Derailed Diner — Restaurant in Elberta

So we parked here for the night saw they had a cool looking diner so we had to try. Being from the south, they had southern home cooked meals, and we were down. So service, eh, they were short-handed. The waitress looked like they shorthanded and had to do everything besides actually cook the food. But they were not rude at all, just tired and stressed. The food, unfortunately I feel like we were eating cafeteria food. I had the chicken fried steak, mashed taters, zucchini and squash with corn bread. My husband had the chopped steak with all the same sides as I had. The only thing that was seasoned in our meals was the chicken fried steak and the chopped steak. The potatoes were not seasoned, not even with butter. The zucchini and squash were boiled in water with onions, and that is a southern way, but they had NO seasoning, so it was boiled to death veggies in water. The cornbread? I have known northerns make better cornbread. It was basically cornmeal flat bread and hard as a rock. I had to soak mine in the water of my veggies to eat it. I advise when they ask cornbread or roll get the roll. Like I said, the proteins of the meals were cooked perfectly. They used real meat(real round steak), and seasoned perfectly, the rest wasn't worth it. We also got the pecan pie cheesecake. The person that made that doesn't know how to make cheesecake because it was bready. 🙅‍♀️didn't care for it much. So the amount we paid was not worth it, IMO. If you know what Lubys is, on the sides, Luby's is better and not near...

Loved all of the decor seemed like a decent place. The server wasn't the best but she brought us out food. It took a little too long to get out food and when we got it it wasn't hot. Our server didn't bring us silverware or napkins even after bringing a salad. We were getting ready to leave when we asked how much longer and we kept hearing a dinging noise but she didn't go back to check. Finally after we asked how much longer she went to check and finally brought us out our food. Still no napkins. I had to go up to the bar to ask the other server how we get our check and finally our server came over with the machine for us to pay with card. I didn't leave a tip on my husband's card. I took the kids to the bathroom and went looking for an ATM so I could get some cash to leave a tip. The other server walked up to me and asked if there was a problem with our service I said not a whole lot not wanting to go into major detail because she seemed confrontational. She went on to interrupt me and then said if I wasn't going to leave a tip I should have went to subway and then told me that our server only makes like $2 an hour and she survives on tips and that now she had to go home and tell her kids sorry no dinner tonight and then told me that I don't need to...

The restaurant is very cute but the service was absolutely TERRIBLE. I am writing this review to warn others to NOT eat here. It was by far the worst restaurant experience of my life. The waitress made the entire experience awkward and very unpleasant…and long. The hostess was super nice but waitress kept messing up our order (and we could hear her messing up others). She yelled at the cooking staff very loudly, blaming some of her errors on them and wasted a lot of time complaining to coworkers. My entire family had completed eating [and they’d tried to wait but I told them to go ahead, it was taking so long] by the time I received my meal (part of which was a side salad she forgot). I waitressed for many years (so give benefit of the doubt) but was in shock at how incredibly bad and unprofessional she was. Then, two of my kids got food poisoning from the meal. They are OK but were VERY ill. This speaks to what is an incredibly poorly run establishment. The waitresses service was so incredibly over the top awful (eg I could overhear the other table’s order also being messed up and everyone could hear her yelling at the cooks), it speaks to an overall lack of proper management for it to not be noticed...