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| - I'm going to preface my review with this: I would never come here by choice. Even my dad, who has pretty low standards for food, said that this place was horrible when I told him where we were going.
Every time I've come here I've disliked the experience. The same could be said for many of the chain restaurants that serve mediocre western and bastardized Asian food at varying price points - Milestones, Moxie's, Montana's, Kelsey's, Jack Astor's, Joey... it's all the same. You'll find some sort of spinach dip at any of them. Swiss Chalet is marginally better because they don't try to rip you off as much. Many of these are owned by the same parent companies... sometimes I swear they just take the same menu, add tiny adjustments, give the menu/restaurant a specified theme and there you have it. Some locations are better than others. This is not one of them.
This is the perfect place for business and work lunches and large groups precisely because the food is "safe" in that there's nothing very unique about anything on the menu and there's enough range (the menu is huge) that everyone will find something they're at least okay with.
A group of friends chose this place and because I'm there more for the people and not the food, I agreed (next time I'm vetoing this choice). Space is huge with nice decor - you might not have to make reservations and the place is pretty clean. It was quite empty when we were there in early January for lunch. We sat in booth seats that were oddly really tall and kind of uncomfortable... the table felt a bit too far away from the seats.
I ordered a triple-decker grilled cheese with a side Caesar salad. One of the cheapest things on the menu at $11.99. Somehow we waited 40 minutes for a burger, chicken and waffles, a soup/salad combo (really, how hard is it to ladle premade soup and toss a salad in Caesar dressing and throw in croutons... no bacon here), chicken parmesan (again... how long does it take to microwave a piece of chicken breast), and a grilled cheese?
My friend was facing the kitchen and could see some of our food sitting there for at least 20 minutes (quote: "I can see my chicken and waffles getting cold"). I don't blame our server. We commented that he was the only one that seemed to be doing any work. We noted that everyone else seemed to be milling around... I get that there are zones, but come on. Why is this one poor guy doing all the work? He looked flustered and was friendly - wish I got his name, all I know is that he's Asian.
I'm pretty sure I could have made two, more filling grilled cheeses in that time. The bread was really dry (I ripped off the crusts because they were so hard), not helped by the fact that it was sitting out there for so long. You can see from the photo that the cheese used to be stringy and is now sad and hard and chewy. Not soft and hot and cheesy. Also, this is a pathetic amount of cheese with what is between three small slices of bread that I could probably pick up from the Walmart downstairs. My friends told me to send it back but I was not prepared to wait another 40 minutes and I was already hangry.
The Caesar salad was drowned in dressing. I didn't finish it but it tasted okay. I had some of my friend's beef barley soup and it was actually okay. Next time I come here I'll probably just get a salad and soup.
Total damage with tax and tip: $15. My suggestion: just go somewhere else if you can. I don't know how this place has stayed in Markville so long (rent can't be cheap) when it has been this bad for years... evidence being the 2.5 star rating. How often can you "retrain" staff when they clearly do not care? And yet people will still come here exactly because it's a safe choice. Be brave, friends. There is more than this out there. Nancy (is your profile picture a stock photo?), I'm sure you're a great person so this is nothing personal, but please tell whoever owns this place that a canned response is not going to fix the disaster that is this restaurant.
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