Pür & Simple — Restaurant in Saint John

Sept 13, 2020

My first day in town after my 14 day quarantine period. I had phoned up Mayor Darling to suggest ways to trim the budget and lost track of time. The last thing I remember is Mayor Darling stating "Mr. MacKay I will implement that right away!" Then I saw the smoke! My breakfast was burned! Mayor Darling was so apologetic that he e-transfered me $50 to get breakfast on him.

I hopped in my car and I was off! I stumbled upon Pür & Simple by chance.

My first thought was giddiness at the umlaut. I walked in and made a joke with the host that the Germans had won after all and he feigned a smile that made me feel comfortable at the establishment. I informed him I needed a table for one (a far too common occurance for a romantic type such as myself!) and he led me to my seating for the morning.

I looked over the menu and I was amazed at the varities and choices. My server was a handsome lass as they would say in my father's native country and I had to inform her a few times I needed more time as I was reviewing the menu. Dear reader, let me inform you that the choices I had to make were completely overwhelming as the menu is loaded with them.

I could see my waitress was getting quite annoyed so after 10 minutes of deliberation I ordered plain white toasted, buttered with peanut butter, two strips of bacon and an orange juice. I told her that I dared to go off menu and she giggled as I winked at her and tipped my fedora ever so slightly.

My food was divine. Absolutely divine. Dear reader, if I had to rate the food at Pür & Simple on taste, texture, smell and presentation it would get a 10/10 on all categories.

When my waitress finally came back to ask how my food was I was making noises typically reserved for the bedroom. I was in such a delighted mood I decided to try my luck and asked her if she had a boyfriend. She said she did and I quietly thought "drat! Just ly luck!". I pride myself on being a gentleman and did not push further into another man's territory. I left a handsome 25% tip as I value the hard work that the server presented before me. I nodded with glee and I was out the door with a hop, skip and a jump!

Overall, it was a 10/10 experience, I will likely be back if I burned my breakfast again in the near...

So on the surface this place is quite nice. Looks clean, food is okay, service was actually really good. I have a few things that I want to complain about too. So right off we were seated quickly. Great! They took our order promptly after giving us a few minutes to decide. Great! Our food arrived in 10 minutes of so. Great. The food was tasty, I ordered "the big 3" Here is where things started to decline. My eggs were not cooked the way I asked for them. My bacon was overly crispy, That's forgivable. The sausage was tasty. the ham was good but not anything special. The potatoes were the best part of the meal! My toast was served in the same basket as the other people I was eating with which although it's not a huge deal I'd have preferred it on my own plate rather than having to reach over the table or ask my fellow diners to pass me part of my meal. The waitress checked in on us enough times that I felt remembered but not annoyed so kudos to her. When I finished my meal I picked up my napkin which was stuck to the table by dried jam or ketchup which says to me that the table obviously had not been cleaned properly before being set. Gross.

The bathroom had more that 10 flies that I counted crawling and buzzing here and there. Gross.

The meal was more expensive than the same type of meal at some of the fine dining restaurants I frequent. I felt the waitress was excellent so I made sure to tip her.

I will most likely never...

My first and last time visiting,. We arrived at 12pm. ( Party of 10 ) and our food was served at 1:15pm. Well all but one of us were served , We had to wait an additional 10 minutes for the last plate of hash browns and bacon. Food was cold but but edible, certainly nothing to brag about and was as good as any other breakfast joint in Saint John. Thus far I wouldn’t have normally written a review even after the waitress snapped back when asked a question about the whereabouts of a couple missing eggs. What did it for me was when looking over my bill I noticed We were over charged for an extra breakfast and coffee... which the waitress removed but took an additional 20 minutes to get the bill corrected after we were done eating.

It wasn’t until we were walking out the door that we were asked how was everything. Unfortunately by this time, we had just had enough and told them how we felt. They did at this point apologize.

Yes I understand it was busy, but if you can’t handle the volume then I would suggest improving your service by removing some tables. People can buy breakfast and lunch anywhere, but will only go back somewhere if the service was good.

Sorry guys, we...