John's Plate Family Dining — Restaurant in Watrous

Stay Away! Rancid Meat First warning should have been enough, at 6:30pm there was only 2 customers! The waitress had a very tough time with the English language, but fortunately had a mobile device to help her with the menu, but very hard to communicate with. We ordered our drinks and meals, she decided not to use a tray and delivered our drinks by hand spilling my wife's drink all the way, as she had a bit of a limp. Next, the tossed salads arrived. 2 ordered French dressing, 1 Ranch & 1 Thousand Island, but 3 salads had Ranch, and 1 had Italian. We had a chuckle to ourselves as we realized that Ranch and French would sort of sound the same to someone having difficulty with the language, but we couldn't figure out the Italian one. But, we are not that fussy, and were OK with our alternative salads, so we just ate what she brought (also, it would have been quite tough to try to communicate the error). And it was OK, but another oddity, was that 2 of the salads had cucumber and two did not. Now onto the meals. 1 meal was Chicken Stir Fry Bowl - it was ok, but the vegetables were all overcooked, 1 meal was Pasta Poseidon was OK, but definitely not great, however their "crab meat" was crab flavored pollock, I ordered the 10oz New York Strip Steak - I asked for medium and it was close enough to that, it wasn't tough, but wasn't tender either, the vegetables were very good (unlike in the stir fry, they were not overdone). So, up until this point, I wouldn't have even wrote a review on this restaurant. I wouldn't be a return customer, but I wouldn't have taken the effort to write a review. However, the final meal pushed me far enough to warn others. My daughter ordered the Full Rack of Ribs (BBQ) - the fries were good, the vegetables were good, but the meat was Rancid! Seriously! The worst part, was that my daughter is absolutely not a picky eater. She loves ribs. When I asked her how it was she simply said she didn't really like the taste that much and that it was going to give her jaw a workout because it was way tougher than she's used to, but it was ok. It wasn't until she didn't want to eat anymore, when I tried it. Only to find it definitely tasted rancid! When the waitress finally came back at the end of the meal, I told her about it, and she thanked me for helping her understand (although, I am quite sure she really didn't) Anyway, she came back with the bill and told me she deducted $10 from our bill. Fortunately my daughter did not get sick, so that's good. I took her to spa restaurant for desert to try to get rid of that taste. Anyone, who has ever tasted rancid meat knows what I am talking about! Just from a taste of her meal left that awful taste in my mouth, I can't imagine how she must have felt, as she ate...

I stopped in tonight for dinner. Still looking for a recompense from last night's meal. I was hopeful as I drove up to see the parking lot was full. I had steak on my mind and the waitress told me that they do a very good steak. I order the 10 oz New York strip medium well. Stay comes with salad potatoes and vegetables. Salad was very nice with a house Greek dressing. Crispy and not wilted. When a steak arrived it looked delicious; covered with fresh sauteed mushrooms and prepared medium just right. The steak was thick and juicy and lightly salted. Delicious. I give it four stars but only because of the noise. There were a lot of people and not a lot of sound dampening to make it a cozy place. I took a deserve back to my hotel which was also lovely. A banana filled pastry with cinnamon sugar on top and a side of ice...

I really wanted to like this place, unfortunately they failed big time. The service was terrible. Sorely understaffed. Every table was full and they had 2 servers on. The poor girls were completely overwhelmed. The service reflected this. We arrived at 6, our food orders were taken at 630. No refills were offered. We had to ask for jugs of water so we didn't need to bother the server for more water refills. I had to leave with my kids at 715/730 because they were starving and we couldn't wait anymore. The rest of the party didn't get their food until 745. After complaining, apparently the management refused to apologize for the service and offered up some poor excuses. I have worked in the service industry for almost 20 years and have never heard of bizarre excuses like theirs. The management really failed their staff...