Chew on This: Prickly Pear Café under new ownership

The new owner of the Prickly Pear Café in Prescott Valley has a hard time pinpointing exactly what her customers like the best. That's because the restaurant's full menu features everything customers have said they like about the place.

Every menu item is a favorite, said Corrina Coulter, who bought the restaurant in December after moving to Prescott Valley from Flagstaff where she owned a business for 10 years. The Prickly Pear Café is located at 3101 North Robert Road.

While the menu itself has not changed much at the Prickly Pear Café following the change in ownership, Coulter did add a salad bar to the options available to diners, and changed the cooking style a bit. "People are calling and asking about the salad bar," she said. "It has really caught on."

Coulter brings years of experience in the restaurant industry with her to the Robert Road locale. Parking for the restaurant can be found on Tani Street behind the restaurant.

"The Prickly Pear is a down home café," Coulter said. "We offer home cooking like what your mother would cook. It's a very friendly atmosphere. People sit around and they talk and drink coffee. You get to know the older clientele that comes in. You get to know their names and they become like family."

Besides its regular dining area, as well as its outside dining tables, the Prickly Pear Café also features a meeting room that can accommodate up to 18 diners.

"A lot of people like that we're family owned and operated and that we are on a personal level with our customers," Coulter said. "We're not like some restaurants where you have to wait or wave to try to get your server's attention. We're all about family and that's what people like."

The menu

Menu options at the Prickly Pear feature a wide array of breakfast, lunch, and soup and salad choices. Breakfast choices, served all day, include chili and eggs; pancake options; the Outlaw Omelet, which features three eggs with cheese and a choice of up to three ingredients; the Corn Muffin Scramble, with scrambled eggs with green chilis piled atop a moist corn muffin and topped with pepper jack cheese; and the Mother Lode breakfast burrito, made with scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon, beans, cheese, among other choices.

"Everything that's on our menu is what we sell a lot of," Coulter said.

Lunch options at the Prickly Pear include the Roadrunner, made with grilled sourdough and filled with turkey, green chilis, sliced tomato and pepper; the Smokestack, made with turkey and smoked provolone on sourdough bread with spicy cranberry chutney and cream cheese; the Veggie sandwich, made with whole grain wheat bread with green olive cheese spread, sliced tomato, cucumber, shredded carrots and lettuce; and the Desert Sliders, featuring two beef sliders weighing almost half a pound each - with tomato, lettuce and secret sauce, as well as other menu options.

Salad options include the Southwest Chicken Salad, the Sunshine Chicken Salad, the PV Chef Salad, the Tomahawk Chop Salad, Nachos, and the all-you-can-eat salad bar. Chicken Tortilla Soup also is served daily.

Call the Prickly Pear at 928-772-4004 for more information.