DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!
My family and I visited Saddlebrook on Mon. night 6.24.19 and Tue. morning 6.25.19. Going back was primarily my fault as we should have just found an iHop instead. So, on Monday we had dinner at Saddle and I ordered the fried scallop meal that came with soup or salad. After being told what the soup choices were, the young female server we had suggested the French Onion soup stating it's pretty good. That being said, I took her word for it and ordered it.
The scallops were decent for a diner, however the problem was the soup. It had a chewy lump of cheese on top and a piece of bread in it that was so hard you couldn't break it. Now because it was included in the meal price, I let it go and didn't return or exchange it. However, I found out when my bill came that I was in fact charged an extra fee for the nasty lump of cheese on the French onion soup. Now cheese is a norm on French onion, so why would you charge $1.40 extra for the cheese? It's not listed in any fine print on the menu, nor did the server inform us of the charge. When asked, she at first couldn't figure out why and then once she gave the ridiculous explanation why (because cheese is extra), she accompanied it with "Oh, sorry about that". Sorry about that doesn't change my bill. Now I'm someone who has fought unknown charges many times over and won't pay for something you don't advise me of or show where I had the opportunity to read it beforehand. However, I let it go only because I received a free piece of cake from an old guy the server called "grandpa". I was trying to decide what desert I wanted and he just brought me something out and said if you don't like it, don't pay for it. They didn't put it on my bill. However, only after leaving and thinking about it a bit more, I essentially paid about ¾ of the price of the cake by paying for the nasty cheese lump. I was also mad that my husband "didn't hear" me say "hold off on the tip until this is resolved" and gave her a tip over 20%. Needless to say he heard about that for a minute. My intention was to take it out of her tip for not telling me as this couldn't have been the first time she rang in this soup, especially since she promoted it which now makes me feel like it was a set-up to pay more.
Day 2 - Because I originally wanted to eat there for breakfast, and we were staying 5 minutes away, we stayed with the original plan and went back. I gave Saddlebrook the benefit of the doubt because the girl we had the night before stated she only opens on Wednesday mornings and doesn't work any other days. Well, I was of course proven wrong and we had the same issue again with ordering something that we were charged extra for without warning. The order was for pancakes and the server asked if we wanted anything on them and we answered "yes, strawberries". Since there's nothing listed on the menu, and he asked, we believed it was included. The bill comes and there's a $3 plus change charged on top of the pancake price. When questioned, and asked to see where it shows the extra fee on the menu, the server states that "of course you'd pay more for strawberries even though they're not listed as extra on the menu". So the server took my husband over to the register and showed him how he rang it up and the strawberries came up as an extra charge.
Well that's not the point, as the point is that you as a server know it's extra and didn't bother to let us know it's not an included topping. We don't have a problem in paying extra for what we want, but you have to be honest and give patrons the option to do so or not.
I find Saddlebrook's ethics questionable and don't trust what's not in writing on their menu or the restaurant as a whole. We felt cheated and won't ever patronize this business again. If they don't tell you in advance and it's not on the menu, don't pay for it. Check out a different diner or find an iHop or Denny's. read more