Sideways Cafe

Recently I discovered that there are two wine cafes in Westminster. I had already heard of Sideways before because I had driven past it many times, but there's also the Artisan Wine Company, and they're both located on Main Street.

One Monday night we were looking for a low key dinner that we didn't have to make ourselves or a restaurant that wasn't too far away. We ended up at Sideways rather than the other because this was the only one open that night.

The restaurant is very small and the only other patron was an older gentleman sitting at the bar reading a book and drinking a beer. Mondays are not usually a busy dining night but it was a little weird being the only other patrons. The bartender was also serving as the hostess, waiter, and chef.

Fortunately service did not suffer because of this but I feel like that's hard to do when you only have three customers to focus on, one of which is reading. Sideways only carries a few local wines and a limited selection of other wines. I chose a white from local winery Knob Hall that I had already had and knew I liked and Justin chose a Riesling from out of state.

We were both fairly hungry so we opted for an appetizer, going with the Buffalo Chicken Dip. You're served several slices of crostini on a long white plate with the dip in the center, which was essentially sliced chicken pieces doused with buffalo and ranch sauce. It tasted fine, but from the appearance of the chicken I'm skeptical as to whether it was freshly sliced and cooked or had been previously frozen, thawed, and heated up.

I chose the Chesapeake pizza for my entree. Old Bay oil, shrimp, crab, tomatoes, and parmesan made up this pizza, which was pretty decent. It tasted essentially like eating crab dip on a pizza, always a plus with me. My only critique was that I believe there may have been some extra garlic salt on the crust making it slightly too salty.

Justin picked the Maryland Burger, topped with Old Bay aioli, crab meat, cheddar cheese, tomato, and red onion. This did not start off very well because our waiter did not ask how Justin wanted his burger cooked. What resulted was a well done burger that was seasoned well but very overcooked. He did enjoy the other ingredients on the top but was disappointed in the meat.

We did order a second round of drinks. I picked the Riesling that Justin had and he chose a Bold Rock, which is a delicious cider out of Virginia.

Throughout our waiter was very personable and we had a nice conversation at the end of the meal about local wineries and breweries. It's a shame that the food was rather lackluster, and I don't think we'll be going back to Sideways in the near future.