Marmalade Cafe - Calabasas — Restaurant in Calabasas

This is likely not the best place to visit on major family holidays... We reserved Marmalade Cafe 2 weeks early for Mother's Day, and we found the service lacking enthusiasm or genuine kindness from the waitstaff, and I found myself pitching in to keep things moving.

To start, we were forgotten at check-in. Thankfully, we spoke up after about 5 minutes of seeing others come in after us and go to be seated (guessing these were all from a block of 1:30 pm reservations). After we reminded the host, the team confirmed they lost us on the list but were soon able to get us situated. We get that. It's a busy day. Our wait was still relatively short, thankfully! only about 10-12 minutes.

The staff in many ways appeared a bit overwhelmed; they were pretty quiet at the front, not assertive; and there was not much by way of welcoming smiles. People at times crowded inside the glass entry, as that space is not extremely conducive to ingress & egress. I was able to take the opportunity to open the (heavy glass) door for several older individuals and their families as they entered and exited.

We were seated at a table that was not cleaned. One bench seat had a considerable amount of crumbs and some spilled liquid (guessing a child sat there), and the table itself still had some crumbs, along with a corner containing sticky jelly residue. Once we saw nobody was coming back to finish the table, I took two trips to the restroom to get some wet paper towels and wiped the area clean so my wife, which remained standing, could be seated.

Totally secondary, but the men's bathroom seems to need an update—a bit dingy. I'm guessing a light might be out and there were paper towels setting in the sink drains. Why at an upscale restaurant in Calabasas is a mystery to me.

We ordered, and we were okay waiting the 45-50 minutes for our food to arrive—it was an opportunity to catch up & reconnect—but it did feel a bit long.

The food came, and we had yet to receive utensils. Our waitress had not noticed and left for other duties. We missed one waiter, but no others passed our table for about 5 minutes, so I walked to where the servers go in and out and requested utensils. Obviously, our food wasn't quite as hot after that point.

The food itself wasn't bad. While not amazing, my wife liked her salmon. The portions were a good size. I was a bit taken back that a $2-3 upgrade to real maple syrup comes in what I'd guess is a tiny 1-ounce server—for three large pancakes! What made it more offensive is that when I requested more maple syrup (made it last for about 1.5 pancakes) the next delivery—while I was told it was real maple syrup—was the artificial kind like what's on the table. I'm not sure who messed up on that or if someone was being deceitful, but it was either a lack of attention to detail or being inconsiderate, neither of which leaves a feeling of goodwill.

We left a generous tip, but it was only to be kind, not because I felt like any of it was deserved. In all, the staff's failing to pay attention to the little things added up to a largely negative experience.

With some walking after we left and even watching the turtles in the pond outside we were glad to get on with the rest of the day, leaving Marmalade...

I was a waitress/server and know it is crazy hard work. Our lunch experience on Tuesday June 27 was the absolute worse dining out experience I have ever had. We came at lunch time. It was busy, and I expected a wait. We waited while our server went multiple times to the 4 tables around us before ever coming to us once. When he did come to us he said "Hey, are we ready to do this or what?" Already bad. We asked if the iced tea was black or tropical. He said we had both. We both asked for black iced tea. He asked for our lunch order while at the table. Our server never brought us our drinks while attending to the other tables. I flagged him down and nicely asked about our drinks. He looked at our table flabbergasted and wasn't sure what to do. So I asked for our tea. Several minutes later he brought tropical tea and not black tea. But we could never find him again to correct the situation. Seems small, but we don't like tropical iced tea and would have had water if that was the only tea option. My husband gave his order. His choice comes with a choice of green salad or cesear salad and he asked for the garden salad. The server said so you would like me to add a side salad to your order and he didn't understand my husband's meal included a salad...even being shown the menu (my husband didn't get the salad). I ordered the pasta salmon with asparagus tips in a light lemon sauce. Mine was not asparagus tips but whole asparagus slices with many woody inedible bottoms. The light lemon sauce was pretty much straight lemon juice and very hard to eat. Our server was nowhere to be found. Another person brought our food. He asked who had the pasta. I raised my hand and said me, and he sat my lunch in front of my husband (not the end of the world, but more not paying attention or caring about the customer). We asked the person who brought us food if he could exchange our tropical iced tea for black iced tea. He took our drinks and after about 10 minutes brought new drinks that were also tropical iced tea. Our server never came to check on us once after taking our order while I watched him check on all of his other tables multiple times and bring them butter, dressing, drink refills, extra napkins. He never came to our table again. He brought our bill without asking if we were done, if we wanted dessert, how things were....attempted to drop and run. So I stopped him and asked him about our service. Rather than an apology he very aggressively said "we were busy and I was slammed". I pointed out that he attended to every table but ours. A simple apology would have made a world of difference. He walked away with my card. Returned with the card and receipt, addressed me by my first name as he dropped my card and receipt and ran. Worse dining out experience ever. I am pretty patient especially during busy times, but this was just plain rude and awful. ...

I had high hopes for this place, but was sorely disappointed.

We had originally planned to go to another place, but finding parking was terrible and they had a 45 min wait. My husband saw this place down the road and it looked pretty good online. The menu looked really appetizing too. As a foodie, I want to go to places that will make unique dishes that are more than what I would make at home.

The inside was very loud so we decided to eat outside. It was chilly, but very beautiful. I liked the garden space. We waited for about 10 mins before Daniel came by to take care of us since our waitress was held up with a large party on the other side. Daniel's customer service and the ambiance outside were the best parts of our experience which is why I gave it 2 stars instead of one.

Unfortunately, the food is the main reason I'm there, and that's what I base my majority review on.

The food was AWFUL and extremely disappointing. We ordered the Heart Healthy Breakfast and the Lobster Benedict. The egg whites were cold and bland. The pancakes were both chewy and dry, I'm not sure how they accomplished that. They also didn't have good flavor and had a weird aftertaste. The chicken that came with the HHB was a cheap little flap of a packaged like premade chicken that tasted like it was heated in a microwave. There were 3 poached eggs on the Benedict. Only one of them was runny. The others were rubbery and soft boiled yolk. Again very bland as well. The "lobster" was very dry and smelled weird.

The fruit on top the pancakes was yummy and the coffee was good...

We were super hungry at this point and didn't have the luxury of not eating it and going somewhere else. Daniel was very sweet and did us a discount since we ate most of it. It just felt like a waste to get full on sub par food. Thank you Daniel for your wonderful service. I won't be back though since there was nothing good...