Rivers Restaurant — Restaurant in Abbotsford

I respectfully felt like the reviews hyped this place up. Maybe they were having a meh day overall. The food came out too fast but wasn't piping hot... the toast was soggy which gave me the impression that along with everything else is pre-made and in a warmer. If that is the case its not a great practice since they weren't busy. If it's made fresh to order, I might reccomend doing quality control to ensure freshness and texture is congruent to what the average person expects. The hashbrowns had an awkward texture of crispy in spots and soggy in others and lacked flavour. There were quite a few flies in the restaurant; I heard another table comment about needing a fly swatter so they could kill the flies...my server even swatted at a fly near my food and referred to it as a pet lol.

Price point was fair. Coffee was decent. Service was okay ; had to ask for hot sauce and had to ask the busser halfway through my meal as my eye contact to the server went unnoticed. I observed that I was treated a little differently by my server - she was friendlier to the other guests; either preferring an older demographic or perhaps regulars. She aid "you're okay?"as she passed by the table 3/4 of the way through my meal during a time where there were more vacancies than guests. I'm a nice and friendly person so I'm not sure exactly why but it doesn't really matter to me.

I may visit again in the future and if my experience is better will re-rate..but as of now my experience was "meh" and didn't think the volume of positive reviews reflected my experience. It wasn't bad and it wasn't great and the reviews seemed to indicate a better experience. I tend to rate things higher so take that as...

As soon as we got in, the first thing we noticed was the musty smell of the restaurant. Nobody was at the reception desk but a lady from afar said she will be there in a minute. We stood there for a good couple of minutes and a different younger lady showed up and sat us down served coffee and gave us the menu (She was efficient). We waited for someone to come by to take our orders and it took awhile until the first (older) lady who asked us to wait at the reception finally showed up. I ordered waffle (thinking it would be the safest), my husband ordered the “Day Breaker”. Food service was seriously slow, and when the food came my husband’s bacon pieces were very rubbery and hard to chew, i tried a piece and couldn’t even finish it. My waffle which I thought was the safest option, was a real mistake. The edges were overcooked but the middle was heavy that you can’t lift a small piece without it falling apart. It’s on the salty side too.. yes, i know, a salty waffle?! Honestly, this is the first time wherein I did not enjoy a waffle, and it’s $13+ for a piece. So, we were done and again here comes the waiting game… took forever for someone to show up and bring the bill and we went to tje front to pay and there was nobody there we again had to wait. Soon as we left we both said, we are never going back. Sadly, we like and enjoy discovering new places to eat and this one really disappointed us. First...

I should have known the second I stepped into the restaurant but decided I was going to pursue this in the spirit of a review. The atmosphere was very 90ish vinyl seats purple and off color. Televisions with the news on. And Kenny Rogers playing in the background on the loudspeakers as atmospheric music. Coffee cups were clean and I was offered a refill. But the coffee had no flavors so I didn't drink very much of it. I ordered a half order of waffles and I say to bacon. The side of bacon goes for $7 by itself and the half plate of waffles was 10 I believe. When it came the waffles were a biscuit consistency not light and fluffy but dry and yellow. They insist they're not using cornmeal then they must be using the lowest grade of flower and maybe something with just egg yolks in it. Most people know that with waffles it's supposed to have a lift from whipped egg whites but apparently this has been lost on the kitchen staff at Rivers. The bacon was deep fried and was so crisp it hurt to swallow. Not only that but it had no flavor either. It was a disappointing breakfast and I expressed that to the server I didn't tip and I did only eat half of the half waffle. They did give me half off in lieu of what I did eat and it still...