El Cajon Bistro & Bakery-Bistro — Restaurant in El Cajon

Such a sad day for me. This place has been a favorite breakfast stop of ours for years. But this mornings trip to ecb was forgettable. It was shocking to see how far they have fallen. We showed up early because they are most often crazy busy in the a.m. We we're second in line but there was hardly any customers compared to usual. Then the spiral started. With an almost empty restaurant, it took close to 40 minutes to get two basic menu breakfasts, (Never seen it take longer the 10 to 15, even when packed). At 20 minutes I asked if everything's okay and she said, "they just started your now". Now? The only person before just ordered a stack of pancakes. Then when the meal came I found they have made a significant menu change without making any actual change to the menu. So when I ordered hash brown, one of my favorites here,. I was shocked to receive a barely heated up, soft, limp frozen hash brown patty. (Walmart style) My over medium eggs were perfect, kudos there,, but absolutely zero butter for my way over toasted toast. Other things that are me specific things, when I changed my"hash lies" in for the country potatoes, they were... Fine I suppose if you like enormous and uneven chunks of potatoes so smothered in hell pepper and onion the pair was completely lost. Now I get it lots of people live bell pepper, but I know it's Satan's invention and I just hate them long and short of it if this is what this place has become I think I better understand why so many...

First time at this bistro and most likely wont come back again. Service was terrible and food mediocre (got steak and eggs). It took 30 minutes to get the food, was set on table with no utensils, waited another 5 minutes for a fork, asked for a box that never came... from 3 DIFFERENT STAFF who just said "ok" like they were going to bring it (Since waited so long for food I had to go) Service was horrible and food mediocre. Cashier was friendly to people he knew or recognized regulars?? I was expecting more from this neighborhood bistro and probably should not have left a tip after ordering.

Update: attempted to speak to manager. 3 staff standing together behind counter area responded, each with a different story: "owners aren't here" and another said "O, they are cooking" "I dont know their names" and then another said, "thats the manager but he is busy", and then flustered around some papers near the register like he was going to write down managers name or give me a card or something then walked away without doing anything. Excuses from manager: " you get your own box over there" ( would have been nice to know 20 minutes ago when asked staff outside) and "we are busy" as an excuse for poor personal skills from staff. If the owners (Pedro??) Are reading this, please train your staff in customer service. I hope this feedback has...

Today I ate the worst eggs Benedict ever. Which is really unfortunate because I’ve had their eggs Benedict before and they were good. The only reason I ever had their eggs Benedict in the first place was because they were the feature photo On the cover of El Cajon magazine several months ago . The photo on the cover was the only reason I tried this restaurant in the first place. I love eggs Benedict! I’m wondering if it was intentional because the last time I was there, I questioned the inconsistencies in the way that they practiced. I wasn’t trying to be mean I was just requesting an explanation as to why it was done this way on one visit and another way on the subsequent visit. I guess they remembered me. I don’t understand why the customer is required to see themselves, Get their own water/Coffee, Place their own order at the cash register, and expect a tip upfront before they have provided any service. I would usually leave my tip at the end of my meal . I’m surprised that they didn’t ask me to cook my own food! Today I left absolutely no tip Based on the poor quality of the food that I was served . I have no intentions I’ve ever returning to...