Graham Soda Shop and Grill

The food was very good. We had burger philly sub and ribeye sandwich. Two big strips of bacon on burger. Don’t go there for the beer. Only bud bud light mich ultra and natty light. Wait staff was excellent.

This was a good little place to stop after our race at the Burlington BMX track. Definitely better than the 2 ½ stars it currently has. Service was nice and attentive, I had the Philly cheese steak, which while nothing to write home about, the flavor was good, the portion size was adequate and it certainly hit the spot. The homemade chips on the side were awesome, and served with ranch dressing which is always a plus. All that with a drink for right around $ 10? Sounds like a good place in my book.

The food is pretty good. The décor is very cool but… It just seems a little run down:(

I decided to stop here on my way back to where I live which is over 2 hours away. It was a Saturday and they close at 10. I get there at 850 pm and the blonde behind the counter tells me they close at 10 so whatever I ordered needed to be quick. I had never been so I didn’t even know what was on the menu. Before I could sit down she asked for my order and drink and said ‘to go right?’ Um no. I sit and she brings my drink. I asked for a chicken sandwich and she informs me that takes too long to make and that I needed to pick a burger instead. So I did. She brings me my food and goes behind the counter to continue her conversations and text. Bonus. Then proceeds to blow her nose. Yes, Blow her nose, at the counter. Best part, she didn’t even wash her hands after. She comes to my table, after her and the rest of the staff glare at me as if I’m an inconvenience at 915, closing at 10. I am giving them a star because the food was actually good. But the rest was horrible. I should have gotten paid to eat the food. Not the other way around. If she was blowing her nose up front, I don’t even want to know what happens in the back! Health code violations!

I think that a place which bills itself as a «soda shop» should do better than a handful of pepsi products.
the food is mediocre, all Sysco.

Great malt! But stayed for the food. It was wonderful and we had very attentive service from the whole staff.

Food is great and reasonable. In and out for lunch in about 40 minutes. Service was great. Fresh cut fries are awesome. Reuben was good. Burgers are the best.

Fresh cut french fries, not many places do them anymore, but they are so worth it. It looks like they are trying to get some live music started, which could be a very good thing.

My husband and I dine here once almost every week because the ham/​cheeseburgers are the best you’ll find anywhere else locally. Homemade fries and potato chips are wonderful! One night we weren’t able to enjoy our meal due to a family sitting in the small dining area with a young, unruly child all of whom talked too loudly disturbing everyone else as well. The next week, the cook came out to apologize to us for the unpleasantness from the week before. How often does that happen? Quite impressive. Teen waitresses need better training and one shouldn’t have to ask for silverware; otherwise, it’s a good experience with exceptional food. I’m surprised the rest of the county hasn’t discovered it. If the wait staff were better trained, this place would be a jewel because the food is exceptional.

Service terrible. Food pretty good. Don’t eat here for lunch unless you get a 2 hour lunch. The service is very slow. The staff is rude.

If you go to the Graham Soda Shop and Grill, the atmosphere/​décor is the best thing. It looks pretty cool on the inside and out, but it stops at that. The service is very slow, 20+ minutes to get food. the servers are not welcoming or pleasant. Our waitress said 3 words the whole time, and could care less. No smiles. and the place seems unclean. Luckily the food is decent, it’s definitely not the best in town, but it is okay. This restaurant has potential though, if the owners/​staff were willing to improve it.

We don’t visit here often enough because it’s a hike from Durham, but every time we do we say we should get there more often!
Their prices are excellent and I’ve always had a very good experience in every sense. Today we just wanted dessert. I got one scoop of black cherry ice cream (Huge pieces of black cherries) topped with hot fudge for less than $ 2.50 and it was ample. Now come on, where are you going to find that anymore?!! My dining partner got a two scoop vanilla hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and a cherry for $ 4.99. Oh, by the way, the ice cream is from Homeland Creamery, which is a family owned dairy in a nearby town called Julian and it was sooo good!
I’ve had burgers here, which are very good and deep fried mushrooms, which are very hard to find in central NC. I don’t know why, but they are so I’m glad to have another place to add to the list when I have a craving!
I always enjoy the décor and the staff is friendly and attentive. Just an all around nice place to dine for the soda shop basics.

While I certainly hate to disagree with the reviewers above who took the time to pick apart the hot dog construction (seriously?), my wife and son visited here yesterday and will most certainly return.
The staff was great and very attentive. I had the Philly steak and my wife had a (very large) BLT. Both were great. The place was clean (98 rating) and we loved the atmosphere.

