Tradewinds & The Galley-Elkhart LLC — Restaurant in Elkhart

My mother, my toddler and I were looking to get out of the house, enjoy the weather and celebrate ourselves as mothers today. We called ahead to Tradewinds/The Galley to see if there was a wait and where we should go as we had a child and wanted to make sure we were in the right part of the restaurant and also not overloading a restaurant with a holiday crowd. They assured us there was no wait and that our family was welcome on either side of the restaurant. We entered the Tradewinds side and there were a couple other tables sat, but no one else, no one waiting, and no staff to be found. We waited patiently and started to venture towards the galley side to see if we could find someone when a waitress came in and told us to seat ourselves anywhere and help ourselves to a high chair. I grabbed a high chair and we all got settled into a booth when another waitress came in and said she was so sorry but that the Tradewinds side was closed but that we could go dine on the Galley side. No problem! I asked if it was ok to just walk through the connecting doors and she said yes. When we entered into the Galley side, it was immediately filled with lots of high top tables that were all full of people and also crowded with standing people and there was hardly room to walk through there so we headed out to the patio where there had to be at least a dozen plus empty tables lower to the ground and no one in sight. We went to seat ourselves at a picnic table and were immediately stopped by another waitress and told a volleyball tournament was about to start and that we couldn’t sit there. She gave us no direction on where we could actually sit and started to walk away so I asked if she could point us to where we WERE welcome to sit and she pointed me back to all the high top tables and said anywhere over there. There were so many empty tables outside that there’s no way all the crowd inside (who I’m assuming was the volleyball crowd) could fill them up. It was clear that if you were not a man or at least childless you were not going to get any attention. We ventured back that way but we were treated by the rest of the staff and customers as if we were invisible or in the way. I felt like we were invited in just to be dicked around and especially on Mother’s Day, totally disrespected. I’ve served tables and worked behind a bar and this was just so disheartening. Please do better or don’t invite children in at least. Someone could have easily guided us to a table that was preferable to them in the first place or turned us away for the tournament before we wandered aimlessly to find obstacle...

I don’t know what happened there today. I have a feeling it’s not always this bad, but my first experience makes me want to make it my only experience.

First off, the pancakes were really good. That’s where the good stuff ends.

We waited 50 minutes after ordering for the food to get out. It wasn’t super busy but maybe they had staff shortages in the kitchen or something. These things happen I understand, but it’d be nice if they updated us. We ordered during breakfast and the people who came in later who ordered lunch got their food well before ours. We didn’t get offered refills until we asked for the check.

My table ordered four sides of hash browns. One was supposed to be crispy the rest normal. We instead got two orders burnt, one normal, and one raw.

My steak was supposed to be medium rare, I got well done, and my scrambled eggs were runny.

My friend ordered the breakfast sandwich and there were raw egg whites. She ordered a cherry danish and was brought a cinnamon one instead.

Another friend ordered a chicken skillet. It was burnt and there were two large chunks of chicken in it. His side of toast was very cold.

And the last order for our table was the tradewinds omelette, and that too was undercooked.

Our server was friendly, but she rarely made her way to our table.

The price here isn’t bad on its own, but for the quality of the food it’s definitely not worth it. First ever breakfast place...

UPDATE: Went in for breakfast the other day. There was only one waitress working. We sat down she brought us water and then she never came back to the table. As more people came in she would take them water and that was it. The entire time we were there she never took an order. I looked at my watch and it had been 17 minutes since she brought the water. We got up and walked out. There was a table with small children and they were upset also. As we were leaving they got up also. They had been there before we got there. Terrible service this day and very poor planning by management to only have one server. Very disappointed in this place. We went to another restaurant and were waited on right away. Second update: Thought we would give them another try. Walked in on Thursday at 10:16 am, three people ahead of us waiting to be seated. And we stood there, and stood there for close to 10 minutes. The guy in front of us said he had been there 15 minutes and the waitress had never even come over to seat him. He said there was only one waitress and she was in way over her head. We turned around and walked out. Is this the norm for this place? Only one waitress to take care of the whole dining room. I do not know how this place stays in business because whoever makes out the schedule has apparently no idea what they are doing. Not impressed with this place at all. Very poor...