The Avocado House — Restaurant in Chino

Some general info: parking lot is small, typically gets packed, and closes by 3 PM.

I did not have a great experience during my visit. Perhaps I was extremely unlucky and just received an atypical experience, but it riled me up.

How it works at Avocado House is that you order food first before finding yourself a table. This place is pretty popular so normally there is a long line to place your order, but because it was raining when I went, the line was a lot shorter. So far, so good.

I ordered a parfait, eggs benedict, and a cup of coffee and off I went to find myself a seat. Then comes the waiting game. I got a couple refills of coffee while I was waiting for my food, then around 20 minutes I started to wonder why my parfait hasn't arrived. Perhaps Avocado House serves everything all at once, so I decided to suck it up and wait some more. Around this time, another party sits down next to me, as I noticed that the servers who were making rounds refilling coffee had stopped passing by. Maybe something happened that required their attention elsewhere.

I'm starting to get impatient and annoyed as another 15-25 minutes pass by, as one of the servers comes back and asks if I would like a refill on my coffee. I said yes, he goes off to grab a pot, and a different server brings out an order of eggs benedict to the table next to me. You know, the one I mentioned ordered and sat down after I placed my order. When the server comes back to refill my coffee, I ask him if he could check on my order for me.

He responds with something along the lines of, "I'll check on that for you, but the kitchen is pretty busy right now", to which I inform him the table next to me who arrived after received their order first.

His response to that infuriated me the most because the response was, "Sometimes it's like that", and proceeds to pat me on my shoulder as if he was consoling me that I failed some school test or if my pet hamster died. I was unbelievably stunned. I'm sitting their patiently waiting and now it's my fault that someone who ordered the exact same thing after I did received theirs first?

I was fuming. I wanted to up and leave, but I already paid and tipped, so I stayed to see how much longer I'd have to wait. Shortly after this, the girl who took my order came out and apologized with a loaf of their chocolate bread/cake, explained that either the ticket didn't print out or it got lost somewhere in the kitchen, which is why my food is taking so long. Points for the honesty, but the bread/cake didn't calm me down instantly, only time would. My eggs came out shortly after that, and then the parfait. Someone else came out and brought me a free cinnamon bun to express more thanks for being patient, more points for trying to make it up to me.

The food was good, but nothing exceptional to be waiting roughly 45 minutes for. If anything, the atmosphere is nice, especially once the sun came out, and the staff is friendly, but maybe next time if a customer asks where their order is, don't pat them on the shoulder. I would have preferred a "I don't know what's going on, I'll go check" from the beginning instead of "the kitchen is busy". Yeah, it's a restaurant, shouldn't the kitchen always be busy during opening hours?

In hindsight, maybe as a customer I shouldn't have called out his "kitchen is busy" excuse as he was already going to check and maybe he wasn't fully aware of everything that was going on, but I wasn't having any of it when I saw the same order being served to those who...

I've been going to Avocado House since 2008, so just over ten years.

I used to live 3 blocks from Avocado House, from 2008 to 2015, so every time my family and I wanted good breakfast or lunch, we would go to Avocado House.

We would go once or twice a month, but at least we've been there once a month since.

Since I have moved to La Verne, I don't frequent Avocado House like before, but ever couple of months I come in and have the "Garden" omelet, or "Millionaire" salad.

I was just there last Thursday, Feb. 28.

Today, Tuesday, March 5, 2019... I went to Avocado House for breakfast. I walked in just a little after 11:10AM... and there's two parties in line, waiting to order, one single person ordering, and behind them, a young couple.

So finally I get up to order... I order a "Garden" omelet (I always order this), I also ordered two eggs and a coffee.

I end up ordering at 11:19AM. I go and sit at a table. About three to five minutes after I sat down, two male customers walk in, and they go order (there was no line for them), followed by another separate party or two, about one or two minutes after they walked in. These two parties order, and then go sit at their tables.

11:26AM, comes around, and the two guys who came in after me get their order.

11:28AM, the party that came in after the two guys that came AFTER "me", get their orders. I "STILL" don't have my coffee.

11:32AM, I get my coffee. I watched a seven minute video on my phone.

I start looking around the restaurant, I see a server walking around outside. He comes in, and finally... at 11:42AM I get my order, COLD obviously.

The "Garden" omelet does not look anything like it looked, when I came in for a "Garden" omelet just five day ago. I open this "Garden" omelet, no mushrooms and maybe 2-3 broccoli bits.

The "Garden" omelet should have (and this is copied and pasted from the Avocado House menu, on their website): Sautéed mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, broccoli, tomato, cheddar jack cheese. Topped with avocado.

The "Garden" omelet I was served was basically a diced tomato and onion omelet.

11:44AM, I tell the server about my situation, and she tells me, "oh, I'm sorry, I'll go let them know". So I wait... and wait… and wait… Eleven minutes later, and I'm still waiting. Mind you, there is only five parties at five tables, and they’ve already got their food and are almost done eating. And three of those parties came in AFTER me.

11:55AM, another server passes by and asks how I'm doing, and if I needed anything. I tell her what's going on, and she tells me they "they have a new cook", and if I want them to remake it. And I ask her how much longer am I going to have to wait, i think I lost my appetite over this whole thing now... and she says she'll be right back.

So I wait. This lady comes back at 12:05PM, TEN MINUTES LATER... with a receipt, telling me they refunded what I paid for the omelet. And I'm like, "uhhh... and uhhh... where's my omelet?" And she's like, "Oh, you still want the omelet?" At this point I am fuming inside... but I just kept calm, I didn't want to make a scene.

I'm thinking, "NO... I JUST DROVE TEN MILES, FROM LA VERNE, TO COME HERE AND HAVE THIS SHITY EXPERIENCE...".

If I could give ZERO stars for this experience, I would. It will be a pretty long time before I go to Avocado...

I have been wanting to try this place out for a long time because of the great reviews, but in my experience I thought everything was just ok. To be fair though, I am not a big breakfast person so take my review with a grain of salt. My friends really liked it.

First, parking is terrible. There is a very small lot with extra parking behind the nextdoor building, but that gets filled up pretty quickly as well so be prepared to spend some time looking for a spot. The line is usually pretty long in the mornings, especially on the weekends, but it moved surprisingly fast so we did not wait too long.

You must have your order ready before you are seated so take a look at the menu ahead of time. There were images of some of their plates diplayed on a television and some flyers hung up that we based our selections off of, but when we got to the cashier to take our order they didn't have any of the three plates we wanted. Apparently the TV was displaying dishes that they currently have as well as dishes that are coming soon. Nothing differentiated which plates were coming soon so that was a bummer and a little frustrating. The flyer in front did give a start date for one of the items.

The inside is cute and quaint, like a regular house (hence the name). There is a large outdoor seating area in back that feels like the backyard. We didn't get to sit back there because it was full, but inside was also nice.

The food, in my opinion, was ok. I had the salad and soup combo with the tri-tip salad and a clam chowder. The meat was tender, but not very flavorful and the clam chowder tasted like canned soup. It is very rare that I crave traditional breafast food items (panckaes, waffles, omlettes, etc.), but when I do I might still go back to give them a fair a shot. The homey ambience is worth...