Came here for breakfast to kick off a weekend getaway with my friend in Blue Ridge, and I'm just happy this wasn't foreshadowing for how the rest of our trip would go because oooh boy, was it weird and rude in here.
To start, this seems to be the only place open at 8:00 am (on a Saturday) so we didn't have a ton of options. We came in and waited behind another couple to be seated. The restaurant had other tables filled but several were empty or just waiting to be cleared. The couple in front of us had had enough waiting though, and we probably should've taken their hint because they left. Several more minutes later and lots of neck craning and smiling in an attempt to get someone's attention, we were signaled to sit down at a recently cleared spot and given menus. There was not a hello, just the server standing over us so we both ordered a coffee and she disappeared immediately. A few minutes later two coffees were dropped off (no eye contact), and before I could ask for a cup of water or cream for my coffee, she was already gone.
We waited and waited some more. I had the view of a man handed menus roughly by the same server who sat us, and he then handing them back saying he was leaving because of how rude the interaction was (I looked longingly out of the open door swinging behind him and wondered if I had a few singles to put down for our coffee so we too could escape).
Our wait gave me time to reflect on the state of our dress of modest shorts, regular T-shirts, and neatly combed hair (nope, nothing offensively odorous or off putting in style) or if I had some RBC going on (nope, we appeared pleasantly relaxed if not adorned with mildly sleepy vacation smiles).
But, eventually, a different server came over and took our order. Simple enough - eggs, bacon, grits, and a biscuit (my friend got eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and no bread).
We then waited an hour more before seeing our food.
It was tasteless and not hot. The hashbrowns were definitely from a preshredded frozen bag, fried eggs were cooked properly (yay?), biscuit bottom and top were burnt, bacon was cooked enough to be edible, and grits were bland (if they weren't instant then that's definitely the flavor and consistency they were going for).
I asked for the check immediately upon getting our food, since I didn't know how long that would take. It arrived faster than anything else. We ate what we felt like eating, paid, and dipped out. I would not recommend this place at all - just wait until other spots open.
I will say Das Kaffee Haus across the street may not have a full breakfast, but we sure were glad to have really friendly service and excellent coffee there. We popped in hoping to grab a drink for the road, and the pleasant atmosphere was enough to erase all the weirdness from breakfast. We'll be going back there again before we leave I'm sure (they have macarons! homemade truffles! cheesecakes!) but never again will we visit Serenity (my butt) Garden. read more