sooner for breakfast. Enjoy when they have the old tv shows versus the news on. But not there to watch TV really, just date day with my husband

Went for the ribs but they were sold out. Order yours early. Picked up ribs the following week... They are so darn good!!