Cherries Breakfast Bistro now Cherries Street Food — Restaurant in Saanich

Today was our second visit... we returned as we were offered a free meal, our first experience was not good. First visit was during covid & places just started to open back up, they were short staffed & getting back into the swing of people dining in, so we had decided to give them a second go. Fast forward to today.... Walked in, and greeted by lady making coffees at the take out counter, waited just a moment. Perfect so far. Then seated and waited just a few mins for our drink order to be taken. Still good. Ordered 2 coffees, & saw no one for about 10-15 minutes, not even coffees. Coffee arrived, given 2 sugar packets & 2 creamers, no spoons to stir with... had to flag the server down for more sugar ,creamers & spoons & to take our order. *note-given wooden take out stir sticks, no real spoons. Husband ordered a German pancake roll & i ordered eggs benny with med well done eggs. The server repeated back to me "med eggs?" no 'MED WELL PLEASE". She confirmed and typed it into the iPad she had & away she went. So now we wait. 30 minutes, no food, no coffee refill, nothing! Had to ask for water, & coffee, then again for cream & sugar.. this was becoming a chore to chase the server to get essential items. The food arrived! We were hungry, ready to eat! Sadly, once again, my eggs were undercooked...VERY undercooked. The white was not even cooked through, and the German pancake roll was not hot, and neither were the potatoes on both plates. Immediately got the attention of the server to let her know that my eggs were not cooked, and she said one minute I'll be right back, & left the food at the table. She came back, they are going to remake it, but I'll leave this one here and you can eat the potatoes. uh ok? My husband was unhappy, but did not say anything, he was just going to eat it because he was so hungry. (side note- we are both diabetic and had taken our meds, it is imperative that we eat so that we don't have sugar lows- which can be dangerous).The server came back & said they are just going to remake your eggs for you... wait what?!?!? uh no thank you- i have raw uncooked egg all over my plate etc, and you just want to cook me new eggs- NO THANK YOU!!! At this point I said, we are just going to leave, I'll pay for the coffees, and go! She said no just stay here, I'll get my manager for you. No, this is the second time we have come and had to deal with this. She begged me to wait, so ok, we will wait by the door. Waiting... finally the manager? comes out. We step outside to chat. I showed her the card I was given to come back for a free meal, this is the second time, its exactly the same. She said you should have come told me right away, you should have found me we have great food. huh? Why do I the customer have to go looking for you to make this right. She then said she prides herself on the food, and that she is training new staff to cook perfect eggs, & not overcook them as most want runny, and to advise the server when I order. I advised her I did tell my server, TWICE, and then she said oh it must not have been typed in, it only said medium, not medium well. I said they weren't even medium, they were raw. Many excuses came from her, a lot of self praise that they have great food, and people love it, and a lot of blame went to the staff, the cooks- new, the server- new, come back again I'll cook for you myself- NO THANKS Worst part- no apology- just excuses. I will note that there was only one server for the whole dine in area, one food runner, and one busser, and one at the coffee counter, who was assisting in all areas it seemed. None of whom seemed happy at all. No smiles, no good morning. I even mentioned to my husband that they all seemed very unhappy there. Maybe they are understaffed, as a lot of places have been since covid, which is very sad. But if that is the case and your staff is smaller, don't fill the place and overwhelm them so that they are not able to provide great service, and great food . I would give no stars if it...

This restaurant is ridiculous. Bad service, expensive food - nickle and diming the customer for everything! When the owner asked if we enjoyed our meals we explained that we were upset with the communication or lack of with the server and that we had felt ignored. She cut us off and told us we were not ignored and that her staff are amazing. Then she handed us a comment card to fill out which has no value because the choices for the question did not reflect any realistic options to express my feelings. (Example: how was the ambiance? Answers to choose from: inviting. Relaxing. Upbeat. Inviting)

When we walked in as a two top we were completely ignored for awhile until another person walked in and then were told they would help us in a min. We were seated and gave our drink orders (coffee and iced tea) lemon water was $0.25 charge, no refills with iced tea (the server wouldn’t even add water to the cup with the tea bag sitting in it) and you are only allowed one refill of coffee. Our drinks took about ten mins to come and we asked for water as well which came in a small tumbler half full.

Eggs and toast was their basic breakfast and it was almost $3 to add hash browns. We had asked for water refills and our server never came back to the table. We waited 30 mins as we watched him clean other tables and help other customers - trying to flag him down, before we got up to leave and asked someone inside if we could pay so we could leave. We were only then informed that you pay up front (not communicated to us by anyone prior) and then the owner/manager started telling is that Our feelings as the customers were not valid.

She went on about how the community was important but her staff was doing a good job even though they were short staffed? It didn’t really make any sense. She handed us the terrible comment card which has their values? On the back - basically a list of excuses why they aren’t put together on the service side. She was not interested in the customer experience and condescendingly pushed us out the door.

The toilet paper was 1 ply

Edit: the manager replied below. Thank you for assuming I am American and trying to explain how pricing works. This restaurant is on Vancouver island and I am a classically trained chef from Vancouver. Your reply just proved my whole point about how deaf you are to the customer...

To add on to what my friend Sarah wrote in her review!!! Firstly, I ordered a LARGE cup of coffee upon being seated. The ONLY server taking orders asked me why I wanted the large cup. I told him because it is so hard to get a second cup of coffee there. He assured me that I would get my second cup no problem. After finishing my first cup, I had to flag down the bus person and ask for my second cup. 20 minutes later, I finally got my coffee. I was there with 2 friends. One ordered waffles which came out cold. My other friend ordered 1/2 a Benny with fruit instead of the hashbrowns and it had to be sent back because it came with the hashbrowns instead of fruit. I ordered 2 eggs, toast, bacon and hashbrowns. The eggs were cold, the hashbrowns were severely burnt, the bacon was cooked in the deep fryer and was on the verge of being burnt and the toast was cold so when it was buttered, the butter did not melt!!! We were never checked on to see how our food was and when our server finally came over to see if I wanted a box to take the rest of my food home, this was when I was able to tell him about everything. He said he would go talk to he manager but never came back to let me know what was said. There was no communication to ANY of the patrons in the restaurant. As a person who has worked in restaurants for the majority of her life, you need to communicate with your customers!!! After being there for over 2 1/2 hours, we asked the bus person for our bills. We then waited for almost 30 minutes for them and the restaurant was not busy at all by that point (5 other tables and most of them had already eaten). It took us finally getting upset and standing up to walk out for the server to finally come over and ask if we wanted our bills. He was reminded that we had asked almost 30 minutes ago!!! I reminded him that I was not paying $18.00 for that meal. When my friends went to pay, there was no bill presented, just the debit machine for payment!!! To top everything off, about 2 hours after eating the little bit that I did, I ended up throwing up!!! My mother in law goes to Cherries 1-2 times a week, every week for coffee & breakfast with friends. I will be passing along this horrible experience to...