The Stubborn Mule — Restaurant in Columbia

Another Update:

The Stubborn Mule continues to be our go to Breakfast/Early Lunch restaurant. Their food quality continues to be excellent, and the owners and entire staff couldn't be friendlier. What more could you ask for in a small, homey local restaurant? I see no reason to search for another place to eat breakfast or lunch. The Banana Bread Pancakes continue to be my favorite, but everything my wife and I have had has been excellent. They were absolutely slammed on Father's Day, but they worked through it with smIles on their faces, and absolutely no drop off in service. Stubborn Mule is a great place.

Update:

We have now been to the Stubborn Mule at least a dozen times with the most recent visit today (4/28/23). For several early visits, I only got the Banana Bread Pancakes, because I was literally addicted to them. But I decided I had to try other items on the menu on order to be sure that I wasn't just in love with one item on the menu and not the restaurant itself. Over the past number of months, while I still had the pancakes a number of times, I did sample several of their other menu items ( scrambles, traditional bacon and eggs breakfast, etc) and found them all to be excellent, but still just a very close second to the pancakes.

Today, I did find a dish that I consider the equal of my favorite, and that is the Country Fried Steak. I had the Potato Salad and Coleslaw as my sides and they were both excellent. The potato salad is made from redskin potatoes, and it is simply one of the best potato salads I have ever had. The Coleslaw is a creamy salad, chopped in a small dice and with just the right amount of sweetness. But, the absolute star of my meal was the Country Fried Steak. The meat was juicy and fork tender. The breading was very light, crispy and delicious. The country gravy was creamy, smooth and lightly seasoned. I added a liberal sprinkling of pepper to it to suit my taste ( I also did the same to the potato salad and Coleslaw). That is by no means a criticism of the gravy or the sides. I merely like my food heavily seasoned with pepper. If they seasoned their dishes to suit my taste, it would probably be too much seasoning for most people.

My wife had the Reuben sandwich, and again, it was excellent. It was amply filled with pastrami and sauerkraut and the rye bread was toasted perfectly and delicious and did not fall apart or get soaked with the juices. My compliments to the chef across the board.

Finally, our server Anna was very friendly, efficient, and professional. Frankly, all of the servers we have had in the past almost a year have consistently been wonderful

The Stubborn Mule is still our go to breakfast and lunch place whenever we feel the need for an excellent early meal. We recommend it highly to everyone.

Original review: My wife and I just love the Stubborn Mule. We have been there twice since it opened, and while we certainly haven't had everything on the menu, what we have had had been delicious. I have had the Banana Bread Pancakes, and they are simply the best pancakes I have ever had. Lots of bananas in the pancakes, and a lot of candied walnuts on top. YUM! My wife has had a couple of their Scrambles, and she loves them. The NEXT time we go, I will have to force myself not to have the Banana Bread Pancakes so that I can try something else. Their breakfast sausage links, bacon, and eggs were excellent and cooked just right.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that perhaps the only thing even better than their food is the friendliness of the owners and their server staff. We met the owners during our first visit, and they were both very friendly. The server staff has been universally friendly, polite, and professional.

The Stubborn Mule is now our go to...

UPDATE: Wow, is the third time the charm? Yeah, we tried again.

Well, everybody was pleasant when we came in and the service seemed great.

After ordering, the server brought my wife's orange juice. Shortly after, I noticed that there was mold in numerous places INSIDE the clear plastic glass. Once again they had no manager and the owners were out of town. Another server came by and argued that there was only a little bit of some kind of "stuff inside" and insinuated that it was a matter of opinion. They told me this the last time.

Also, the table was sticky and the salt & pepper shakers were nasty as were others that inoticed one the way out. The server said that the defiantly need a deep cleaning.

The food was only fair at best too.

ORIGINAL MESSAGE: The first time we came here was right after they had opened and the food was not good. We gave them the benefit of the doubt and decided that we try again later.

Well, we tried again this morning and our experience was worse this time. The food was quite bland/tasteless and the whole plate was swimming in oil.

We sent the food back and then watched the server mock us while talking to the cook about it.

We asked for the manager and was told that there was no manager there except the kitchen manager who came out but obviously didn't really care using terms like "That's a matter of opinion" multiple times.

Not a chance...

My husband and I had a pretty good first experience at the Stubborn Mule several weeks ago, so we decided to go again with our girls. Our girls ordered pancakes, and they seemed to really like them. My husband’s omelet seemed good, as well. I ordered a scrambler — scrambled eggs with bacon, sausage, ham, and cheese, with potatoes. When the waitress brought it out, I first thought maybe she had made a mistake, because it did not look like scrambled eggs at all. It looked pretty gross. Unfortunately, it tasted pretty gross, too. The meats — sausage, ham, and bacon — were burnt and then mixed into the eggs. So the eggs were more like dirty eggs and just had a burnt taste. The fried potatoes were unfortunately mixed in, so I couldn’t put ketchup on them. And there was a layer of kind of waxy melted cheese on top. I took a bite and told my husband it was bad, so he tried it. Just after he swallowed it, he covered his mouth and said, “Oh no,” and ran to the bathroom and threw up. So, I did not have breakfast. When our waitress finally came to give us the bill, I told her the problem with my food, and she said she would go get her manager. Her manager apparently did not think it was important to come talk to customers who got food so bad it caused someone to throw up. But our waitress at least took my meal off our bill. I don’t think we’ll be going...