Kind Roots Café

Totally enjoy this restaurant. Good service and great food! Been there often and have liked it all!

Finally had breakfast here. Fantastic! Our table had an omelet, breakfast sandwich and pancakes. Farm fresh eggs were fluffy and light. Everything tasted so fresh. Pancakes were gluten free — and nut free! A bonus for our allergy child!

This place was just our kind of stop, very convenient off of ⁸¹⁄₆₄ with a nutritious and thoughtful menu and kind and helpful staff. Overall this was a very nice café with delicious meals featuring local food. The restaurant offers very healthy food options including kale and fruit salads, roasted pork and chicken dishes! We just loved it and will make this a regular stop from now on in our travels up and down 81.

Outstanding! Great place to stop off of I-​81. Huge gluten free selection, lots of roasted vegetables and vegetable salads, and plenty of meat as well. I had a strange combination: gluten free pancakes with broccoli bacon salad and roasted Brussels sprouts with balsamic glaze. My husband had a huge burger with a fruit salad. Delicious, all of it. I think the bun was homemade. The guys who work here are big foodies, and the place was immaculate. It is in the ymca; look for the green awnings in a strip mall.

We came to Kind Roots in the summer when they were smack in the middle of working a local Lime Kiln event. The woman at the counter was fatigued from preparing for the event but said we could still order lunch even though there didn’t appear to be much food available (just some prepared salads) and many of the items on the menu were not available. We ordered a couple of the remaining salads each and they tasted okay. I wanted to like them since I had tried to get to this place numerous times coming down from Washington, DC but I was always too late. For the almost $ 30 we spent on the salads, we were disappointed. If we had known the prices, we probably would not have ordered them given it was a low time in the service and food quality due to the event preparation. Just because it serves «healthier,» vegetarian foods, the staff/​owner seem too high on the hog/​tofu to me, just a bad attitude of the staff member and the owner who choses not to post prices and to serve meh food for undisclosed prices. It’s kind of like hiring an electrician where you don’t know the price until the work is finished. I will try it again but I much prefer the lunches served at the food coop in the heart of Lexington
but they only serve lunch weekdays, no attitude, no price surprises and just great food. It’s nice to have Kind Roots as an option, but I hope the owner makes some changes to improve and make it what it aspires to be.
Reply: Thanks Kind Roots for taking the time to reply. We always try a place three times since all establishments have good and bad days. We will be returning to try it again.

A great place for locally sourced and delicious food. We are not big eaters, but tend to leave hungry unless we order a ton of food and it IS pretty pricey. It is a little weird to eat 20 feet away from the elliptical machines also. The owners are very friendly though and overall we enjoy eating here!

Very good lunch spot. We had the Cubano and the Chicken club wrap. Both very good. Service was fast and friendly. Price were very good. $ 10 per person. Give them a try!

Delicious and healthy options, but not self-​righteously so. We came for a quick bite from the Horse Center. I had the portobello blue wrap, and it was excellent. Outdoor seating gives you a scenic view of… the parking lot. But the food more than made up for the underwhelming ambience, and our meal was served quickly. A terrific alternative to the fried bonanza of horse show food!

Hard to know what to say. The burger was juicier than I’ve ever experienced it and I’ve lived in that big city with all the famous food. BUT, the lettuce totally dead and wilted – rather surprised.
You can hear every word spoken by the kitchen crew and the cook held up the bag of lettuce and wanted to know if he should throw it out. «Yep» said the other guy, but it landed on each burger at our table anyway! This was a red flag. What else goes on in that kitchen?
There was an option for chips or a deli side but no one asked us, or mentioned it. They need to stick to their guns and have very fresh food, find some creativity in the sides. Don’t think that they thought that two old codgers would use online reviews. AND, tone down the kitchen noise a little, ok? Not interested in what you are doing after work. Am I? For the expensive price of this burger? I hope that meat from Donald’s is GMO free and organic…

The most interesting and consistently delicious place in Lexington. Sleepy lexington has recently awakened with lots of new restaurant options, but this hidden gem is the best.
If you’re looking for lunch, this is only place to get unique options (i.e. sweet potato/​black bean burgers, Cuban wraps, and homemade BBQ with apple slaw) accompanied by homemade sides. The brunch is also not to be missed.

The food was okay, but the service was lacking and unorganized. The seating area is in the waiting room of the YMCA. Just not what I expected. We were just driving through and I think I would have been just as happy with Subway. I think there is potential if they can get their act together.