This is one of those places that could easily get better reviews, except that the owners are either unaware or don’t care about the shortcomings of their business.
I’ve made 2 visits to this place, a year apart, and each time I had an extremely negative experience. The first time I went, we waiting 10 – 15 minutes for the wait staff to acknowledge us (which was pathetic because there were only 2 – 3 other couples in the restaurant, but we heard the food was good). We waited even longer for our food to finally arrive. Finally, their credit card machine was broken and we had to wait another 20 minutes while 2 high schoolers tried to diagnose a computer system, before charging my card twice for our order.
A year later, we figured that we’d give it another shot to see if they’d improved. We sat down at a table that was clear save for a checkerboard. We waited for a 10 – 15 minutes (another slow night) before flagging down a waiter for some menus. He mumbled something and went to set up another table. Figuring we’d violated some sort of un-​posted «don’t eat at the checkerboard table» rule, we moved to another table to await our menus, which never arrived. We got up and the waiter stomped over to us demanding to know why we were leaving. I told him point-​blank «Because we waited 20 minutes here and you obviously don’t need our money». The waiter got snotty and said he told us that the checkerboard table wasn’t for eating (must’ve been what he mumbled), and I replied, «when I go into a restaurant and see a table, I expect to eat there.» Then we left.
The one time we got our food here, the food was OK. Nothing amazing, but not terrible. Just nothing special you can’t get at a dozen other places in a 5-​mile radius. The ambiance is pleasant enough, but ambiance means nothing when you have snotty, egotistical staff who don’t want to take orders, help customers, or in any other way do the job they were hired to do. I mean, seriously — is it that difficult in a restaurant that seats maybe 30 people, on a night when there are more staff than customers to come over to a customer’s table as soon as they sit down, check to see what they need, take their orders, and present them with food in some sort of reasonably fast and accurate manner?
If this owner wants a better review from me, he needs to fire his entire staff and start over from scratch. And considering that he’s not selling anything that isn’t being sold down the street at other, better restaurants, he’d better get crackin’.

The best part about this place is the food. I really like their boneless chicken wings with their «John Boy and Billy sauce.» They also have great homemade chips and a decent burger. On Friday nights they have live local bands. However, the service is awful. So awful that whenever I want to eat here I just do a to-​go order. You seat yourself when you go to this restaurant, which might be one of the things contributing to their lack of organization. Sometimes it’s 10 — 15 minutes before a server recognizes you are there. The servers aren’t too friendly either — no thank you’s, how are you doing, etc. It feels like they don’t appreciate you even came in to eat. I agree with Lynn, I really want to like this place, but it feels like the managers just don’t seem to care anymore.

Like others, I want to like this place — it is a really nice, quaint place — but the food stops me from coming back. I can never find anything on the menu that I am excited about. My spouse refuses to eat there again, saying «the burgers have a lot of filler.» Same goes for the kid.
It does have karaōke some nights.
I wish it was better, because I like the place.

I really hate to have to write this review. I want to like this place. The décor is cool and it is in quaint downtown Graham not far from where I live. Why do I keep coming back thinking they will get it together? The service is non existent to downright awful at times. The sanitation and cleanliness of the dining room is severely lacking and I hope is not a reflection of the cleanliness in the back of the house. I have still yet to determine if the absentee owners really care if they want the restaurant to succeed or not. It’s almost as if they want the place to fail.
I am really struggling with this review. I have a love and deep respect for the small business owner and mom and pop restauranteurs in particular. More than anything I want this place to succeed here but I’m afraid they just don’t want to put in the effort. Another sad restaurant story.

What a great setup — nice 50’s style soda shop décor, pictures of local citizens and decades of area high school sports teams on the walls, a great location in the town square, and the announced return of «Apple Pie Ice Cream». But at the end of the day, you still have to bring good food and decent service, and there in lies the rub.
The food is somewhere between ordinary and down right strange — or maybe it ‘s” Fusion Soda Shop” cuisine. The hot dog is an all beef, skinless wiener of a somewhat tan color relatively rare in nature. The dog is constructed with the wiener first (good call), then the chili (weak in flavor other than some sweetness), then chopped RED ONIONS (yes, red onions — is this a tea party?), and finally, the mustard (what a party foul) — wow, what a train wreck of a hot dog.
The Club Sandwich consists of only TWO slices of bread, some forms of pressed meat product, an abundance of cheese food, and a lonely slice of bacon. Neither of these two items would I feel compelled to order in an unlikely return visit. The service was of an unfocused nature — but as Otis Redding said so well — «Young girls, they do get weary.»

This food is outstanding! Probably one of the best diner style burgers in North Carolina. I wished that the velveeta burger with grilled onions would never end. The fries are homemade, very surprising for a 50’s style diner. The boneless wings are big, meaty, and covered in a zingy buffalo sauce that tingles the nostrils. The staff is a little young and indifferent, but when you have food like this, who cares?

While the food is tasty, the service and cleanliness leave too much to be desired. The staff hardly even know you’re there and appear to have forgotten niceties such as Hi, Please, Thank you, You’re welcome, etc. The menu covers need a couple of runs through the dishwasher, as do the salt & pepper shakers; I was reminded of the grease I used to clean from the hood at a restaurant I used to work in.
This place has all the history, décor, tasty diner food, prices, & location to really be a great experience. Those are all overshadowed by bad attitudes or poor training and by needing to wash my hands after handling table items. The service problem has happened many times. I won’t be back unless/​until I hear things have improved.