Mimi's Cafe — Restaurant in Albuquerque

So, we decided to visit Mimi's for the first time on Monday evening. Maybe that was our first mistake.

We showed up around 7:30pm and it was very quiet. Only a small handful of people inside. It took about 10 minutes to get seated as the hostess seemed to be running double duty trying to get the To-Go orders going.

Our waitress, M, wasn't in that great of a mood when she decided to seat us. It took about another 10 minutes to get our drink order in (which took quite a while.) We'd ordered a lemonade and a cafe au lait (which we would have appreciated being told wouldn't come with any sort of refill).

Shortly after our waitress took our dinner order, she appeared to leave - never to return. Maybe that should have been another red flag.

We'd ended up ordering a handful of things to try out their menu.

1. Carrot Raisin Nut Madelines. These were great. Served warm with a bit of whipped sweet cream butter.

2. The chicken tenders. While they looked appealing, they were beyond bland. Served with cheap bottled ranch and buffalo sauce. It did not improve their flavor.

3. Corn Chowder. It was probably the best thing of the main menu. Corn, cream, simple.

4. Half-chicken with broccoli and potatoes au gratin. This was abysmal. Anemic, pale chicken with a slathering of garlic butter on it. Obviously recently reheated with dried appendages and some jerky-like skin towards the ends. The potatoes were cold, the "cheese" (?) inside appeared curdled and it had an off-putting texture that just made it unpleasant. The broccoli was good, though. Seemed to be steamed with a bit of butter over them.

5. Pot Roast. This was just a thick beef stew over a pile of weirdly gummy and bland mashed potatoes. Very disappointing.

6. Molten Lava Cake... This was a chocolate bundt filled with microwaved hot fudge and served with some whipped cream and a scoop of ice cream with a splash of Hershey's syrup. In no way is this a "Molten Lava Cake". This was just blatantly false.

I usually take photos of the meals, but literally nothing here was...

I need to preface this review by stating that, even though it is a little on the pricey side, I have always enjoyed Mimi's Cafe. We have been coming here for at least 20 years and have always been pleasantly satisfied. We even had our favorite waiter (we miss you Jeff!) wait on us for several of those years. The food has always been high quality and the service team top notch. We have also been to several Thanksgiving dinners at Mimi's over the years and have especially enjoyed this since our daughter does not prefer turkey and has always been able to order off the regular menu. Well all of this ended today and, sadly, we will no longer be returning and will tell everyone we know to avoid this place.

It is truly sad that since COVID, service has gone dramatically downhill, but what we experienced today is beyond any sort of excuse. We decided to eat Thanksgiving at Mimi's, since it has traditionally been satisfactory to above satisfactory. We made our reservations and showed up this morning ready to enjoy. We were greeted by a rather rude hostess who told us since our reservation was at 10:45, we had to order breakfast and even if we waited until 11, we would not be allowed to order off the dinner menu....WHAT?!? I couldn't believe the rigidity of this and asked to speak to a manager, who was equally, it not more rude than the hostess. She stated we would have to order breakfast and would not be allowed to order off the lunch or dinner menu. Are you kidding me? What if someone wants a burger, sandwich, or just simply does not like turkey? Sorry Mimi's, we ended up at another establishment that offered a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, along with all regular menu items. This complaint will not stop here, I am posting this to all restaurant review outlets, including the Mimi's corporate office. Your ideocratic rules have lost lifetime...

Figured we could try this place as an alternative to Madeleine’s. While advertising as a French Bistro, this is more akin to a Tex-Mex New Orleans themed “French” restaurant. After being sat we waited close to 40 minutes for our drinks we ordered despite there only being 1 section open, waitress was extremely inattentive and layout for the restaurant makes no sense because they had our waitress serving the table all the way across the room diagonally from us.

Food sucked, bread that comes with the baked brie is not fresh, French onion soup is overly greasy even for the soup in question. French dip left a lot to be desired due to meat quality and the breakfast burrito is an omelette stuffed into a soggy tortilla and topped with “spicy chipotle sauce” that tastes an awful lot like tomato sauce. This is ignoring that their iced coffee is served in mimosa glasses and they use peanut butter that sticks to the bottom of the glass rather than peanut butter sauce to flavor, good luck stirring with the flimsy plastic straw because your spoon isn’t gonna fit.

If I hadn’t gotten up and walked by our waitress to go to the restroom, we probably would have been waiting another 15 minutes for the check while the waitress kept busy by talking to other staff at the front and in the kitchen instead of tending to tables. Restrooms are right next to the kitchen by the way, and are in “acceptable” states for cleanliness. We will not be back and we’re surprised by the 4.2 star rating at time of writing.

EDIT, 06/28: Be aware that the servers will feel they’re entitled to a tip even after giving completely awful service as was described in the original post. My lovely server, Brandi, decided to give herself a $12 tip after I wrote and signed off on a $0 tip considering the...