Well yesterday we were in Lakeside, CA… the location of our first home back in 1971. We were hungry and headed over to the Lakeside Cafe … that has been several different restaurants over the years… but was still busy… so we thought we’d try the current one.
We came in after the Lunch Rush.. and were greeted nicely… even a compliment on my cowboy hat :-) We were told to seat ourselves… and there wasn’t a clean table in site. So we sat at a dirty one… and waited… and waited… and waited… the place was almost empty now.. and everyone seemed to avoid eye contact. That may sound paranoid… but if you read our other reviews… we love excellence.
Finally we hailed a bus girl… and asked her to take away the pitcher of coke that had been left on the table… and to wipe our table off… it was pretty dirty. She apologizes for not getting to us sooner and asked what we would like to drink. Terri had a diet coke.. I went with the Ice tea… both came back like snow cones with the glass absolutely stuffed … and we started drinking our drinks and waiting to order. We waited … and waited… and waited… 15 minutes. By now it was getting amusing. We hailed the bus girl again… to get a re-fill… this time with less ice. And we asked her to please send our waitress. She apologized again… could not believe that “Heide” had not taken our order yet.
While she was getting our drink refill… Heide walked by and said to one of the few remaining guests… “Oh… didn’t I give you your ticket yet?” By his response we knew he’d been waiting for his bill for a while. She went to the cash register… took forever to write his bill dropped it off at his table… motioned to us that she’d be right with us… and walked off. He proceeded to the Cash register to pay… and stood there 3 or 4 minutes before someone came to take his money. By now the place was almost deserted… and we were still waiting.
Finally another waitress comes over and took our order… saying Heide was busy. So we ordered.
Food Delivery was prompt… and shortly after we started eating Heide strolls by and asked us if every thing was OK. The food was fantastic. Honestly. Terri had a turkey sandwich that was fresh thick home baked turkey and she said it was delicious. I had a Polish Kielbasa with sauerkraut that came with a wonderful fresh green Dinner Salad, great vegetable, French fries… a great meal for a bargain price. Will review that as well.
Well we needed a refill on the drinks… and waited… and waited… and waited… we could not get any one’s attention. We waved our arms… finally I took both glasses and walked over to the station where the drink dispenser was…. waited… waited… so I walked over to the main counter nearer the kitchen. Heide ignored me… but another waitress said “Oh.. here let me help you with those…” She then refilled our snow cones… so I asked if I could have less ice. She gave me my drink with less Ice and back to the table I went.
The meal was a huge meal.. and the quality and preparation was excellent. We finished… and … yep… waited. Waited…. Waited… gave up.
We walked up to the cash register and Heide saunters over… lays down a ticket and tells us our bill is whatever… then mentions that our bill is the second one recently that came out exactly to a dollar amount. The guy behind us says “That’s my bill”… Heide says “Oh no wonder there were two of them… it’s the same ticket”… duh…
Terri told her we did not have a ticket… and we just wanted to pay our bill. So she rang it up… $27.12 and we paid. With no tip. Honestly it has been years since we left no tip. But… this was a strange experience… incredibly good food… excellent price… and the worst service we have ever had.
When I looked them up on the web… I found out they own another restaurant close to us in Escondido… so we’ll have to try that one out…. can’t imagine that the service experience will be the same.
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