I visit Lexington every now and then and have wanted to visit Kind Roots Café since seeing it on Unilocal.There aren’t many establishments in this town that serve locally-​sourced foods so I’m glad we finally had a chance to visit. It’s literally located inside of the YMCA (look for the letter Y). If you’re walking up and see people on workout machines through the window, you’re at the right place.
The menu (see pictures) includes your classic café options of breakfast items, sandwiches, salads and burgers. I ordered a deli plate of three options from a variety of ready-​made cold dishes/​salads. I chose broccoli salad with cranberries and onions, traditional chicken salad and sesame pasta salad. The former two were very, very heavy on the mayonnaise. The pasta was dry — it definitely needed more dressing. The broccoli salad was very sweet and the chicken salad was very salty.
My friend had the ½ sandwich and ½ (garden) salad. She went the grilled chicken club flatbread. She liked the club, particularly the well-​prepared bacon in it. The salad was very fresh (I had several bites) and the Dijon mustard dressing was good. They give you lots of red onions if you like it but we left most of that on the plate.
I wish I enjoyed the food I ordered but as I was eating and regretting having gotten mayo-​dressed salads, I wish I had ordered a burger or sandwich. Others dining here were eating them and they looked really good.
Strangely, none of the menu options have prices. My guess is our lunch options were somewhere in the range of below $ 10 per person.
I’ll give it another try the next time I’m in town.

Update to my review– the staff/​chef contacted me regarding the mushy black bean burger we were served. They are adjusting their recipe to make it firmer and the slaw a bit more flavorful. You can’t beat a restaurant that listens to customers, contacts them to say they heard you, and then goes to work on your feedback. Two thumbs up for management!

Great fresh food. Local meats and breads. It was a good stop!
I got the Hawaiian burger which was cool perfectly and placed on a homemade bun! It was way better than any fast food stop. However, the atmosphere was odd to say the least. It shares an open area with a gym. Also, the food was a tad over priced. In all still a good stop.

What a sweet, delicious place! We tried Kind Roots Café for lunch after doing some research on Unilocal and were not disappointed! They have a great selection of burgers and sandwiches/​wraps as well as tons of interesting sides. My meal left me feeling comfortable satisfied, not overly full.
Just a side note and heads up for anyone not familiar with the area… the café is kind of hidden! It’s in the same building as The Y.

This place was perfect for a quick stop in Lexington. They have daily menu specials and on Wednesdays they have rice bowls, which two of us tried. The spicy sesame was fantastic! The other two of us ordered sandwiches. The chicken salad was some of the best we’ve ever had and the Cuban had the most amazing pineapple salsa that brought all of the delicious flavors of the sandwich out. Great place and friendly staff!

Staff was very welcoming. The food was yummy, I had the Hawaiian burger. I loved the small spicy kick to it.
I do agree they should work on making their menu less of a scavenger hunt.
Overall, I will be back when I am on the area.

I like this place. We stopped here on the way to Virginia Tech. Close to 81 and quality ingredients. We all enjoyed the smoothies and all the food, (bbq pork with apple slaw for 3 of us and pork Cuban for 1), was tasty & fresh.
The YMCA and this restaurant share an entrance.

Food: I’m not gonna lie, food was a tad bit pricey, with that said I was very pleased with the pulled pork in the cubano sandwhich that I received in addition my friend also enjoyed the pulled pork thoroughly as well.
Atmosphere: pleasant café with helpful employees who were perfectly happy to answer any question we had regarding the menu.

It’s a welcome spot with modern and healthy food options in the middle of a truck-​stop Mecca known as Lexington, Virginia. That said, the execution is a bit sloppy and if they were located anywhere with competition they would surely drown out.
First off, the menu is all over the place. It’s to your left below the counter and to your right behind the cashier. Trying to order is a scavenger hunt. On top of that, there are no prices on the menu, and this is for a reason, because you’re going to be spending a lot. Look, I get that you have healthy, locally raised foods and you are charging for that, but a basic dainty lunch of chicken salad, corn chips, and a 12 oz. smoothie shouldn’t cost over 15 dollars, especially when you are hidden in a dilapidated shopping center.
The chicken salad I got had far too much mayonnaise even for debate. Had I not been in a rush, I would have returned it. If not for the multitude of mayo, it would have been quite good as the chicken was quality. It came with maybe seven corn chips, which cost about nothing and taste nearly the same. Portion size was weak.
My colleague had a burger, since the chicken salad was not enough to fill him up. He is not especially big, nor was he exceptionally hungry either. He ordered it medium and it was cooked Medium Well to Well Done. The meat was quality but the toppings left something to be desired.
The smoothies were good, though they arrived to our table at least five minutes after our food, which was disappointing.
Overall, Kind Roots café is a very good idea and they may well produce something noteworthy, but my experience was littered with mistakes that shouldn’t be made. I hope they survive and improve as it is a welcome change to drive through Central Virginia and have a good meal that doesn’t consist of processed junk. As it stands, they have a long way to go.