My fiancé and I were hungry one morning during winter storm Nika (Feb. 5 2014). It snowed about 6 inches by noon and sleeted for a couple hours. My fiancé, Jamie and I were super hungry, so we decided to venture out for a breakfast diner. The Early American is the closest establishment to her place, so we parked along The Fowler House across the street and dodged across passing plows to merely enter this place.
Mind you, this is all happening at about 2pm on a Wednesday amidst a snowstorm, and they close at 2:30pm. So take this review with a grain of salt.
We walked in and a frumpy old lady near the door just looked at us, very confused. We look back, but she quickly glanced away and walked toward the rear of the restaurant towards the kitchen. No instruction. Not a word. Wicked rude. Jamie and I assume it's a "seat yourself" kind of place (it at least looks like it is), and sit in the corner booth at the window. Minutes later, the old lady finally comes over and asks us for drinks, and we order coffee before she throws some menus on the table. We glance over the options as she walks away, and moments later she returns, asking for our order.
Now, pay attention to what happens next. She asks what we would like to order; nice enough. I order the basic two eggs, homefries and toast, while Jamie asks for the pancake combo (+ eggs and homefries) with whipped cream and strawberries. This woman literally snaps at my fiance, rudely saying that they don't have strawberries, as if she was supposed to know that. Instead, she orders blueberries; easy enough.
About 5 minutes later, this freakin' broad returns telling us "we don't have anymore homefries. You're gonna get french fries instead." Jamie and I exchange confused, uneasy glances, acknowledging that we really don't want french fries, as we intentionally ordered homefries. Breakfast food vs. lunch food, right? She continues: "Sorry, it's all we got. We're closing down in less than a half-hour. If we started making homefries, they wouldn't be ready for another 45 minutes," in other words saying 'you don't have a choice, we're going to give you french fries' and as soon as she finished talking she promptly walked away.
So there we are, looking at each other like "WTF?" I'm over here thinking, if we had known that, we would've saved them the time and energy, and just have left. When all you order is eggs, toast, and breakfast potatoes, you expect all of the ingredients to be there. No homefries? No problem. But that's like 1/3 of my freaking $5 breakfast. You're not just going to replace it with fries. And Jamie was over here contemplating between that and an omelet. If you weren't so freakin' rude, she would have ordered something else.
So I look at my girl and say "do you want me to cancel the order?" To which she nods, uneasily.
I walk up to the counter, where the old lady is holding the wall up (lounging about), and I'm like "do you think I could actually just cancel my order?"
Oh, HELL no! Here's the poop-storm. She says "you can't cancel it. The cook is finishing up."
I say "Well, we didn't really want french fries. That's like, lunch food. We'd rather just cancel it all-together."
Then the cook, who I can see through a window in the wall, says "you want to cancel it? Why?"
And I repeat, "Well, we didn't want french fries"
"Seriously? That's wicked rude"
....Dude, if you have any integrity, then fire your freakin' grandma.
"I'm sorry man. If we had known that a third of our breakfast wasn't available, we just wouldn't have ordered anything."
He said "They're the same thing. They're cooked the same way, just different shapes." Ok. 1. I didn't order that. 2. They're not the same thing. They're cut differently because they're different foods. Yeah, try offering me mashed potatoes, or potato chips and give me that same answer; 'its just a different shape' my butt. I work in food service, and I know first-hand it's bad form to give a sorry excuse like that to pass off a different product to a paying customer.
The old lady's like "well I just told you," and I'm like "no, you told us after we ordered and the cook already started making our food. We didn't have much of an option"
I'm like "Well, I'll at least pay for the coffee"
And the lady just stands there. Looking at me. Arms crossed. Like some sort of elderly zombie. And I repeat "I can pay for the coffee, it's no problem...or, we can just leave."
She says "Well, I'm waiting for him to finish," gesturing through the window towards the pissed off dude at the grill. But he shrugs, and she's all "Waaaht, you want them to just go!?" And at that moment I'm like, eff this ish. I'm out of here.
So I go back to Jamie, tell her to get up and grab her coat, and we drive off to IHOP and have a much better meal with a much better waitress for a much better price.
All who venture forward, beware. I recommend traveling the extra 10 minutes to McKay's or Kristin's in Braintree.
The End. read more