Pacifica Breeze Cafe — Restaurant in Del Mar

• UPDATED REVIEW *

I'm a tough critic, but not an unreasonable person. My experience and review were not the best, but the manager of Pacifica Breeze Cafe did the right thing. He contacted me and offered to make it right. He did not pressure me to delete or alter my review, which makes his offer even better. This was a professional approach to a customer with a problem. I appreciate his actions and have updated my review.

The facts of the matter remain -- bland sandwich and slow service on a not-so-busy Sunday. However, the response from the manager made all the difference. I've upgraded my rating to 3-stars. He also agreed to mention the issues to his staff and I feel they will work on improvements. Honestly, the fried chicken sandwich could have been made a bit more flavorful with simple salt and pepper, or cheese, or mayonnaise, or an alternative sauce besides Tartar. Perhaps they will offer a few of these in the future.

I really wanted to like this place, especially since it is a new-to-me brunch place in Del Mar. There are a lot of positive reviews, which brought us in the door. In light of this new development, I will plan to visit Pacifica Breeze Cafe again in the future (most likely for brunch). My original complaint is below, but I hope to have a better experience next time and write a new review. Thank you to the manager for contacting me and making this into a better experience.

-- Original review below --

We went here for a late Sunday lunch, around 2 PM. The place was empty, which is a bad sign. But since we were the only customers we thought it would be quick and there was some chance that the food would be good.

I ordered the fried chicken sandwich and house-made yam chips. The sandwich was supposed to come with coleslaw and Tartar sauce on it, but neither of those sounded like they would be good with a fried chicken sandwich. So I ordered it without those and requested cheese and lettuce. The guy at the cash register made it sound like he couldn't add cheese to the sandwich, but that he could add lettuce. I thought either the chicken or the fried might have some flavor to it, but it was without a doubt the most bland sandwich I've ever had. The yam chips also had very little flavor and were a little bit soggy. This cost $13.

We also ordered a Gatorade and one of the small bottles of juice. The juice cost $10 and was not worth it. Ultimately, the meal cost almost $30 and was not great. It took almost 25 minutes for them to make a bland fried chicken sandwich when there were no other...

The Breeze Cafe has a pretty killer location overlooking Del Mar and the Pacific. The building itself is very nice and easy to navigate. The staff was friendly and working hard which was great. Upon ordering our breakfast/brunch we noticed a problem immediately though, there are plenty of tables and chairs are seriously lacking. We counted at least 5 tables with no chairs and had to borrow a chair to make our table even seat 2 people! Please, just invest a bit into a dozen or so chairs, it's not hard to do.

We sat down and enjoyed the spot, it really is great. Our beverages were ready quick, my wife got a cappuccino and I ordered the coffee. The coffee they have is pretty good and the cappuccino my wife got was great. The food came out fairly quickly considering how busy they were. I ordered the Sugar Spiced Salmon Hash with supposedly my choice of eggs to top it. I wasn't asked what kind of eggs I wanted, despite asking again about my order. Thankfully the hash came out with beautifully poached eggs. However, given the chance to order my eggs as I was supposed to I would have preferred scrambled. That being said, these were probably the best poached eggs I've had. The rest of the dish was pretty interesting, I don't think I'll ever get a salmon dish with sugar again. It was decent, but felt like I was a kid eating some sugary cereal for breakfast. The salmon was a bit overcooked and still had a couple bones. The cinnamon and sugar really was too much and overwhelmed the salmon flavor. The breakfast potatoes on the other hand were cooked great and had a nice crisp on the outside while soft in the middle. It was also supposed to have feta cheese, but it had maybe 4 chunks of feta on the whole dish. The dish would have been made much better had they actually used a decent amount of feta cheese and had asked how I wanted my eggs. I'd say their Sugar Spiced Salmon Hash is worth a try since it is an unusual dish, however I definitely won't order it again.

My wife got the breakfast sandwich on the croissant and it was quite good. The croissant itself was delicate and buttery, just great. She got it with ham and scrambled eggs and it was very good. The sandwich was very pleasant and perfectly cooked. I would definitely recommend the breakfast croissant as it was one of the better ones we have had.

Overall a decent experience and considering how many businesses here are closed Sunday mornings I thing I would probably come back to try more traditional items. But please get more chairs for...

By far one of the worst lunch breakfast spot I’ve ever had. To start off my girlfriend wanted to try a new spot so we picked Pacific Breeze cafe. We walk in and everything is self serve which is fine. The issue starts when I try to order a mimosa and I give them my government issued ID. They take it back and chat about it and then come back and say they can’t serve me as they can’t authenticate it which is fine whatever it wasn’t worth bantering about it. I sit down with my girlfriend and wait an exhaustingly long time for our food, and it’s also not like there was a long line of people waiting for food, the place was half full with most people already served. We get served and I kid you not I am given my burger with “fries” which literally was the scraps of the fryer. Included were chunks of breading, a literal black burnt fry, and stubs of fries, it wasn’t even enough to fill a child. At this point I’m already agitated by the long wait time and mediocre food display, not even given napkins or offered by waitress. I went to grab napkins and come back to wipe my girlfriend’s face and after my girlfriend tells me how the waitress saw and gave my girlfriend a dirty look. The food was mediocre, not to mention you have to go up to get your own water from a water dispenser?? As well as getting your own utensils, condiments, salt and pepper etc, that’s not bad until you consider where this restaurant is, you would at least expect some professionalism or a lick of customer service. The view was alright, the service was a terrible. I would heavily recommend staying away from this establishment as customer service is not even in their list of priorities, they seem like they...