Food Feature: Into the woods

Take Six Flags’ Dahlonega Mine Train and run it through Disney World’s Frontierland. Add in the video arcade from a Dave & Buster’s and an oversized McDonald’s playground. What do you get?

If you answered “a really weird new restaurant in Alpharetta,” you’ve obviously been to Wild Times Cafe. The concept-driven complex makes a stab at entertaining the whole family: mom and dad in the rustic dining room, teens in the game room and younger kids in the Chuck E. Cheese-y play area. What results is a Bizarro-World behemoth that leaves you wondering how this thing ever made it past the planning stages. Though carried out to a minute level of detail, the transition between zones is jarring, and the menu has more misses than hits.

The restaurant’s exterior hints at the juxtapositions to come. The facade evokes a “Twin Peaks”-type hunting lodge, somehow wedged into a suburban strip mall. The lodge motif is carried out admirably inside the main dining room, with enormous artificial trees looming over an expansive seating area. A 30-foot waterfall curtains a view of the kitchen and completes the feeling of dining in the North Georgia mountains.

The creepy part is the stuffed animals. Taxidermied wildlife is everywhere; a large buck greets you at the front, while a playful bobcat lounges over the bar. Sure, they add to the theme, but do we really need the reminder?

Ranging from $7 sandwiches to $20 steaks, the menu has a “let’s make everyone happy” attitude, which mostly fails. On my first trip to the restaurant, my friends and I had a hard time deciding on an appetizer, with 12 options on the menu plus a few specials. The Tent City Tortillas ($6.95) were intriguing at first, but the thought of caribou meat on our chips frightened us. We opted instead for the Prospector’s Spinach and Cheese Dip ($5.95), with paper thin and oily tortillas. The dip was as runny and dull as the salty chips were addictive.

A basket of yeast rolls appeared moments after we ordered, but they were cold, hard and not much better than what we could have bought at Kroger next door. After what may be the smallest and most bland Caesar Salad I’ve ever experienced, my Vegetarian Pasta arrived. For $9.95 I wasn’t expecting the mountain-sized portion in a plate that could double as a hubcap, nor was I expecting the forest fire it left in my mouth. The otherwise delicious fettuccine, blended with Portabella and shiitake mushrooms, red peppers, diced tomatoes, artichokes and spinach, was a little too heavy on roasted garlic.

I later had better luck with the Chicken Tender Salad ($8.95), a rather standard mix of greens with delicious slabs of fried chicken. Another peak was the Low Land Mixed Grill Pasta ($14.95), which featured boneless chicken breast char-grilled with a Wild Times special spice blend and served over penne pasta with grilled venison sausage and cream sauce. It was certainly original and appetizing, but probably not worth $15.

A low point of the menu and an option to be avoided at any cost is the Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza ($6.95). My friend described it as covered with “American ghetto cheese” and filled with tasteless beef. The bacon was nowhere to be found.

The menu is almost redeemed by an excellent mixture of deserts (the Banana Chocolate Chip cake almost made me forget earlier transgressions). Emphasis on the “almost.”

Wild Times Cafe will probably be around a while, driven by first-time guests hunting for novelty. The game room and bar do provide an appealing escape route from the typical suburban eatery. Parents can drop off kids under 12 at the Silly Shack, where Red Cross-certified “Rangers” will babysit ($4 an hour for the first kid, $2 for each additional).

But what happens when the novelty ends? While it might be a fun place to hang out, maybe you should eat before you go. After all, nobody goes to Six Flags for the food.??