Lydia's Down Home Cooking — Restaurant in Bridgman

I have literally never had a worse dining experience in my life. We had high hopes for Lydia’s because we LOVE a small diner. We frequent them. Starting from when we arrived to when we left, we were disappointed.

We have been fortunate enough to dine out throughout the pandemic. We work for companies that have been heavily affected by COVID-19. We work in customer service and retail. We understand EVERYONE is struggling. But it seems these were not COVID struggles after scrolling through previous reviews.

We walked in and saw all the tables taken in the small area. We had already stopped in two other towns looking for a promising diner with no luck, so we took the waiting buzzer. It went off after 10 minutes.

We knew what we wanted and ordered right away. Omelettes are easy and fast. We sat scrolling mindlessly on our phones for what felt like an hour… and then we realized… it HAD been an hour. We looked around and noticed that the other tables sat before and after us had absolutely no food, either. Not one table had food on it.

I asked our waitress how much longer our food might be and she went to the kitchen and checked. She came back and said the cook said, “Honestly, like 15 minutes. If you want to leave, you don’t have to pay for your drinks.” And walked away. Obviously this has been an issue for long enough that the waitresses know to let patrons go without buying their tea and juice. We realized that, with how quickly an omelette with has browns and toast can be made, the cook hadn’t even started our order. After one whole hour. In a restaurant with a max capacity of like 50. We saw the people before us still hadn’t received their food and figured it wouldn’t be 15 minutes. We had spent so much time waiting, we decided to stay and wait.

We knew it wasn’t the waitress’ fault that it was taking too long for the cook to prepare meals, and we started to feel bad that people likely don’t tip as a result of the wait that the waitresses can’t control. They really did all they could… when they were out of the kitchen. All 3 waitresses would disappear for 5 to 10 minutes at the same time. Not refilling water or checking on tables. Just… gone.

We asked our waitress how much longer the food would be at 12:10. She said 15 minutes - 12:25. Our food, which came out at different times, arrived at 12:44. 34 minutes after inquiring, when we had already waited an hour. 19 minutes longer than promised. For 2 cheese and meat omelettes, hash browns, and toast. I have never waited that long for food in my life. We’ve been to diners where we got our omelettes in 5 minutes - so quickly it took us by surprise! We didn’t expect a 5 minute turnaround. But we were angry at a 1 hour and 44 minute wait from the time we ordered to the time we received our food.

The food was below average at best. My cheese and ham omelette was mostly scrambled eggs. The has brown portion was laughable. The toast was good but it’s bread. You can’t mess that up.

We waited 5 minutes at the cash register to pay. The waitresses didn’t come out of the back to cash us out until a new patron walked in and the door bell chimed.

The restaurant interior is gross. There is a light hanging down from a wire from above the cashier. There are water damage marks on the ceiling. The carpet is stained to hell. And the chairs are all ripped and covered with duct tape. Even if the food HAD been redeeming, the place feels dusty and old and made the entire experience that much worse.

Our “quick stop” at a diner turned into a two hour detour that really wrecked our drive home. Currently writing this in traffic that we wouldn’t be in had we not sat at...

Absolutely horrible the food was either over cooked or under cooked it sat for at least 15 min in the kitchen before bringing to the table because everything was cold, the hash browns were burnt, the French toast was only dipped on one side with egg it looked as if the cooked a whole egg on one side of the French toast, the scrambled eggs were also over cooked and disgusting, the over easy eggs were barely cooked at all, the pancakes were dont on 1 side, they remade the scrambled eggs but they came out under cooked and more like a omelette not scrambled. When we said something they didn’t seem like they even cared. The owner took 25% off the bill but to be honest we should have had more that. We left more than half the food on the table because it was awful and we didn’t have time for them to remake it a third time. I definitely would not recommend eating here McDonald’s would probably do a better job. Absolutely disappointed with the food and the customer service please fire your cook before they ruin your business.

Response to owner response…. Umm did you see the attached photos? This is not how food should ever be served and when brought to the attention of the waitress she acted as if she didn’t care that the food wasn’t served properly, unfortunately we couldn’t wait for our food to be made a third time it was unacceptable to eat then only offer 25% when you didn’t prepare the food correctly not once but twice in a row is an insult, I paid the bill regardless but it was a complete waste of money we didn’t eat half of what was ordered. To say that you couldn’t make us happy is sad considering we only wanted good food that was cooked properly and edible. Your cook didn’t have the grill on the right temp or the food would have cooked the proper way also it wasn’t even busy or I could understand the mess up not to mention our waitress didn’t ask us if we wanted re fills we had to flag her down and other people who came in 15 min after us were served their food before us and we ordered the basic food 2x2x2x2 for 3 of us and the other order scrambled eggs hash browns and bacon. Sorry but to not take accountability for your cook and your businesses is shocking considering you need customers to survive. Thank you for your reply we won’t ever come back due to the severe lack in quality and integrity or honesty. The pictures speak...

Good food but inconsistent experiences. I went one day and Tammy was our server. She was so friendly and made my wife and I laugh. I got the Oinker skillet with Ham, sausage, bacon, onions, mushrooms and gravy. It has a nice hash brown underneath and I topped it with over-easy eggs. When it arrived it was awesome. It was smothered in gravy and what I call real comfort food. The eggs were a bit over medium/hard, but I didn't mind. I told Tammy that it was the best skillet I've ever had! Tammy even introduced us to their awesome desserts. We had carrot cake and Black Magic. Yum. I felt so good about this place, I tipped Tammy 40%. The second day (next day) took a turn in the other direction. We didn't have Tammy. We brought our hosts who recommended the place. I asked for a separate biscuit so I could sop up the gravy! Well, I'm not sure if the waitress thought I was gonna try to get 'free' biscuit and gravy, but the gravy was half of what I got the day before and it was terrible. The hash brown had a very hard crust. Disappointed, because we could have tried another breakfast place around. I probably won't go back, but I will always remember Tammy and her kindness. I will recommend this place to others, but it's a 50/50, from my experience. Would have given this place 4 stars if it weren't for the day...