Appalachian Trail Cafe

Food was outstanding. Beer was great. Service spectacular. Plenty of food options. Highly recommended!

These folks make hash, bake pie, bread and muffins and serve up the freshest eggs around. Everything was terrific, except I’m not a fan of their English muffins. I prefer the chewy variety and theirs are the toasty light style. Service was personable, the pace average and the mug topped off regularly. They tried to clear my plate before I’d mopped up every morsel and I took a bite of the waitress’ hand! Hungry olé dog!

Truly one of the only spots to get a good meal in these parts. Great atmosphere with the Appalachian tie-​in. Small store too with gifts. We had the mozzerlla sticks, which were fairly standard. Also, the Turkey Club among other things. The Turkey club was stacked high and accompanied by perfectly cooked fries. They also have parmasean fries will be my order next time.

So glad we drove out of our way to check this place out – was in Bangor, looking for a non-​chain option to eat. Searched on the good ol’ Unilocal map, and wasn’t finding anything that looked appetizing until I searched up by Millinocket-​way.
This place is bomb. Food is comfort food, and the Katahdin fries (basically, poutine) are great. The décor and place are wonderfully decorated by Appalachian Trail hikers and artists. Listen. I will probably NEVER do the Appalachian Trail, unless there’s a cool million waiting for me at the end… but this place gave me a little taste of what it might be like, and a peek into a hiking culture that (while crazy) is very interesting.
TIP: The bread pudding and the Katahdin fries are a must!

Rate the food? Come on… are you kidding me? This has nothing to do with the food (which is good, by the way). It’s the experience! You’ll love it. It’s a tradition. You go to Katahdin, you go to the AT Café. Period.

Small, interesting and a perfect breakfast location… if the locals love it, it’s usually pretty darn good!

Excellent food. Great service, good prices. Breakfast was great. The homemade English muffins are fantastic!

Food is EXCELLENT as always, but I have to give a 3 star solely because the service is not very good to say the least. They are always understaffed and somewhat disorganized. If you don’t care about waiting, then please give them some business because the food is great.

We ordered taco salad, blue cheese salad with grilled chicken and chicken parm sandwich. Kid had homemade mac n cheese with two meatballs. Local brew beer available! Food was great. Portions a bit small. Service great and friendly. To go container environmentally friendly. Place seats about 60, Including a 4-​seat counter.

Stopped in for a quick burger while in the area but it was far from quick. We ordered the fire burger and a bruchetta burger well done and waited. Over 35 minutes later our burgers were delivered. The well done burger was still red in the middle so it was sent back. Another wait while my burger sat at the table getting cold. We munched on the limp greasy fies while we waited. The burger was finally delivered and we ate. A quick burger turned into an hour and a half delay. Maybe we just caught them on a bad day. BTW the fire burger was far from spicy.

I had a great cheeseburger with some very hot and tasty fries. The service was good and friendly. There were about 10 people in there when I stopped to eat and everyone looked satisfied. Lots of locals as well, and that’s what I look for when I’m trying to find a restaurant in a small town like Millinocket.
Interesting décor as well. Lots of local photos, and don’t miss the ceiling tiles signed by the AT trekkers.
Not sure about the negative comments I read here, maybe it was just a bad time. Truth is there are not many restaurants in Millinocket besides the McDonald’s and Subway.

When we spend a week in Baxter State Park we always finish our trip with a visit to the ATC. We love the atmosphere and the good food and never fail to end our stay with a piece of delicious berry pie.
The café seems to have changed a bit this time with a new menu and a spruced up décor. We had burgers and fries with drinks for lunch. The medium burgers ordered were well done but still very good. We didn’t get many fries with the burgers but again they were good so no problem. When it came to dessert the pie selection was apple only, so we went with the apple. Bad decision. The filling was undercooked apples with a thick custardy sauce. Unusual and definitely not freshly made. The crust was rubbery and hard to cut with a fork. It’s a shame because the pies were the highlight of our meals. I hope this was just a «bad pie day» and not a change for the worse. We love the ATC and we’ll give it another try.

