Famous Toastery Blowing Rock — Restaurant in Blowing Rock

TLDR: Stay away! Horrible experience; lackluster food, and an excess of excuses for the terrible service.

My wife and another couple were visiting Blowing Rock this past weekend and had the bad luck to stop here for breakfast on Sunday morning (definitely not out first choice). The nightmare started with the individual at the door "greeting" the the hopeful diners, advising us of the wait for a table. We were told that it was 20-25 minutes, which for a 10:00am on a Sunday wasn't too bad; except that it wasn't true. We discovered that the individual wasn't particularly careful with which party was seated and when, let alone in the order in which the parties arrived (allowing for the size of the parties), and we ended up being seated well after several parties of similar size who had arrived well after us, and only when we brought this to the attention of the individual.

When the server finally arrived to take our drink orders, approximately 10 minutes after we were seated, we were cheerfully informed that they were not our only server, but that the various servers on duty worked all the tables. Let's just say that's a recipe for disaster and horrible service, which I can confirm we experienced. We were finally able to place our order when our server brought our drinks, but it took an excessively long time for our order to be prepared and brought to the table, approximately 35 minutes after giving our orders to the server. If we knew about other breakfast options, we would have left, but being visitors from out-of-town, we had no idea where to go for breakfast at what was now approaching noon. Additionally, we observed that there were three tables with parties the same size as us, who were seated well after us and ordered after us, yet were served before us, and were able eat their meals, and leave before we were served our lackluster food. And unfortunately we observed that we were not the only people to receive horrible service. It wasn't until we flagged down several different servers (not the one who took our orders) and requested to speak to the manager, that our food arrived; and of course the orders were missing items that had been requested.

When we requested that we be able to speak to the manager, one of the servers informed us that they were the manager. Apparently this establishment is so short staffed that the manager is running around being a server among other things, and guessing from the stains on their clothing, probably bussing tables, cooking food, and maybe running the dishwashing station, too. The individual identifying as the manager made a bunch of excuses, but by then the damage was already done, and was irreparable. The manager also managed to bring the missing parts of our orders to the table pretty quickly, and I'm sure that other parties's orders were sacrificed to complete our orders. I can't tell you how long the food had been sitting, but the french toast and sausage I ordered was warm-ish, and certainly not hot; it was fully cooked, but not particularly hot. I can't speak for the others in our party, but we ate the food because by the time we were served, we'd been waiting almost two hours, and we were incredibly hungry.

The manager "graciously" comped our meals, but that wasn't much at this point. The damage had been done.

My wife and I have eaten at a number of other restaurants that are short staffed, but managers at those establishments limited the number of tables in use so that the staff could provide good service to the customers. Famous Toastery is not one of those...

I am leaving this review because there is an employee here that absolutely should not have a job in customer service. When I walked in to dine it was not busy, only five tables occupied. I waited to be seated...and waited, and waited. There was an employee sweeping the floors and he was very obviously ignoring anyone that happened to walk in. He finally seated a party of three who had been there before me and then went right back to sweeping the floors! I stood there over five minutes without him acknowledging me and then I finally got tired of it and approached him and asked if I was invisible and then explained I'd been clearly standing there over five minutes. He acted completely clueless and asked for my name which was beyond confusing because they clearly were not busy whatsoever AND as far as I know they don't even take reservations. It was like he briefly was looking for a reason to not seat me or something, because my name wasn't on some imaginary list. Another group of four ladies approached him immediately after I was seated and I heard them say that they had been waiting for twenty minutes for him to seat them and again he acted clueless and like he just hadn't noticed them. He then insulted them by saying they couldn't sit down at all until he finished sweeping the floors and told them they had to remain standing even though plenty of tables were open. They were so offended and offput by his comments that they left. I now understood why the other places in Blowing Rock were jam packed with people but almost no one was at Famous Toastery...because this employee is ignoring and offending people to the point that they'd rather leave. My waitress Kayla actually did her job. I saw another table ask the rude employee for napkins but he never brought them…there was no excuse for this because as previously mentioned the place wasn't busy whatsoever so how could he forget them? They then asked Kayla for napkins and she brought some right away. I also saw another customer just walk up to the employee at the bar to try to pay his bill, because the employee never returned to their table to pick up payment. As for the food, it was fine. I had the chicken bacon wrap and chips. For some reason it took 30 minutes to come out and tasted no better than something I could have made at home. I also want to mention that the menu prices are NOT accurate, another table complained that certain items on their bill were higher than what was listed on the menu. The waitress Kayla explained that they set their own pricing because they are a franchise and can do that? She made no offer to adjust the bill to the advertised menu prices. What a horrible and shady business practice. Also beware ordering the iced tea...it cost $4! For freaking iced tea! Anyways, this rude employee was a tall guy with light brown hair and a nose ring. I hope the manager reads this, they need to know that he is blatantly ignoring those that are waiting to be seated and is being so rude that he's causing customers to just leave. He only wanted to pay attention to sweeping the floor and using his phone to change the music in the restaurant. This was my first time ever to Blowing Rock and Famous Toastery was the first place I visited, thankfully I didn't let this miserable place ruin my day in the...

what a disaster of an attempted breakfast outing. Breakfast in Blowing Rock on the weekend can be a time consuming challenge. We had a party of 9 (two families). We arrived right at open, 8:30am, maybe the second group through the door. Hostess immediately tells us it would be a 45 minute wait. We offer to split into two groups VERY clearly. She said it will still be 45 minutes. How?!?! Gives some ramble about it still requiring the same amount of kitchen and wait staff. Says they are short staffed due to COVID which is perfectly fine. We decide to wait knowing it will take longer to go elsewhere. Next party comes in, different hostess says "10 to 15 minute wait". Say what? Next group comes in, again "10 to 15 minute wait". We are looking in disbelief. Hostess comes over to talk to us (seemingly prodded by the other hostess who had a better grip on reality), gripes about us having 9 people. We remind her we offered to split into two groups. She still tries to defend her actions. At this point, no less than 15 people total have been seated since we walked in and gave our name. Bad hostess continues to be unable to see her mistake, or unwilling to admit it. We walk out to drive 10 minutes to Boone to the chik-fil-a drive through. A nice breakfast plan ruined, despite knowing we had a large group and doing everything in our power to get there early. Go to Sunny Rock...