Black-eyed Pea — Restaurant in Castle Rock

This is a failing chain that was once a mainstay of the Colorado restaurant scene. They continue to produce very average food in a facility that is begging for a face lift. It does not appear that anything has changed since the 80's. Nor have their diners as the average age had to have been well into their 70's. The restaurant felt like it was marking time until the inevitable final death knell.

My guests and I were greeted by peeling wallpaper and filthy dirty ceiling tiles that had neither been cleaned or replaced since the place was built. The food was bland and uninspired. At least they have pared down the menu a little, although there are still far too menu items to be able to produce consistently good dishes across the board.

The bread was nice and warm, but tasted so much of artificial ingredients the adults couldn't eat it. I had the chicken fried steak. The meat was actually pretty decent with only a couple of grisly bits. There was too much batter, but reasonably well fried. The gravy was a thick gooey consitency that quickly coagulated. And pretty flavorless. Where's the pepper-y kick, and nice balance of salt and other herbs? I had fried okra, one of my all time favs. The quality of the veg seemed reasonable and decently fried, but again, no seasoning.

Our teenager had a grilled chicken sandwich with fries. The sandwich was the highlight of the visit with a large piece of chicken properly cooked. It was loaded with toppings. Fries were good - nice and crispy and actually had some salt on them.

My wife had the chicken marsala which was one of the oddest things we've had in a long time. The chicken was neither under or over cooked, but had a weird mushy texture. It had been floured, but not fried fast enough, so it helped with the mushy texture. There were nice big mushrooms but the sauce was, you guessed it, without flavor. A good Marsala should be loaded with subtle undertones you can roll around in your mouth to savor. The skin-on mashies were SO chunky it ruined the texture. And still not enough seasoning.

Our server was nice enough. Value - $95 with one beer, two sodas, tax and tip. That's about average for chain restaurants these days, but virtually anywhere else will give you better food and a nicer experience. There's massive competition in this space, and the Black Eyed Pea is not long...

Today's review for Black Eyed Pea is just plain sad. First off do NOT go even five minutes before 11am (menu says 10:30!) If you want something other than breakfast. Our waitress was very quick to tell us NO and refused to give us lunch menus until 11:05 which seems ridiculous to me because we walked in as a party of eight at 10:45 (which was 15 mins after the Posted 10:30 on the menu) We were finally able to get our orders in and get our drinks, unfortunately a few of the glasses and most of the silverware was dirty and disgusting. The waitress was not able to be found again until our order was being brought to the table, by then our group had gotten ourselves new silverware.

The food was not very good at all, my husband's meatloaf was not completely cooked and looked like wet dog food. He only had a few bites before realizing that it was was Raw! My grilled chicken spinach salad had very little Chicken and cheese on it but the plate was full of Spinach in which some of it looked old. When I asked the waitress for more feta she brought out a tiny bit more but it looked, smelled and tasted like Blue cheese not Feta. Put it like this out of the eight of us the two that had ordered breakfast were the only ones that didn't have something wrong with their food. Why on earth did we not stand up and say anything??? We couldn't! We could not find a waiter, a waitress, or even a manager, That's Why! Next came out the bill and we knew instantly why our waitress never asked us for refills or anything else, she had already given herself a $19 tip. Now look I totally understand and am fine paying the tip for large groups, no problem, my problem is giving a $19 tip to someone who did nothing to earn it! I mean Really how hard is it to bring out a picture of water or tea and ask if your food is ok?

In my humble opinion, I would/ will never recommend this Black Eyed Pea in Castle Rock, CO to anyone ever again nor do we ever intend on dining here again! While driving back to Pueblo while writing this two of the five children are dealing with the dry heaves and are trying desperately not to vomit in our vehicle! So much for a little trip up to walk around the shops and do some early Christmas shopping done, now we need to find out if we have...

When we got our food it tasted old. Like it sat out under a heat lamp for an hour. When we complained, they said it doesn't sit out under a lap but on the griddle. So they will cook something like, for example, hash browns or sausage, for an hour then serve it to you. When we said we weren't satisfied with any part of our meal and wouldn't even eat it they offered a $2 discount. We asked to see the manager he came out and immediately compensated our meal but had absolutely no concern as to why the food was awful.

This tells me a couple things. 1. They are happy to have their food sit and cook for an hour before serving it to a customer. 2. They don't care about customer satisfaction but they do care about their bottom line, profits. 3. The manager is lazy.

If a restaurant won't cook food to order because that's too expensive for them then I can't imagine what other shortcuts they're taking. "Pinching pennies to save a dime." What happens when the mayo is expired? Would they throw it out or would they serve it up like they do with hours old sausage? What happens when they run out of dish soap? Do they just scrub until it looks clean or will they send it out and claim it's clean like they claim their hash browns are cooked?

How can I possibly trust anything that comes from this place if the manager cares so little that he won't have the food cooked to order or even show fake interest in why we were so unhappy?

Never again will I eat there. Not this one or any other Black Eyed...