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| - We tend to find ourselves in Peoria at least once per year, and have always gone to this restaurant in The Good Egg chain on our trips. Our visit today will make us reconsider.
I'll preface this by saying that before today I had never left a sit-down restaurant without leaving a tip (at least a restaurant where tips are expected). Today's service was so incredibly poor that I didn't leave the customary 20%.
I should have realized from the beginning that our visit was cursed. We came in with our infant and preschooler, and were paraded past a number of empty tables to the very back corner of the restaurant, right next to the restrooms. If you have ever read Waiter Rant, you know that the tables closest to the restrooms are not necessarily provided with the best service.
We were originally going to be seated in a booth, but the hostess was happy to let us move to the table across the aisle so we could move our preschooler's seat closer to the table. This becomes an important fact later.
Our waitress was quick to take our order, and actually came back a minute or so after leaving to confirm one piece of the order. From that point on, it was at least 25 minutes before we talked to anyone. Our older daughter colored the complimentary coloring page. She flipped it over and drew a picture. We even had a chance to walk to the restroom right next to our table so she could do a quick pit stop. The wait was long enough that the couple who were seated at the booth we were originally going to be seated at had already received their food and were happily halfway through their meal.
Finally, our waitress stopped by and informed us that the kitchen didn't have our order. She assured us that she had put a rush on the order, and that it would be out very soon. I even asked whether we could get the fruit and yogurt plate we ordered for our daughter ahead of the rest of the food, since a hungry 3 year old who is forced to wait patiently can be an entirely unpleasant experience. We were assured that the food would be right out.
I'm not sure what The Good Egg's definition of "right out" is, but we were able to draw with crayons a bit more, stack the strawberry and blackberry jam tins into pyramids, practice counting jam tins, and watch the couple at the booth we were originally going to be seated at finish their meal and leave before we received our food. At about the 40-45 minute mark, my wife had had enough and went to the front desk to ask for a manager. Shortly after she got back, the chickens had apparently laid enough eggs for our meal to be delivered to our table.
Immediately after our food arrived, a very apologetic manager arrived to let us know that she would take care of the situation, and that the meal was on the house. She confirmed that the service was unacceptable, that the waitress should have let her know about the issue before my wife went to the front desk to ask to see a manager, and took responsibility. In one way, this was refreshing -- it's not often that you find a business willing to say "we screwed up - we're sorry." On the other hand, these are generally not random occurrences, and this is not the first time we've had excruciatingly slow service from The Good Egg.
The meal itself, once it showed up, was OK. My wife got the special, which was some type of egg dish. She commented that it looked like it had sat under a heat lamp for a while. Our daughter had a fruit and yogurt plate which apparently was acceptable. I had the pancakes, eggs, and sausage combo. The whole wheat pancakes had bananas cooked into them, and were somewhat soggy. I'm not sure if they had sat there for a while, were undercooked, or if it was the extra juice from the bananas that made them looser than pancakes normally are. The eggs were cooked a bit runnier than I would normally expect over medium to be. The sausage, on the other hand, was very tasty and plump, with a slight kick to it.
After our complaint to the manager, our waitress stopped by a couple of times to check to make sure we had everything we needed, apologized several times for the problems, and didn't try making any more excuses. Quite honestly, I think the problem likely stemmed from the fact that when the order was originally taken, she forgot to ask how I wanted my eggs cooked. That step of having to come back and get that information was probably the critical extra step that potentially prevented our order from either being inputted into the order system, or sent as a complete order to the kitchen. That being said, it's her responsibility to follow up. She seemed competent enough, and I would hope that management is competent enough to see it as an opportunity for training, and not an opportunity for discipline, unless there's a track record. Live and learn.
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