Lena's Cafe — Restaurant in Altoona

The food was excellent as always. The only problem was all of our main meal, salad,bread and drink were given to us within minutes of each other(the tables are not very big). A good waitress knows not to serve the main meal untill the party has eaten their salad or is almost done with it. I felt so crowded trying to eat my salad with everything else sitting piled right infront of me getting cold. I found myself holding my salad dish while eating my salad. After we finished and I went to the register to pay( because we were not given a bill) I kindly ask the waitress if I could give her a tip and she chuckled and said yes. I kindly said that if she held the main meal until the party has finished their salad she probably would get a bigger tip. Her reply was: they get the food out so fast at lunch and we don't have a heating lamp. If that's the case ...hold the ticket for the main meal untill the party is at least half way done with...

We tried this place out for the first time as someone had recommended it. We got served drinks quickly, our orders taken quickly, and food came out fast. We immediately had tasty, fresh bread put on the table. However, our server never checked on us once we got our food. Saying the food was tasteless is an understatement. I don’t think they even use salt or pepper in anything, let alone any other seasonings. Each of our meals were served with a salad, which was wilted iceberg lettuce, a couple cherry tomatoes, and the house “Italian” dressing. I put Italian in quotations, as Italian dressing should have seasonings, which it did not. Our meals were both made with a tasteless red sauce and her stuffed shells were cold. The gnocchi were a nice, fluffy, pillowy consistency, but were also made without any seasoning, including salt. We definitely would...

This past weekend we were in Altoona and wanted to grab some dinner before heading back home. We came upon Lena's Cafe. The place definitely had a local hometown favorite vibe. Hubby and I were disappointed that no drink menu was offered, but I was able to get a glass of wine. We both took advantage of the bread that was brought to the table, not warm or anything special but definitely fresh and we were both pretty hungry! We ordered appetizers, I had the fried mozzarella, my Husband had the fried eggplant, both were delicious and served piping hot, but what we really loved was the marinara served with! It was a fresh tasting very tomato forward sauce, yum! I had the crab cake salad for entree and it was tasty, my husband enjoyed his cheesesteak hoagie. Nothing fancy about the place, but the food was good and the place was packed as we...