NORMS Restaurant — Restaurant in Bellflower

This is the Norm's in the Lakewood Blvd location around 1pm on Tuesday November 1st. Our first time here (we normally go to the Whittier Blvd location.)

There were about 10, 12 people at about 4, 5 tables in the restaurant when we went, so it was not busy.

We ordered two fish & chips and a pancake breakfast. The fish itself was very good, flaky and full of flavor, the batter was light and crispy, but the fries were not fresh-tasting and a little on the chewy side.

My Gramma's pancakes were a bit hard and chewy, not the light and fluffy that Norm's was known for.

The two included salads were very weak, kind of limp and it was drowning in the dressing as the food preparer was heavy-handed with it.

There was also a side of "fresh fruit" but the cantaloupe was so unripe, it was green and very hard, like harder than an apple. I don't understand how they thought it was okay to serve it, it was inedible.

The waitress started off nice and polite, but after serving us our meals, she never came back to our table. We had asked for a couple of extra condiments upon ordering with our food (malt vinegar, extra butter, and A-1 Sauce), but she forgot/didn't bring them.

After failing to catch her eye as she bustled by (she saw us but, for some reason, she ignored us. We showered and we dont stink! I promise!), we caught another waitress who cheerfully brought us the requested items.

About ten minutes later, we tried to catch her (our waitress) again for more water, she just wouldn't come over to see what we needed. Again, we caught a busperson to get someone for water, and she either forgot or chose not to help us. I ended up going to the counter and asking for water, and they took so long (another ten minutes), we were done eating, and waited for the check.

Anyway, we waited another 15 minutes and bafflingly, our waitress STILL didn't come over. We were sitting here at the table trying to figure out if she was new to waitressing or just that uncaring, it was the weirdest thing.

We ended up going to the cash register to tell them the waitress has not given us our receipt (among other issues), and the cashier lady looked chagrined as we told her about what happened.

She asked what we ordered and she rang us up. Then, she said something to our waitress as she was walking by and she ignored her (huh, maybe a bad day for her, who knows?) I think the whole restaurant was having a bad/off day that day... Yikes.

Anyway, I think we will stick to our Whittier Norm's! Much friendlier, fresher, coordinated, and...

I had a $5.99 breakfast burrito this evening.. It was exible but not great. At first, it seemed better than the very first one of these I had a few days ago when the potatoes were undercooked. I thought these potatoes tonight were not AS undercooked, so I kept eating it. I'd eaten a little over half (definitely not all that much more, over half but U'd say less tham 2/3) of it when I realized that I just wasn't enjoying it the way I should, that this burrito actually was just about as bad as that very dirst one (which at the time I ate all of and just complained afterward and paid as normal) I decided it was time to say something. I stopped eating this one at the time and spoke with the person in charge, who basically said I ate most of it, so she could give me a discount but could not take back and remake the burrito. She ended up giving me $1 off that $5.99, about a 17% discount. To me, that was about like saying, "I don't believe you really disliked the burrito; I think you lied in order to get something free, but to look like I'm taking you seriously, I'm giving you this token duscount."

A restaurant that actually believes in solid customer service and in treating their customers well would give the customer the benefit of the doubt in a case like this, either a much more significant discount (at the very least!) or replacement of the burrito even if MORE than what I had eaten was eaten.. Apparently at least this management person does not believe in such solid customer service.

After that, when I knew this was all I would get, I did finish the burrito. Like I said, it was edible, just not great.

This is an ok place to eat and get some bargains, and a lot of the food is fine, but this would definitely not be even close to my first choice to dine on a joyous occasion or any other time when I want to know I can count on solid customer service attitude and treatment rather than being looked at like I was a ripoff artist...

I had family from out of town today and they wanted Norms. We were a party of 13 so I called and spoke with Cynthia to see if we could get in at 9 am. We were told we would have no problem because they were not busy then and they do not accept reservations. We went and signed in. It started to get busy. Big parties of 7 and 8 came in after us. After 1 hour and everyone else being called, I approached the cashier to see how much longer and she stated she didn't know and she would check, which she did not. After 1hour and 15 min we checked again and no one was concerned that we were waiting that long but everyone else got seated. After the second round of large groups were called we asked to speak to the manager. We witnessed him shrugging his shoulders in an 'oh well' manner. He approached us saying they were doing their best to fit us in and it would take awhile. I kindly asked why all these other parties were being seated before us that came after us and he did not know. so after every patron seen what was going on clearly the manager was very un professional we will not be returning.this was our second bad experience with them but we always try to give them the benefit of doubt.total wait time almost 2 hours to not be...