Cora Breakfast and Lunch — Restaurant in St. Catharines

Update for 2023, not better perhaps worse.

Decided to return hoping for a better experience, sadly, no. Service continues to decline while prices continue to go up. Family of 4 with 2 young kids approaches $100 for breakfast.

I ordered the western skillet. The skillet came with no egg. I waited 10 mins for the waitress to return and offer to get a new one. 20-25 mins later my skillet finally arrived after everyone at the table had finished their food.

Not a big deal because it can happen anywhere but when I put cream into my coffee the cream curdled.

What is a bigger deal, as I was waiting on my meal to return I watched the busser clean up the table across from us. Accidentally he dropped the salt shaker on the floor. To my dismay he picked it up, didn't disinfect it and put it right back on the table for the next patrons to enjoy. Yuck.

For safety reasons I cannot return.

Let me first say this, I have been to Cora's and specifically this location many times. The food has always been excellent as well as the service. During the pandemic I have ordered take out and was pretty happy with that as well. I understand there are new owners and what appears to be new staff. Regular servers that I have come to know are no longer there.

That brings me to my experience today. Family in from BC and we decide to go for a nice breakfast. Poor choice as it turned out.

Things that went wrong.

1. Coffee didn't arrive until 15 mins after we arrived and ordered. Ordering / service probably took 10 mins after arrival.
2. Toast arrived 10 minutes before meals.
3. Smoothies took 25 minutes to arrive for the kids. We were also advised after waiting 15-20 minutes that there was no yogurt available to put in them.
4. Meals (4 adults 2 kids) didn't arrive at the same time. I waited for 5-10 minutes for my food while others were eating.
5. My wife's eggs Benedict had broken hollandaise sauce. It was literally chunky and off color.
6. One of my over easy eggs came broken and hard.

On top of that we had to be our own server. We had to go to the service station to request:

1. butter and syrup (kind of needed for pancakes and french toast)
2. salt / pepper

We also had to flag our server down for ketchup.

I was literally embarrassed that I took my guests here. When you pay for premium breakfast at least be able to cook eggs properly and not send out obviously poor quality food.

Disappointing to...

I love Cora. It was my favorite place for breakfast and we go there and order online often(was there last Sunday and it was great) . Today's experience was abysmal. We came at 10.35am, waited for 5 min to be seated (there was 3 of us me, my husband and 13 months old baby) and the waitress was nice but you could see that she is new and doesn't really know what to do. Couple next to us waited for an hour to be served while people that came in the same time as us got their food before them and we felt sorry. Also there was was 1 more table behind us complaining about the same thing. Then it was our turn. I ordered coffee and orange juice eggs benny with goat cheese and the works, panini for baby and skillet and smoothie for husband. Juice came right away but coffee in 10min with no spoon. Smoothie came 30min after. We waited for food for 55 MINUTES with restaurant almost empty (6 tables). I asked for our food and was told its coming right away. My order came, husbands came 10 minutes after and it was wrong so he didn't take it and didnt reorder anything else and baby's didnt came at all. Also people next to us that came after us got their order in the same time and everybody was served at the table unlike us. I didn't get any utensils so had to ask and wait for them. I ate mine since the waiteres said panini is coming but it didn't come. It was 11.45 when we had enough and decided to leave when panini came to our table and we didn't took it. Paid the bill for what I ate and left. Kitchen staff was very slow and waiters were just walking in circles lost. I am professional chef, worked breakfast and all stations in the kitchen and I have never seen something like this before. I don't know did you guys change staff, manager or something else but this is inexcusable. Please retrain staff and go back to how you...

We were at Coras for breakfast this morning, I must give credit Genevieve she was fantastic. She was the only server on till 9 along with two kitchen staff, the resturant was very busy and she did an amazing job along with the kitchen staff who helped her out. We arrived at 8:30 she took our order and due to under staffing we still had not received our beverages by 9 when the other staff arrived, I was very disappointed in the lack of team work the 9:00 staff showed for Genevieve. I asked 2 staff members if they would mind getting our beverages and they ignored my reguest. It was not till 9:15 that we received our beverages at the same time as our food. The food was fantastic along with Genevieve she is to be commended for her cheerfulness during this busy period. The other servers I feel we're very inconsiderate of customers and her they were only worried about the couple of customers they had that came in over 45 min. Later then us and made sure they received their beverages long before us. I will rethink ever stopping there for a $45 breakfast again. My thanks to Genevieve and the kitchen staff for their excellent serves under a stressful period, but I'm very disappointed with management for scheduling and her coworkers for their lack of consideration for Genevieve and customers.if I was just rating Genevieve and the kitchen staff and food I would have given a 5...