Southwind Cafe

Best crab cakes ever! Great feel in here. And better yet great food.

great food very friendly wait staff and the owner/​chef comes out to check to see how you are doing. they also have home made ice cream that comes from a local store and the deserts are fantastic as well. usually we have the pizza and I have had a couple of the sandwiches as well. I really wish they were local to me but any chance I get to go into Mathews I will certainly stop by and eat.

Great little restaurant. Had a delicious lunch with friends here. Highly recommend the tomato pie.

Wonderful food and great staff. Everything we ordered was delish ie squash soup, shrimp salad, tomato pie. Yum yum, you must go visit

Awesome experience. Pizza crust was perfect and toppings were super fresh. The owner came over and greeted each table as they entered. We asked for an app that was no longer on the menu but still online and the owner came over and suggested their crab muffin. Fantastic app and awesome customer service by the owner. Nice to see an involved owner interacting with his guests. If in Mathews, VA you need to go here for pizza!

Nice Quant place. The guy at the door was very friendly as well as I believe the owner. They continually asked us if we needed anything and how was our food. By the way the Pizza’s were great. The only drawback was the. server …she was grumpy and the only damper to the whole mood of the place.

Southwind Café seems like such a cute local place! They have a limited seating on the patio, and when you step inside, it is packed with the locals as well as a cute little vibe to it! The atmosphere was quite inviting, and the chef himself, noticed us walking in, and asked if we wanted to just sit up at the bar (as it was available right away), or wait a few minutes for a table to open up. We opted for the bar, as we wanted to order their famous pizzas and hit the road to drive back. I’m so glad we did, as Chris, the bartender, was very attentive and just plain AWESOME! He was so incredibly sweet and gave us some of the events that are going on in town as well as copies of some ‘Rivah’ magazines that include local events and such. We were also seated next to another local named Steve, and he was pretty awesome, too, offering some of the local attractions that we could check out the next time we were in town. My husband ordered their homebrewed sweet tea (again, I’m thinking we’re just not a fan of Mathew’s filtration system, as this also had an off taste to it); we also ordered the Rigby signature pizza to go, a small size. The pizza itself has thick crust, and had a generous amount of cheese, basil, and tomatoes. I was surprised, as Chris stated that Southwind was ranked as #2 for the best pizza in VA (others all in Virginia Beach) — the pizza itself was okay, and I appreciated the fresh ingredients as the toppings. I would love to come back and try out their other menu items, as I’ve heard that the chef gets pretty inventive.
+ask for Chris, the awesome bartender! :D

Saturday night. The wait was almost excruciatingly long. However, the pizza was great. I tried a dogfish head beer on tap, but it wasn’t for me. The waitress was very nice restaurant was insanely busy and we always felt like we were welcome there. In my opinion the best part of the meal was the mixed berry pie with whipped cream and a cup of coffee at the end. I have heard many great things about this restaurant and I think they’re true. I will come back and you should try it out, too.

Great place for a casual dinner. Nice atmosphere. Very happy, fun place. Rick and I split a salad and pizza. Perfect. The salads are enormous. The pizzas not as big, but just right for us. Definitely a place to go in Mathews!

What a great little place. We were staying at the Inn at Tabb’s Creek and they recommended Southwind. Even though the town is small, we missed it b/​c the address was incorrect. Unilocal has corrected it to 44 Church St.
We were greeted at the door by the owner and seated quickly. The place was a bustle with lots of local and quite a few of us tourists as well. We enjoyed our meals and the the food was very good (they have a lot more than pizza). It was fun to watch all of the locals speak to each other. I think it says a lot for the food if that many locals continue to dine there. The service on this night was a bit slow, but we were not in a hurry.

Best pizza ever staff are wonderful and the sunday brunch is awesome. Will be back again

Food 5
Service 5
Ambiance 4
Was in Mathews for the day and stopped here for a late lunch. Our waitress was wonderful and the food was amazing. We had the Greek oyster appetizer which was inventive and tasty. I had the quiche for the main course and was very pleased with my choice.

Great food, music and craft beer! They always have fresh seafood and Boar’s Head sandwiches. If you haven’t been there for a Thursday Jam night, you are missing out.

We drove into Mathews for the day from Newport News and were rewarded with a wonderful experience at Southwind Café. We had a nice, wide variety of delicious craft beers to choose from to start as we appreciated the charming atmosphere of the restaurant. We were helped by a very friendly and attentive waitress who told us their pizza was ranked 2^nd best in all of Virginia, to which my wife ordered the Berkley Island pizza, and it was… Amazing. I saw on another Unilocal review a photo of a cioppino which looked outstanding. It wasn’t on the menu, so I asked the waitress if they had anything similar. She went and asked the owner/​chef who was kind enough to come out to our table and he offered to make me an order from scratch. It was even better than the photo suggested, very flavorful and beautifully/​perfectly prepared.
We are very happy we’ve found this place and look forward to returning soon and often.

