Top of the Morning Cafe — Restaurant in City of Utica

Disappointing Experience Despite Good Food

We found this restaurant while camping nearby and were encouraged by the positive Google reviews—unfortunately, our experience didn’t match the hype.

We were seated promptly, but after that, it was a long and confusing wait for service. Eventually, a server came by, surprised that no one had helped us yet, and said it had “been a day” before disappearing again. When she returned with menus quite a while later, she seemed overwhelmed and distracted while taking our order.

While waiting for our food, another staff member randomly came over and dropped off a plate of toast crusts from another table, calling it “more toaste,” and asked if we needed anything else. We told her we were still waiting on our actual meals, but she just smiled, left the crusts, and we never saw her again.

Later, the manager delivered a single dish from our order and seemed puzzled when we told her the rest hadn’t arrived. We also mentioned the toast incident—her only response was a confused look, and suggested the girl 'just had surgery'.

Eventually, our original server brought the rest of our food and apologized. She candidly said the toast-giving staff member was “on drugs” and called the whole thing “ridiculous,” encouraging us to speak to the manager (who never returned).

Despite the chaos, the food itself was pretty good. That said, they had a printed sign noting a $1 surcharge on meals with eggs due to pricing. Ironically, those of us who ordered eggs were served more than we could eat—portion control could have offset that cost better.

As a final odd moment, a woman dining with a “service dog” left while the dog urinated on the carpet—no one addressed it.

If we weren’t unfamiliar with the area and far from home, we likely would have left before ordering. There’s potential here, but the service was slow, disorganized, and frankly bizarre. Hope they get things...

As soon as you walk in, there is a sign that says ‘please seat yourself.’ We walked around trying to find a table to sit at and every single table was either occupied or dirty. Since the sign said to please seat yourself, my boyfriend and I thought it was best to sit at a dirty table so that we weren’t blocking the door. As soon as we sat, servers behind the bar said to each other “people just sat at a dirty table,” which was pretty weird to say out loud as people coming into eat at the restaurant, but ok. After sitting at a dirty table for 10-15 minutes, the server came over and gave us a lecture on how if people sit at dirty tables, they will never know to go over because they think they’re already being taken care of. Loved that! Server asks us what we want to drink and we order two waters and a decaf coffee. We were brought our drinks and the server stated she would be right back. A good 15-20 minutes later, server still hadn’t come over. We saw her taking care of bar guests and bussing other tables instead of coming over to take our order. We finally were fed up, put a $5 bill down to cover the coffee, and left. Absolutely unbelievable. Also, I can’t rate the food because we never got our order taken. I believe the owner was there as well and CANNOT believe he runs an operation as poor as this one. Thanks for completely...

We arrived just before 11am on a Friday and there we many seating choices. By 11:30, the place was packed.

I ordered a standard egg based breakfast with steak and greens. The steak wasn't great but the cost was under $10. The steak fit the price.

My wife ordered the low carb option of George's Special. It cost under $10 but was fantastic. I had a few bites.

Next time I'm in Utica with free time in the morning, I will be back and I will be ordering George's Special.

This is a kid friendly restaurant. There was a young boy, about 3, who excitedly asked the waitress if they had hot dogs. She answered with an excited "yes, we do have hot dogs!" The boy was very happy.

Edit -- I went back a couple times. 2nd trip was a good experience. 3rd, not so good. They seated us in the back corner, which was fine. But shortly after we received our food, and we started eating, they wanted to move us. Apparently they forgot about a reservation for a group and needed room. They could have initially seated us elsewhere in the restaurant as there were a few empty tables when we arrived. The food was still good but there is a...