Sharon's Chocolates & Bread Cafe (Closed)

Ed Note: This restaurant has closed.

Sharon's Chocolates & Bread Cafe
2881 Poplar
324-4422

I spotted the sign for Sharon's Chocolates and Bread Cafe weeks ago and was intrigued. I immediately Googled the name, but found nothing. That's pretty much still the story today, although the Flyer did give them a mention in print and on the Hungry Memphis blog.

The monkeys (Satchel, 8, and Jiro, 6) and I tried to go for breakfast a few Saturdays ago, but we were too early. (They don't technically serve breakfast, but I thought we could get some bread or a croissant.) Once we figured out their actual hours (11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday), we popped in for a late lunch on a Friday afternoon when the monkeys were out of school.



Sharon's is located in the Chickasaw Crossing shopping center near the main library where Grisanti's used to be. (Still is?) The shopping center has had a facelift and looks nice from the outside. Inside Sharon's it feels a little stark and cold. I'll attribute it to being newly opened and not being too busy when we were there. (A lot of people were coming in to peek around, but we were the only patrons.)

You order at the counter, where there are several displays. Since we got there a little late (1:30ish), there wasn't a lot of selection, but Satchel pointed to the bbq chicken pizza rolls and said, "I want one of those." I really wanted to try the pizza, as did Jiro, so we asked for that. I had heard it was authentic New York style, so I assumed we could order slices, but it turns out it's authentic Sicilian style, so we ordered a 1/2. (The other choice is a whole.) Our drink options consisted of soda from a nearby cooler or coffee from a carafe. I instructed Jiro to get a Diet Coke for us to split and the woman at the counter gave me three cups.

We sat down at a table by the window and Satchel asked me to get his coat out of the car. I was told that they have to keep the cafe cold because of the chocolate. Speaking of, neither monkey noticed that there was an entire case of delicious chocolates just a few feet away! Had other people been eating near us, I'm sure that they would have clued in. Since we'd had Maggie Moo's before coming, I didn't point out the sweet treats, although I will have to make another trip to do just that.

After a few minutes our pizza and pizza rolls came out. (The pizza was made fresh; the pizza rolls reheated.)




Satchel immediately honed in on the fact that the pizza rolls had red onions. He picked them out and ate with a little pout on his face.



Then he accidentally spilled his portion of Diet Coke all over the place. (Earlier that day, he spilled my coffee!) A nice woman came over and had it all cleaned up before we even really realized what happened.

Meanwhile, Jiro was very thoroughly enjoying his pizza.



I eagerly bit into my piece of pizza and was quite pleased. "It's delicious!" Jiro said. "And greasy!" he added while scrambling to wipe his fingers off. Seeing that Satchel wasn't going to be able to remove enough onions to enjoy his selection, I encouraged him to try a piece of pizza. "I'm not hungry," he said. Since he didn't want his own ice cream at Maggie Moo's previously I was inclined to believe him.

In the end, Jiro ate one piece of pizza, Satchel ate next to nothing, and I had my piece of pizza and both of Satchel's rejected pizza rolls. So much for healthy choices!

We packed up our leftover pizza and headed home.

I'm a little worried about Sharon's. It reminds me of La Baguette--bakery, sweets, lunch items--but something is missing. Soup and salad maybe? There needs to be something to round out the menu and make the offerings seem more like a meal. Some more exciting drink offerings would help make it feel more like a cafe too.

I hope that after a few weeks Sharon's will find it's groove.