Sammy's Pancake House — Restaurant in Champaign

I really don't want to give even one star, but it wont let me post otherwise. Went to Sammys on Mattis to have breakfast with my two year old. Half way through i had to get up and take him to bathroom. We came back and someone else was sitting in our seat! I talked to the lady in the front and she looked surprised, then said hold on, sit over here. She went to kitchen and came back and said they are making your food over for you. I said well I don't really have time to start over and I'm not going straight home to put it up. She then left again, mind you, I haven't heard an apology yet. She comes back and proceeds to charge me full price of the meal. I then asked to talk to the manager. She comes up very rude and says can I help you? I explained that what happened and she very rudely says "Well how much of the food did you eat?" We weren't done, I told her. There was still half the meal left. She said well they wouldn't clear the table if they thought you were not done. But they did. I don't feel we should have to pay for a full meal when you threw our food away. She then says, well we offered to recook the meal, we are not going to give you free food. I said i am not going to pay for food that you threw away and inconvenienced me. She said well I could just call the cops and let them decide. I said ok that's fine. I then asked for the owner and they said he wasn't there. The manager then comes back with the phone in hand and says just go but you can't come back here anymore! The waitress who cleared the table did stop in front of me while the manager was "calling the police" to quickly say, "I'm sorry, did they take care of it?" I said yes, she is calling the police now, thanks! (i was fuming by then) I just can't believe that this just happened. I totally felt like she was insinuating that I was trying to get a free meal, which was definitely not the case, but after they were so unprofessional and unapologetic I absolutely refuse to pay full price. I have never been treated to rude or made to feel like a criminal in my life. Horrible....

As everyone has seen. I NEVER give a bad review, however this one is needed. This is a very busy restaurant and we understand that, however this was absolutely beyond the pail. We were told it would be a 10 minute wait when we called. When we got there we knew it would be a bit longer and we were fine with it. We gave our name and the gentleman who we assume is the owner was incredibly rude to my wife and daughter( when they asked very nicely as we all have worked in food service)how many folks before us as we wanted make sure it would take longer than a half hour. Remember we were told twice it would be a 10 minute wait. At this point we are over 20 minutes of waiting. We then noticed he was sitting folks in who had arrived after us. We understood that they were smaller parties we went with the flow. Then he attempts to sit a party larger than ours. I step in and to say we were here before them. He says to me "fine you guys follow me" I asked him was there a problem sitting us. He tries to LIE to us that he was waiting for a bigger table since we were a party of 5. I stopped him as WHAT? The party you were just trying to sit was bigger than ours. At that point my family decided not to stay.

Bty we ate at Texas Road House the night before and waited for over an hour and breakfast the day before at LePeep and waited nearly a half hour and had no problems both restaurants were outstanding.

On Friday we ate dinner at Seven Saints had a short wait and had a great experience.

I am not complaining about the wait I am pointing out the Rude and Unacceptable behavior by the...

(Edit: Came to Sammy's for a third and final try in May 2019, hoping they had improved, but still the same fake Sunny D-like "orange juice", poor service, and lackluster overpriced food.)

I've been to Sammy's twice now, and both times I was unimpressed.

On my most recent visit the waitress seemed very annoyed and could barely be bothered to provide a bare bones level of service, audibly sighing once when I politely asked for more coffee creamer.

The food was pretty unremarkable and overpriced for what it is.

$3.95 for a "large" glass of sickly orange institutional grade, reconstituted-from-concentrate orange juice is inexcusable for any breakfast restaurant. For that price Original Pancake House serves fresh squeezed orange juice!

The side of fruit was 2 large slices of melon that were too hard to cut into bite-sized pieces, one strawberry, a small piece of pineapple and 6 grapes...Pretty disappointing.

The staff also started mopping the floor of the restaurant over an hour before they were supposed to close for the day, including right up to the edge of our table while we were eating, leaving us with overwhelming odors of cleaning chemicals while we tried to eat our food.

I will say that the skillets did look good, and the pancakes were good, but not great, and definitely not the best in town.

If you want quality food and service stick to Original Pancake House. There's no wait for a table at Sammy's for a...