Cheap Eats

Vel's is worth a trip over the bridge

$11.99 for a good sized Haddock Dinner including Salad, Soup & Dessert
Is that worth a 20 miles drive from Hyannis to West Wareham on Monday?

You've been a few hundred yards from Vel's every time you drive off cape toward New York on Route I-195. It's a mile north of the first exit on that highway right after you leave Route 25 over the Bourne Bridge.

The off-cape locals all know it, as do the Cape Cod cuisine cognoscenti.

Always on Mondays 

This is down-home cookin' a lot like The Homeport in Orleans. It's clean and bright,and definitely down-market prices every day except Mondays when they include a soup, salad and dessert at no extra cost.

The Kale soup on right and the salad came free with our dinner last Monday. Here's a few dinner examples:

• $8.99: Spaghetti or Ziti with Meatballs, Sausage or Mushrooms.
  
• $10.99 Chicken Pot Pie, Sausage Cacciatore, or Eggplant Parmigiana.
  
• $11.99: Baked stuffed or Fried Boneless Chicken, Turkey Dinner, Baked Lasagna, Baked, Stuffed Shell with Meatballs or Sausage, Linguine with red or white Clams, pr Cajun Shrimp with pasta or rice.

And about those Monday night extras

The free soup last Monday was the best Portuguese Kale soup I've had since Cookie's Tap in Ptown closed twenty years ago.

The free salad was huge and equally good. I didn't have any room left to even find out what the free dessert might have been. 

Vel's has been offering affordable family fare for 35 years. They are working on their website, but just take our word for it, and drive to West Wareham. You'll stagger back, and here's a map to help you find it.  A family of four could get out of Vel's for under $50.

Vel's Restaurant,
2352 Cranberry Highway
(Route 28),
West Wareham, MA 02576 
Phone: (508) 295-3224