Good, solid diner food in a hiker-​oriented place.
I ate here three times in one week while hiking in nearby Baxter State Park. Once for lunch I had a Turkey Club, which was nicely done offered on a multigrain bread. Their breads are pretty good — I asked and they get them frozen and bake them in-​house. Not quite home made, but definitely a couple of cuts above the usual diner toast.
I had breakfast twice; once a Spanish Omlette, which was spicy, large and served with two thick slices of toast and ‘chopped tots’, their take on home fries. I prefer home fries to their tots, but they were okay. Another time I had bacon and eggs, again with that multigrain toast. The eggs were fine and the bacon was thick, tasty and properly cooked.
Their coffee is strong and good — it’s from Carrabasset Coffee Company. They say the cup is bottomless; I tested that, and it is.
Service is efficient and friendly, although it’s a busy place. Very hiker-​friendly and they have free WiFi.
Great place. Recommended.

I’ve been here twice now, about a year apart. I travel for weddings and both times I’ve been in Millinocket I’ve visited this spot for lunch. Honestly my first visit wasn’t super memorable — at least as far as the food goes. But this second visit was pretty awesome. It’s located right in the middle of a VERY sad «downtown» strip where half of the storefronts are closed and/​or boarded up. Not exactly inviting. But it’s this cute little hole in the wall where tons of hikers really do frequent. A few of the ceiling tiles are covered with signatures of Appalachian Trail hikers, and we saw a few eating during our visit. The service is definitely a bit slow, but worth it. My burger was incredible, the fries were to die for, and the homemade chili… whoa. Insane. Worth the trek!

Don’t sit if you’re in a rush. This café operates on Maine time. Which is, well, indiscriminate.
I love a down-​home diner as much as the next «guy who thinks he’s AP-​ready, but isn’t, not by a long shot.» It’s just that one of those charming qualities about local spoons is the prompt, albeit irreverent service from ladies who’ll tell you some stories, they will.
With an unexpected rush, our ATC experience went 2+ hours, and only 15 of those minutes were spent waiting for a table. Then it was 20 minutes to get menus, 15 to get drinks, another 20 to place our order and a whopping 50 minutes to be served a plate of overdone eggs, chopped tots and a very fine house-​made English muffin, along with her «just okay» blueberry pancakes.
We polished them off with a hunger haste, and waited yet again for the bill. Fortunately, you pay at a counter, so that went without delay, as did our desire to come flying back the next morning. Without a crowd, I’d put the food at a 3 – 3.5, and my coffee — yes, I had a coffee; I was bored — was smooth and aromatic. But two hours for a four minute breakfast? I just can’t, not even with an $ 8 price tag.
Pro tip: the famous donuts sell out quickly, so get there early. Like, sunrise early.

Had a wonderful breakfast at the café with the family on the 4^th of July! Small home town feel with friendly service and tasty food. Had the yogurt parfait with homemade blueberry sauce and freshly made hash browns! Yum!

After backpacking in Baxter for a week we were very hungry. We went to lunch and asked I they were still making breakfast which they said they would do.
A person in our group had a gluten allergy and asked of thy could make a sandwich with her bread, Rey didn’t have gluten free bread and they said no, customer food could not go in the kitchen. They did make he snowing without bread and she could use her own bread. A little strange but we made it work. For food we got breakfast burrito, buff chicken burger (very good!!), stuffed french, toast turkey club, potato skins and triple berry pie. All we very good but the favorites were buff chicken and the pie.
Service was slow but we weren’t in a hurry.
The cook came out at the end to make sure everything was good.
Will probably go back after another backpacking trip.

The Appalachian Trail Café’s «open» sign was a welcome beacon following an 8+ hour overnight drive to Millinocket. It being an extremely early hour, my friend and I dragged our tired selves into the restaurant and were happy to see that there was a plethora of seating to choose from.
There was a varied crowd… a circular table full of regulars laughed and joked over coffees, a couple quiet duos hunched over platefuls of breakfast goodies, and an AT Thru-​Hiker fueled up at the counter. We slipped into a booth and were immediately greeted by an exuberant waitress, happy to take our order. I ordered a plate full of breakfast staples.
While we waited for our food, I watched staff run around stocking displays with their freshly made donuts and pastries, offering refills on coffee, and chatting with other customers about their new electronic billing system. Many of the ceiling tiles had signatures from who I assume to be AT thru-​hikers due to their evident nickname quality. While still examining the names on many tiles, our food arrived… It was surely welcomed but not particularly unique. My scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, english muffin, and smashed tater tots were pretty good… certainly welcome to my empty belly.
I believe their is some sort of second floor store dedicated to the Appalachian Trail though we did not visit. I perused a small setup of products they had within the restaurant… a collection books, maps, stickers, etc. As a pin collector, I added a small AT collector’s pin to the bill at the end of the meal.
This place is «A-​OK» as my 3-​star rating indicates… its a quick, easy, no frills stop for a bite to eat near the AT.

