Cagney’s is probably a restaurant that most Wake students have never heard of before, let alone have actually dined in. Located next to the Wake Forest Baptist Hospital downtown, this quaint country-kitchen style American diner tends to be the breakfast location of choice for many of Winston’s older residents. Students, however, should not be deterred from giving Cagney’s a try because it offers a charming 80’s dining experience that one would be hard pressed to find at other places in Winston.

The restaurant serves up breakfast all day to diners - lunch and dinner meals are offered during the appropriate times of the day as well. Cagney’s has a surprisingly large spread of affordable breakfast platters to offer. You can choose to have a plate of bacon, ham, corn beef, salmon patties, sausages, pork tenderloins or even liver pudding with hash brown and eggs for about $5. Belgian waffles or pancakes are also possible options – a plate of three will set you back around $4. The beverage range is what one would expect of any restaurant: juice, coffee, tea and milk are all readily available upon the customer’s request.

My table decided to order an assortment of breakfast platters to savor. Disappointingly, the salmon patties served were deep-fried and not pan-fried. Pan-fried crab and fish cakes tend to retain more of the natural moisture from the meat, which adds a lot of flavor, whilst cakes of the deep-fried variety tend to be overly oily in most cases. This held to be true in this case. The pork tenderloins were slightly overcooked and therefore were on the more chewy side. The omelet was definitely not anything to rave about. Its suspiciously pale yellow hue led me to presume that the restaurant used a much lower grade of egg in order to lower costs.

The biscuits at Cagney’s, however, were good. They did not have the texture of a traditional biscuit (so those who grew up in the South may disapprove of them), but I enjoyed their light and fluffy consistency. The pancake serving was extremely generous (every piece was huge!) and the syrup that came with it was delightfully sweet. They were not the best pancakes I have ever had by any means, but at $4 they were well worth their cost.

Cagney’s provides Wake students with an alternative location for an off-campus weekend breakfast. The main breakfast platters are not amazing, but their low cost means they are a good overall choice for any student on a tight budget. One could easily leave the restaurant feeling full for under $8. Without a doubt though, most regular customers would say that they come back time and time again for the restaurant’s atmosphere. There are very few places in Winston that can transport you back to the 1980s as well as Cagney’s.