NIX RESTAURANT — Restaurant in Chesapeake

My family and I have been regulars at this restaurant for some time now, and up until today, the service has always been good. Unfortunately, today’s experience was quite the opposite.

Our server, Dee, brought out our bill, and my husband noticed an extra charge for a pancake. We explained that we had ordered:

*an order of 3 pancakes for our son *1 pancake for me as a substitution for bread (with the $0.75 upcharge applied) and 1 pancake for my husband as his bread substitution (again, the upcharge was already applied).

Dee insisted that she brought out an order of 3 pancakes and one separate pancake at the same time. Then another one separately at another time and claimed she brought out a 6th pancake after asking if anything was missing.

That’s not what happened. She initially brought the order of 3 pancakes and one additional pancake (which my husband gave to me). When she asked if anything was missing, my husband told her his pancake hadn’t come yet. She acknowledged it and went to the back. Later, the manager Angie brought out his pancake.

At that point, Dee claimed that our son had four pancakes on his plate. I replied, "He had 3 (which is one order), you gave me 1, and then 1 was brought out later for my husband—so that’s 5 total, not 6." I then asked, "If you saw 4 pancakes on his plate, why didn’t you say anything earlier?" Her response? “Because I didn’t want to argue.” That comment was confusing and unprofessional as there had been no disagreement or conflict of any kind at that point.

I told her it wasn’t about the money—it’s only $1.75—but it’s about the principle. We didn't want to pay for something we didn’t receive ( no one does). She responded with, “Ma’am, I’m not gonna argue with you. I know what I saw,” and stormed off.

A few minutes later, she returned, snatched the bill from my husband, removed the charge, then slammed it back down and said, “I hope you have the day you deserve.”

We spoke with Angie, the manager, who confirmed there were only 3 pancakes on our son's plate and that only one extra pancake had been brought out later (NOT 2). We appreciated her professionalism and paid her directly before leaving.

It’ll be a long time before we return—if ever. I'm not sure if Dee was just having a bad day, but here’s a word of advice: accountability matters. Everyone makes mistakes, but how you handle them makes all the difference. This could’ve been a simple fix with an apology and a polite adjustment of the bill. Instead, it turned into an argument over $1.75 and cost this restaurant some very loyal customers who spend well over $100...

This place serves typical mediocre diner food for lunch, but the breakfasts are much better.... Or so I've heard. Never got to find out since I walked out after waiting 15 minutes for the waitress to come over and take my order. :( Service is apparently good at Nix, IF the waitresses deem you worthy. Upon my visit, I could plainly see that regulars are treated VERY well.... but apparently if you're a newbie, not so much. It seems if you don't know the menu by heart or what you want immediately upon sitting down, the waitress becomes exasperated (experienced this on my one lunch visit, then again for this first time breakfast visit).... and beware if you haven't finished pursuing the menu by the time she gets back with your drinks (abt 30 seconds). This is apparently the cardinal sin! When I told my waitress that my guest and I needed 'just 1 minute' to decide, she looked at us with thinly veiled disgust and said 'uh..ok', indicating she would be right back. But alas, we never saw her again... At least not at our table. We saw her talking and laughing with the customers and the other waitresses, doing busy work like wiping already cleared tables and rolling napkins, and simply standing there looking around the room, but conspicuously not looking at us... seems she was doing anything and everything but coming back to take our order. We gave her 15 minutes, all the while trying desperately to make eye contact, which she truly seemed to purposely avoid. Finally we'd had enough and walked out, leaving behind a couple bucks for our coffee. Not sure I understand the waitresses passive aggressiveness as it only succeeded in losing her a potential new customer and cost what would have otherwise been a good tip. smh. Guess she just didn't feel she had time for us indecisive folks. - Seems the staff at Nix knows their regulars will always be back, so there is simply no need for them to offer consideration or good service to potential new customers. Oh well. That's fine with me....

We got here on a Sunday, yea I know Sundays are busy, but we came right at 11am when there were several open tables. The young girl working with short blonde hair took forever to greet us. We gave her our order all at once because we had a baby, and try to hurry. After we placed our order we weren’t checked out. The young girls mom is the other one working and she checked on us 30 mins had gone by since placing our order, about 5-6 tables came in after us that ordered at least 20 mins after us started getting their food. The older waitress I had to get her to go check on our food, she came back and then asked what we had ordered( clearly our ticket was lost or didn’t even get started.) 45 mins has now gone by and others that came in and ordered way after us had almost finished eating! There’s no excuse for this. I watch everything in restaurants been doing it for 17 years. I’ve waited tables for 15 years, when you messed up you admit it. My patty melt came out 50 mins after ordering and it didn’t even have onions. That fact that we had to pay for this meal was absurd. 50 mins it took for our food to come out when others came after us and finished their food by the time we got ours. The young girl is not good, we weren’t checked on since our order, her mom is great but seriously some people aren’t cut out for this industry. No manager to talk to about this experience. Very very slow. The excuse we got was it’s a Sunday. First of all, I know busy and I know when my stuff was forgotten or lost. This was a mess up on the server and the kitchen this had nothing to do with it being a Sunday. We had a patty melt, blt and kids clam strips. Seriously can’t understand why people can’t just say you know what the server forgot to give the kitchen the ticket we will absolutely take care of this today for your inconvenience. Or we are so sorry but the kitchen must of dropped the ticket. Have never been dismissed the way...