Island Cafe — Restaurant in Anacortes

How is this place still open?

Service - 3 waitresses and 1 waiter were at the front counter, only one was busy and not having a personal conversation, however nobody even said "Hi" to us. We stood awkwardly in the doorway for about 2 or 3 minutes before a host (who had looked us dead in the eye several times before then) sat us finally, without a word. I felt like I was imposing on them already.

Seating - 4 groups in the restaurant, at least 20 tables...and you had us all sit at adjacent tables? Why? To ensure we could not have a private conversation? Because it's easier than walking 20 feet to the other side of dining room to talk to only one table at a time?

Decor - If you want to silently watch CNN, both TV's have it on.

Food - I had told myself that just because the staff was bummed, probably because they were working on Veterans day and should have had a three-day weekend didn't mean that the food would suffer, little cafes in small-towns always have teh best breakfast grub right? No. I am not exaggerating when I say you can get better food in a high-school cafeteria. My wife's grilled cheese was not even completely melted, the unnatural angles of the american cheese square was still sticking out over the crust. Her fries were floppy and moist, the telltale sign of previously frozen and heat-lamped potatoes. My biscuits and gravy were obviously not made so much as unwrapped. They were just-add-water instant. The biscuits were not folded, they were mixed and still lumpy. The gravy was completely smooth with little bits of ground sausage thrown in after the fact, indicating a just-add-water type mix again. The hashbrowns were from frozen, but seemed to be at least actually fried on a griddle. They felt right, but still didn't taste right, they were way too plain. Covering them in gravy won't change that.

There was positively no love here. The cooks didn't care about the food, the waiters didn't care about the customers, the management didn't care about the staff. the entire restaurant is designed to sell garbage food from the frozen section of a gas station and try to charge home-made prices for it. The price for two awful plates was $14. As in, could have bought enough potatoes and eggs to feed 2 people for a week. I've never demanded a refund at a restaurant but Island Cafe almost...

I'm not one to usually leave a comment about our experience, but I hope this will help the establishment re-adjust their quality of food. First, my wife and I were visiting Anacortes for the weekend and we always look for fun new experiences with every place we visit. It isn't our first time to this town and we have had some good eats in previous visits. We enjoy good food and usually have a good barometer for what to expect. We started by ordering our drinks. A cup of coffee with cream, OJ, and a water. The OJ was fine, same with the water, but the coffee was burnt. Like cigar ash burnt. I actually told my wife it was like tasting a cigar. I drink alot of coffee. I've had some really cheap coffee in my life. This was beyond that. I had two sips before pushing it away.

My wife ordered the Salmon and Spinach Eggs Benedict, one of the daily specials. I ordered the Country Fried Steak and Eggs off of the regular menu. Okay. We didn't expect what seemed like a pre-packaged store bought frozen salmon Patty. I mean, this is a seafood town... where was the filet? The spinach wasn't even cooked in the slightest and the Hollandaise sauce was possibly from a package? The rest of the meal came with hash-browns which partially under cooked. She ate a portion of one of the two eggs Benedict before stopping. The Country Fried Steak and Eggs was not the best. The steak breading was overly salty and it came with way too much gravy. I ate about 1/3 of it. The Eggs I ordered over easy, they were fine. The hash browns were also undercooked in some spots and over crispy in others. Overall, we always hope that when we try a new place that we find something amazing. We also never leave comments about our experiences, good or bad. I just hope that this review will help the establishment think about their quality of...

We decided to go out to breakfast this AM and, of course, all the best places were super busy so we settled for Island Cafe. Normally I wouldn't even write anything because it's Island Cafe, but this experience was exceptionally bad. Aside from the food be subpar, the service was unusually horrible.

While ordering, we asked for the scary face pancake for my son and asked if they could add chocolate chips to it. The server said sure. When our food came, not only were there no chocolate chips in my sons food, the eggs were also wrong on my bf's plate (he likes the eggs a little runny so he can mix then into his potatoes). My son didn't care too much about the chocolate chips so we didn't mention that, but we did KINDLY ask for the correct style eggs and the server said she would get them out asap (over-easy eggs take like 2 mins). We tried to get our server's attention many times, but it was like she was ignoring us or had forgotten about us. I kid you not.. over 20 freaking minutes later after we were pretty much all done eating and my bf's potatoes were cold, the eggs finally came out. She literally just tossed them on the table and ran away. No apologies, nothing.

Since we were pretty much done, we just decided to get the check and leave. Again, it was like pulling teeth to get her to come back to our table to ask for the check. Finally I just had to holler out at her as she was passing by. She said she'd get it. 10 mins later our check comes and is simply tossed on our table in the same fashion as the eggs, and she darted away. I never do this, but a big fat ZERO was placed on the gratuity line.

Avoid Island Cafe like the plague. We will gladly just wait in line for Dad's or...