After last weeks rush to try to get from breakfast to church and CCD in time, we decided to change up the schedule and head to breakfast on Saturday instead. This week's restuarant was The Sunnyside Cafe. As I posted in my day 2 prelude this place used to be known as Anderson Farm and was our favorite place to go Sunday mornings until it changed hands.
We head over at around 8:30, give or take, and get out of the van. The first thing that hits us in the face is the overwhelming smell of cow. My daughter literally held her nose and covered her face the whole way into the resturant. Fortunately the smell did not penetrate inside so that wasnt a factor in our breakfast. As we walk into the front door, there is a chalkboard sign advertising the days specials, which look quite intriguing. And again, I started looking forward to the meal.
My wife headed to the ladies room to wash her hands while my daughter and I took our seats. The waitress came over and instead of asking our daughter what she wanted to drink, she asked me what my daughter could have. That didn't seem right to me. Our daughter can read the menu herself, and is quite capable of making a decision on what she wants. So coffee comes pretty quickly, and it is alright, the cups are smaller than other breakfast places. But the coffee is okay, not great. My wife still had to go home and make coffee for herself before we could do anything else for the day. I overheard the waitress telling one of the other tables that the daily specials are only available on Mon-Fri. I can't understand why they were being so prominently displayed. It isn't like we were there at the crack of dawn.
After reviewing the menu for a few minutes we decided to order, I chose the Sunnyside special, 3 eggs over medium, 3 bacon extra crispy, 3 sausage well done, homefries and ham. My wife got 2 eggs scrambled, 2 bacon extra crispy, 2 sausage, and 2 pancakes, and my daughter ordered chocolate chip pancakes, and decided that we ought to try the "homemade muffins" listed on the menu. We ordered Pumpkin, and my daughter who really doesnt like her food to be hot, wanted it cold not grilled or even warmed up. The waitress came back a minute later and said that they had to heat it up because it was frozen. My wife and I glanced at each other wondering why the "homemade muffin" was frozen on a saturday morning... Very odd.
Coffee was refilled fairly regularly as we waited for breakfast, so we discussed the day while we waited. I will say that service was much quicker than the last time that we were here, but it was kind of perfunctory. Our waitress was going through the motions, but didn't engage us in any way, nor did she ever ask my daughter what she wanted. It was almost like being around children was somewhat uncomfortable for her, which after glancing around at the few other occupied tables, mostly older couples, makes sense. The food arrived, and it was all cooked very well. The eggs were precisely over medium, the bacon crispy, the sausage well done. My breakfast was exactly what i ordered and tasted quite good including the homefries. My wife said her pancakes were kind of on the heavy side, and rubbery in texture. My daughter that hers were great. And now to the muffin. Wow. It was bad. There was no pumpkin flavor to it. It tasted like a badly seasoned spice cake muffin, could easily have been from a box recipe, or my wife suggested that it tasted like it came from a BJ's or Costco shelf. The texture was overly dense and gummy, and overall we were really disappointed. If that is their homemade muffin they need a lot of work.
Decoration wise, it was pretty sparse. My daughter said she wished there were more. It was boring for her. I went to the mens room at the end of the meal and there were holes in the drywall, and a cut off pipe sticking out of the wall. The place could definitely use a little TLC. It appeared that nothing had been done to it in the past 6 years.
Value wise, they were more expensive than we expected. Kid's chocolate milk cost more than coffee. And the final bill was almost $5 more than our previous meal.
Overall, unfortunately it was exactly as I expected. The service was quicker than I expected, but the rest was simply not impressive.
The final average score we gave The Sunnyside Cafe: 31 out of 50. Not too impressive, and quite frankly I doubt we will be back for round 2.
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