Breakfast Republic Costa Mesa — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

My family and I visited Breakfast Republic for the first time today. Long story short, the service wasn't great, and the food was so-so, with the prices not worth it. For a longer explanation, see below.

Upon arrival, there was no host at their booth (in the front entrance) to welcome us, provide a menu, or sit us down. After waiting for awhile (and getting tired of watching the employees blow us off), I proceeded to ask whether to wait, or find a table. The employee at the front window kind of shrugged and told us to find whatever table we'd like. Not a great first impression.

Once we sat, we had no idea whether someone was going to bring us menus, or show us how to order. When the waitress approached us after 15 mins of sitting, she still didn't greet us, but instead expected us to be ready with our order. I told her we didn't receive any menus, and that no one told us what we should do to order. With no apology for the misunderstanding, she said to see the QR code on the table, for which there wasn't one. After looking up the menu ourselves on our phones, I asked whether they had any coffees, for which she only offered one plain coffee. Turns out after checking the menu, that there was a whole list of other coffees.

Concerning the food, we were surprised to have received such mediocre and cold meals. For a restaurant that specializes in Breakfast and charges a bit more for it, I couldn't understand how they could botch it.

The waitress didn't really check in very much after that and I had to constantly wave her down. I felt like I was bothering her after she kind of snapped at me.

I don't know whether this place was understaffed, or whether there is low employee morale, but it was thoroughly reflected through our entire visit. Management definitely needs to step it up soon. We have no anticipation of visiting Breakfast...

This restaurant had some unique tastes, but when all is said and done I just taste salt.

The Jurassic Bacon was tasty, kind of like a candied bacon. It was nice on an eggs Benedict. Their coffee was also pretty good.

Sadly, those were the highlights of the visit.

The service was not great; our waiter abandoned us after dropping off the food, so I needed to keep flagging down other waiters for refills on coffee and water.

I don't understand why they felt the need to take perfectly good ketchup and add chili sauce and other things to it, turning it into a lumpy mess that was overly spicy.

And the biggest offense: A TACKED ON "SURCHARGE" on the bill. No warning that was coming, no explanation what it was for. Mine was 4%, who knows if that's what other people were paying. I asked about it, and was told it's because the price of eggs is higher than it was 10 years ago. My man, what you meant to say was "we wanted to lie about our up front pricing to get you in the door." I hope your target audience is mostly first-time customers, because this kind of deceptive business practice is going to kill any chance you'd have at repeat business.

Good luck...

I got the eggs benedict with smoked turkey. It was not good. They put a purple jelly on the bottom of the muffin which took away the taste of the Hollandaise sauce, which was the whole reason why I got it. I could only taste the jelly, which ruined the whole thing- I tried shaking with my dog but he wouldn't even eat it, and he normally eats everything. They forgot to give me extra Hollandaise sauce which I ordered so I had to go back in and get it. The pineapple upside down pancake had no flavor and it was dry. And the latte looked like it was made an hour earlier. It was sort of warm and all the whipped cream was melted did not look appealing at all. On top of the food the employees were very unmotivated. They looked depressed like they would rather be a million other places besides at a restaurant making food for people. They should immediately exit the restaurant business and go do something else they enjoy. This restaurant clearly needs some people that would love to make good food and serve people and it would make it a better, happier place, and I bet the food would taste a...