The AT Café isn’t terrible — but it is poorly served by the high expectations set by both their website (very Vermont-​cool-​hipstery) and the «oh you must go here» hype.
It’s a middling local diner in rural Maine, arguably below average, because they cut a lot of corners to churn food out quickly and inexpensively.
The «home fries» that come with eggs, for example, aren’t hand-​cut potatoes skillet-​fried with onions; they’re factory-​produced squares cooked in a Fryolator. The beans in the «very popular» bean burrito, my companion reported, were bland and mushy, almost certainly out of a can. Not only are you not eating healthy, hiker-​oriented food — it’s not even simple American food made from scratch.
On our first visit, the omelets were pretty good, and the toast seemed fine. The coffee (contrary to Luap K.‘s finding), the «Bad Dog» blend, I think, was well above local-​diner quality. They have a fancier coffee place upstairs that sells the same blend. Service was not great, but OK.
We shouldn’t have come back. Our second AT Trail meal, for lunch, was awful. Along with the canned beans, the bean burrito was open on both ends (so you couldn’t eat it like a burrito), and was slathered with melted cheese. No salsa or hot sauce beyond Tabasco. But it was edible.
I wanted a light meal, and while their blue cheese salad — which I’d seen someone else eat — seemed fine, I opted for the «light salad plate», which was supposed to be cottage cheese, fruit salad, potato salad, and choice of tuna or turkey salad (I chose turkey).
What I got was a small bowl of canned fruit cocktail, the promised cottage cheese, and, on iceberg lettuce «bowls», big scoops of the worst potato and turkey salads I have ever tasted. They were drowned in mayo, chopped super-​fine, and completely unseasoned. Well below chain– supermarket quality. When the waitress saw I’d put my plate aside, she asked me how it was and I told her. She asked if I wanted something else (I said no) — and, of course, still charged us for the item.
You should stop at the AT Café anyway. Go upstairs, get a nice coffee or a smoothie, and buy maps, books, T-​shirts, memorabilia. Or go for a meal and try to pick wisely. But don’t mistake it for the best place in town. Just walking around, we found friendlier people and better food in Millinocket.

While packing up from our rafting trip on Sunday morning, we decided we wanted to go to a local joint for some breakfast/​brunch.
Well… who better to ask but the locals. I asked one of my fellow raft guides as he stumbled towards the main building with toothbrush in hand as he slowly wakes up, «Where’s the best place to grab breakfast around here, Josh?»
His immediate response, «The Appalachian Trail Café!».
And so after getting directions from my fellow guide and packing up all our gear, we were on our way to find the AT Café.
A short drive from the Three Rivers Whitewater camp site, we were in town in no time. And as soon as we walked in, we knew we hit a gold mine. Not a table or even a coffee mug was empty. Servers buzzing around. Waited about 10 – 15 minutes before we were able to find an empty seat in the house, but it was soooo worth the wait!
$ 7.99 for Steak & Egg breakfast!!! Are you for real!!!
$ 1 for homemade donuts the size of the plate!!!
$ 4.99 for a humongous breakfast burrito!
Oh and let’s not forget that Millinocket Special that Josh (the aforementioned guide) had mentioned on our way over!
Geez Louis we just hit breakfast heaven!
Coffee was hot hot hot. Service was well what you would expect on a busy bustling Sunday morning. I feel bad that they don’t even get a chance to sit down and breathe.
Seriously the cheapest breakfast around town that’s not only cheap, but filling. So filling I couldn’t even finish my plate! And I’m usually the kinda gal finishes her entire plate especially after an awesome run down the P’nob! But the AT café defeated me that morning that’s for sure!
Can’t wait for next season to return and end our trip once again at the AT café!