I am sure this restaurant has seen its share of ups and downs since the 1920s, but it is in a bit of a death spiral right now. Now that I think about it, you would think a restaurant with almost 100 years of experience under its belt would have remarkable service and food. Not!
Make yourself comfortable folks, this is going to be a long review. First off, there are 50 meals to choose from on the breakfast menu, with 25 side dishes and 14 choices of toast (yes ... toast, not bread, toast). There are 99 meals to choose from the combined lunch/dinner menu, with 21 general side dishes and 20 dinner side dishes (there is no distinction between the 21 general side dishes and the 20 dinner side dishes, most items are repeated).
Now, people! There isn't a restaurant in the world that is capable of producing even a mediocre meal when the cook has to know how to prepare 149 main dishes and about 50 side dishes.
I hope you like potatoes with your breakfast because most breakfasts come with 2 to 3 cups of steamed hashbrowns (yes, I measured). Sometimes they are rock-hard on the outside but every time they are wet and steamy mashed potatoes on the inside ... just gross. And don't complain about them, cause you will just be told "but they're made fresh every day."
So why have I eaten there for the past 7 years? Because it has become an after church tradition. The food was never as great as these 4 and 5-star Yelp reviews are giving it, but it was good. Several months ago, their front of house manager left for medical reasons; after recuperating they never came back (so I've been told by a waitress). Service has been downhill ever since.
There are quite a few special characters working there now. Today's review was inspired by one of them, our server. I will try to keep this short. My mother thought her BLT tasted a bit off. After inspecting it we found that it was made with romaine lettuce instead of the stereotypical iceberg lettuce. We tried to get our server's attention but she was busy. We forgave her that. However, when we were able to explain to her about the oddness of my mothers sandwich the server said that the cooks have romaine lettuce in the back and the servers have iceberg lettuce in the front, and that romaine lettuce was technically lettuce. I called bullshit, and she didn't like that. The server offered to bring my mother out a side dish of iceberg lettuce from the server station. You'll notice that I never mentioned that the server apologized? You can fill in that part of the story.
When my mother asked if the server could please remove the dish with my mothers used tea bags, tea bag wrappers, straw papers, used spoon, lemon wedges, empty metal (single serve) tea kettle, empty sugar packets and three crumpled up napkins, the server informed my mother that she wasn't sure if she was finished with her tea. You'd have to be an idiot not to see that this was a plate of garbage collected from the table. The server said that she doesn't pre-bus the tables because she has been spit on, slapped and shooed away from the table when trying to pre-bus in the past. Really? WTF does that have to do with my mother asking you, right now, to remove a plate with garbage on it? By the way, my mother is 86, sits humped over with an arthritic spine, has macular degeneration (cannot see anything in front of her, only peripherally), and is winded walking from the waiting area of the restaurant to the booth. I'm pretty sure my mom isn't gonna kick your ass when she asks you to please bus the table.
Anyway, I need to stop. I want to tell you about the lemon wedges they serve on the chopped sirloin, but I'll leave that to your imagination.
Have fun eating here ... you never know what might happen. read more