Serenity Garden Cafe — Restaurant in Blue Ridge

WARNING! DO NOT EAT HERE! 🚨 My entire family were appalled at every aspect of dining here. In retrospect we should’ve just got up and left. It just got worse and worse.

There were 6 of us with a 7 month old. Several of us ordered the Philly Cheesesteak steak. Mine was ordered WITH mushrooms and WITHOUT onions. While waiting for our food I watched at least 7 Philly’s from other tables get sent back to the kitchen. Well, our food came out and sure enough, mine had onions on it (and no mushrooms!) so I sent it back. Not a big deal, they were busy, we are understanding people. About 10 mins passed and our server came back to our table with what I thought would be my remade sandwhich without the onions. Nope, it was the 1st sandwich! 🥴

The server had taken the sandwich to the cook in the back (who is also the owner- old, short gray haired man) and he told this server there weren’t any onions in it. The server comes back to the table, opens up the sandwich in front of us, grabs the meat from inside the sandwich with her bare fingers and dangles it over the table asking me where the onions are! 😳

Our mouths dropped to the floor in disbelief. We couldn’t believe this server was actually acting like this. She then, at the direction of this same owner, refused to remake the sandwich correctly. Basically calling me a liar that it had onions in it. It didn’t even have the mushrooms that we ordered in it, still no on the remake.

Then the large table across from us, who all had blonde hair, sent a sandwich back that had a long black hair in it asking for a remake. 🤢🤮 The owner came out of the kitchen to their table and started yelling at them saying it was one of their hairs! It was like an episode of Jerry Springer.

We go to check out and because we had 6 people they had automatically added 20% gratuity. Just wonderful. Then the table of all blonde headed folks were checking out and simply asked to have the sandwich with the hair in it removed from their bill and the checkout clerk said the owner would have to approve that. Yes, you read that right. The owner that was screaming at them was the one that would have to approve the removal of a hair filled sandwich from their bill. 🤦🏻‍♂️

There are so many really good places to eat in Blue Ridge. This is not...

We visited for a quick between Christmas and New Year getaway…we ended up at Serenity Cafe for lunch our 2nd day here. I ordered the catfish meal, my friend ordered the hamburger steak with onion. The catfish was cooked so well he ended up ordering a 2nd helping on the side. Everything was cooked and seasoned perfectly. Being a southern girl with parents and grandparents that throw down from scratch in the kitchen, it’s not easy to impress me with home cooked meals but Serenity definitely delivered.

We actually came back the next morning for breakfast..we both ordered omelettes and a pancake to share (that thing is huge). He asked about the catfish (which wasn’t on the breakfast menu) and they happily added it to the order. I also asked about champagne for a mimosa (again not on the menu) but our waitress made it happen.

The only negative thing was the wait on the first day, however, we quickly realized the restaurant is family owned and short staffed. Front house operations could use some help with how people are seated when things are busy. But it seems they have a process that works for them. The two of us were sat at a table for 4 while there were bigger parties behind us. We eventually gave up our table for a 2 seater so that a family of four could sit together. But the staff did the best they could to get us seated and served quickly. The next day we came right in with no wait. So I’d say be a little patient and they will take care of you. It was well worth the 30...

So we are currently on vacation in the area and kept hearing from locals while visiting the shops that they recommended this place for several reasons. So.. we went in and were highly disappointed. The only good thing about our experience was the food. We never got asked even once during our meal if we wanted refills (cups were empty) or if we were enjoying our meal. It seemed that the lady serving us was more busy walking away from the main room to hide away from customers or cleaning tables to acknowledge her people to the point that the other waitress looked to be taking over her tables for her. As if being ignored during our meal wasn't enough, the waitress brings our bill and just puts it down without a word (forget the fact that we were interested in cake) and proceeds to never come and get it when my card is in there and I watched her pass our table numerous times. I hoped maybe she would redeem herself by catching on to my eye contact. After all this we were so upset that I walked our bill to them to be cashed out at on front and was told to hold on in a rude way that I was tempted not to pay but being the bigger people, we did. In my opinion it wasn't that busy in there and there was 2 to 3 ladies moving around which seemed to be plenty so I guess we were overlooked for being a young couple and not locals or maybe our outfits weren't fancy enough. Either way, not a good experience. Very disappointed to have...