For me, this gets marks for trying and serving pretty decent food, but unfortunately loses points in basic service and cleanliness.
My wife and i arrived at the far end of a busy Saturday brunch rush and parked across the road; then, due to misleading Google navigation, walked around the corner only to realize we would have to climb under a chain and up an alley to find the front entrance (the parking lot is accessible from N 7th Street, not West Grand). We then put our names on the waiting list.
One of the servers, with pink dye in her dark hair, was somewhat obnoxiously animated, behaving as if she ran the entire place and talking almost non-stop to no one in particular throughout her inefficient duties, seemingly as an effort to fool everyone into believing she knew what was going on. She was fairly distracted (probably by her own rambling). After she finally finished clearing a table (which, apart from a few small items, cutlery and whatnot, had been empty for the entire 15 minutes we had just waited for), she inexplicably returned to partially wipe it down three times, taking another 5 minutes to do so between vague, unimportant distractions. It then took her two tries to find and seat us, even though we had arrived and put our names on the list right in front of her.
When we finally got seated, we quickly ordered coffees from Pink-Hair-Dye, and when she brought them out, she disappeared without giving us menus. Meanwhile, I noted that the coffee was awful (watery and big-batch percolated) and abandoned it after only a sip. It was at this point that a different woman (the one who had entered our names into The List) came to our aid, provided menus, and apologized, explaining that when she had asked Pink-Hair-Dye if we'd ordered yet, she gave a look of bewilderment as if she had no idea who we were. List-Lady continued to serve us competently and sympathetically for the remainder of our visit.
We declined a coffee refill, and I asked for a water. Strangely, it tasted of mold, as had my wife's coffee. Perhaps it was the water, the ice, the glass, the storage surface, or the dishwasher. Not wanting to raise the issue, and wrapping up our meal to move on with our day, we could only guess.
The meal portions were large, flavorful and sufficiently (not overly) greasy. The handmade tortilla with my chorizo and eggs was massive and deliciously fresh, and the home fries tossed with bell peppers and onions were lightly spiced and a wee bit crispy, exactly as I like them. My wife had the Popeye scramble which, apart from the lack of spinach the menu had promised, was also decent. She mentioned that her corn bread biscuit also tasted of mold, though it appeared and otherwise seemed to be freshly baked (note: we tasted mold on two further occasions at other local restaurants, leading us to believe there must be a faint odor/flavor/presence of mold in the local tap water). Or maybe it was coincidence.
At any rate, and in conclusion, this is not a horrible place to get a hearty hole-in-the-wall greasy-spoon diner-style breakfast, brunch or lunch, but don't expect much in terms of performance from its understandably laid back, small-town, possibly transient wait staff. read more