Why 4 stars? Because the food was amazing, but we nearly had a pretty big mishap at the beginning.
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I've had Mother's bookmarked for a while, but for some reason, I was kind of on the fence about driving out to Westchase to visit. It looked appealing, but more like the kind of place I'd visit if I was in the area already. Now that I've been, I'm kicking myself for having that attitude - the food is absolutely great here!
My wife wanted to visit because it was our son's first Easter and their website mentioned that there would be an Easter Bunny in the house for photo ops. We had no idea how our baby would react, if at all, but he acted like meeting that bunny was the best thing that's ever happened to him. Another win for Mother's!
We ended up ordering the following items: Mac-n-Cheese bites, Steak & Eggs and the French Toast Sliders. All three things were no-doubt-about-it home runs.
Mac-n-Cheese Bites - these can sometimes sound a lot better than they actually turn out, but these were among the best I've ever had. They were exactly what you'd hope for when imagining breading a-top mac-n-cheese which is dipped in more cheese. How do so many places get this wrong?
Steak & Eggs - The steak was churrasco with chimichurri, which is one of my favorite kinds of steak. I've never had it with eggs before and it was a wonderful match.
French Toast Sliders - Anytime I'm eating breakfast or brunch, I always heavily debate on ordering something savory or sweet. Who doesn't love a fat stack of pancakes? But also, the post-meal food coma from all that sugar is never fun. With the french toast sliders, it was the perfect combination of savory and sweet. I felt like I got the best of both worlds.
So with all of that well-deserved praise, why not 5-stars? We were nearly turned away at the start.
My wife made reservations for 12:30p on Easter about 3 hours in advance. When we showed up, the hostess said she didn't see our name on the list. My wife mentioned that she made the reservation this morning, which led the hostess to say, "Oh, that's why. We don't even see the day-of reservations. We'll have to sit you outside on one of the couches, which isn't a real seat, but we can make it work, if that's ok?"
Obviously, that wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing. But unfortunately the couches were taken. The restaurant was only about 50-60% full, but the hostess said that they were about to be hit hard with a ton of reservations that had been made in advance. She asked us to step aside and said that a manager would be with us shortly.
The manager comes out and apologies. He says that the owners were supposed to turn off the reservations this morning, but didn't. I asked why someone wouldn't contact us when the reservation came in, but he just kind of moved past my question without offering more than a "yeah...."
I also mentioned that it frustrating to be told that there is no place for us, when there's currently 40+ open seats. Why not give us one of those tables and if literally every seat fills up before we are done, that those people will just have to wait a few minutes. He said he couldn't do that because those reservations had been made for weeks. But we made a reservation through their website, which was accepted, so why did that mean less? He said there was nothing he could do and sent us on our way.
We walked away frustrated and started to try and figure out where we were going to go instead. My wife walked back in to ask if we could at least have a picture with the Easter Bunny, and when she did, the hostess said that someone just canceled their reservation and that we could have their spot.
We were grateful for that, but pretty annoyed that we were at the restaurant for about an hour and a half, and until the last 10 minutes, at least 40% of the tables were empty. Even at the end, there were still a few empty seats. Turning us away would have been wrong and it nearly happened. I'm glad we got to experience Mother's though, because we thoroughly enjoyed it! read more