We went in for take out the bartender took our order. She was very rude. Made us feel like if we weren’t going to eat in we weren’t worth her time. We live locally and will not go back.

Southwind has taken a nose dive! Service is lousy — an hour to get served! And only half the tables occupied. Food — nothing special. In 6 months, from the best in Mathews to just another mediocre place. We have been long time customers, very disappointed, and likely will never go back…

Kind of like the ‘where everyone knows your name’ place, with music! Great food, friendly and everyone does seem to know everyone! I was in town visiting and making new friends and my first time to Southwind was also a jam night. My friends joined in and played cello and guitar while some of the other jammers played mandolin, bass fiddle, and, if you can imagine it, a shiny red toy piano! Fabulous!
Mathews, Va. reminds me ‘The Andy Griffith Show’, small town, everyone knows everyone, everyone is smiling, friendly and happy. And, Southwind is an extension of that very thing. About an hour from Williamsburg, Va., about 1 ½ hours from Richmond, Va. Airport.
What can I say? I am in love with Southwind Café, the staff, the food, the atmosphere, and love the live music, the jam session during the week…
Regarding the outdoor seating, I think there were a few tables outside but honestly, why would anyone want to do that when all the action is inside?
Ok so I want to mention the food: really good food, really good pizza, really good salads, and as for dessert… well, well, well, I can only speak for a chocolate/​almond layer cake kind of thing that I shared with my friend… and after the first bite, did not want to share!!!

We visited the cute little town of Mathews while on a beautiful motorcycle ride through the Virginia countryside. Based on Unilocal reviews and recommendations from friends who knew the area, we decided on Southwind Café as our lunch destination. We’d been warned that it gets crowded, but we arrived between the lunch and dinner crowds so we got a table right away (there was still a healthy number of people enjoying leisurely meals).
What a nice place! The décor was clean, bright, colorful, and artsy (locally made art & crafts, I think). It looked like just about every piece on display was for sale. The single bathroom was tidy and had good lotion if you like that kind of thing. There was a refrigerated display case that held delicious looking desserts sold by the slice (apple, lemon, pumpkin, and key lime pies; carrot and almond cakes)…unfortunately, we didn’t try any. There was nice bar with seating that had a good selection of wine and beers on tap.
Service was friendly and timely. We never felt rushed or in need of anything. They had a good variety of sandwiches, salads, and pizzas to keep most folks happy. Right off the bat, their Black bean-​Sweet potato Quesadilla off their regional/​seasonal menu jumped out at me, but it was really popular and had already sold out! Disappointing. Instead, we ordered two pizzas (Tangier Island and Parrot Island, I think). I’ve posted a pic of how those came out, and they tasted as good as they looked. The crust was crispy and chewy, and had fresh toppings that packed a lot of flavor. They both had good topping to crust ratios. We cleaned our plates.
We will definitely make Southwind Café a regular stop when we’re riding out that way. If Mathews is not a usual destination for you, FYI… the small pedestrian area around the café has other restaurants, coffee shops, galleries, and boutique/​antique/​other stores that make for a good day trip.
PS I see up above where it says Southwind Café is not wheelchair accessible. There were stairs leading up into the front of the café, but there was a gentleman in a wheelchair dining inside when we came in, so perhaps there’s a wheelchair accessible ramp somewhere on the premises?

Our family are regulars when we are in Mathews. Definitely the best restaurant in Mathews and as good as any restaurant in the DC area as far as I am concerned. The pizzas are excellent and they have a great selection of microbrews. Their specials are also very good. The staff is very courteous and you feel like you are eating with family when you are there. Ned and Dia have gone out of their way to run an excellent restaurant. As one other reviewer said you do sometimes feel like you should be helping them clean up. We find it hard to go to any other restaurant in Mathews and always seem to end up here.
If you come after 6pm expect to wait as it is generally packed every night. It is after all the best restaurant in town.

This is for my money the best place to eat in Mathews, and the crowds show it. If you want to eat in on a weekend you should probably come early. Last time I ate here at 6 pm on a Saturday and had to wait about a half hour for a table (which is sort of longer than you’d expect for this area).
The food, though, is worth it. I’ve eaten here several times and gotten several different pizzas. They have all been delicious. Last time I created my own pizza with pesto, feta, and spinach. The one thing you must do is order a side of the buttermilk parmesan dressing and dip your crust in it. Either that or get it on a salad (the house salad is big enough to split). It is the very best thing in the world, I think.