The Market Place Grill | Cafe Downey — Restaurant in Downey

I visited this restaurant on Thursday, May 9th at 7pm with a group of 3 friends. The location is clean and well organized, with beautiful floral decorations inside. The patio was well maintained and attractive. The dessert display was well stocked and nicely presented. I ordered a Feta Burger. I was immediately told they no longer make the Feta Burger. I mentioned it was on both the large wall menu and the small take out menu. The order taker just smiled and did not offer any alternatives. I asked for the regular cheeseburger. The order taker asked what I wanted for my sides. I was not familiar with the sides and asked what they had. She pointed at the wall menu and said, "Uh, anything under the green part that says 'sides'." I asked for a salad and fries. We sat down and was greeting within 5 minutes by a server who had our drinks. She placed each drink in front of the appropriate guest. The food items were delivered shortly. To my surprise, the burger was served with a mixed greens salad with large pieces of feta cheese. The fries my friend ordered had large pieces of feta cheese as well. The tuna salad she ordered had slices of feta cheese included. I didn't understand why a feta cheese burger could not be made. My friend tasted her tuna salad and said the fish was greasy and had a strong "fishy" taste, unlike all the previous times she had been to the restaurant and ordered the same dish. She asked the server to take it back because of the flavor. She accepted the offer of a grilled shrimp salad as a replacement. The order was placed and the server came back with a receipt for an additional $5.50 charge. We gave the server $6 and was never given back change. We had to flag the server down when we needed beverage refills and again to ask for "to go" boxes. My friend was not happy with her tuna salad. She feels the quality of fish went from white albacore tuna to dark, oily meat. And for a higher price. The obvious fact the restaurant had feta cheese but didn't want to make a feta cheese burger seemed ridiculous. The quality of the food was otherwise good, but the level of customer service needs to...

Stopped by for dinner last night and it was not too busy. They have a large menu to choose from and several choices for beer and wine.

I ordered the Mediterranean platter as an appetizer which consisted of Tzatziki and cucumber, hummus with peppers, red onion and olives, and goat cheese with carrots and red onions. This was served with a side of pita bread and was absolutely delicious.

As our main dish I had the salmon plate and my wife had the chicken breast risotto.

The salmon was a bit bland being slightly under seasoned and the risotto was overly seasoned which made the dish slightly unpleasant.

The chicken breast was very flavorful but the dijon mustard-type dressing on the chicken was strong and we had to scrape most of it off in order for it to be enjoyable. This has the same batch of risotto as the salmon plate so it was the same issue.

Both dishes came with steamed vegetables (green squash, yellow squash, and broccoli) and and two asparagus spears which were all quite delicious.

With this we ordered two sprites which came in 'to-go' cups and we weren't sure if refills were included as we were never asked by the server if we wanted a refill, but then again we never asked.

In all for these 2 drinks and 2 plates and 1 appetizer our bill was $65. Not terrible but not a budget friendly spot.

I wouldn't have an issue with the price if the salmon plate would have been better but I could have had a similar bland dish having made it at home for less.

Generally I go out to eat when I'm bored of my simple food at home. High prices for plain foods are not ideal for me but the then again this place has such a large menu that I can't base my opinion in just these two dishes alone.

Next time I will stop by for breakfast...

I did an online order and my food was ready when I got there so that was a plus, it wasn’t busy at all when I arrived so I was able to get to the cash register right away. I had to call in a couple things because they don’t give you any option to add on extra stuff, put in notes for putting things in the side, no á la carte options, etc. I attempted to pick up my order through the drive thru but was denied and had to back out of their long drive thru to get out and head inside, not sure why this is a rule and it’s inconvenient when they have a drive thru. The customer service here is not that great, they’re not rude but they don’t care much about giving a great experience. No greeting, no thank you, and when a discrepancy was brought up they didn’t care to fix it and just said they were sorry. I was excited about the variety of food but once I got my hummus and salmon Greek salad I was extremely disappointed due to how bland everything was. Literally no seasoning on the salmon at all and this is the only place I’ve been to that has such thin salmon! It was so dry and bland, had to season it myself when I got home. The salad also had no flavor and instead of Greek dressing I got oil and basaltic vinegar. Call me crazy but salads have flavor to me, this one was flavorless and the amount you get for the price is just sad. The hummus was also extremely bland and barely decent enough to eat. This place is pricey and I spent a lot of money, the disappointment I experienced in both customer service and food will make me look elsewhere. I’ve never had bad Mediterranean cuisine until I came here. Maybe it was the cooks that worked there today around lunch time, but either way it was just...