Golden Oak Pancake House — Restaurant in Fairview Heights

Hey Everyone, Was hungry for breakfast so I wanted to go to a mom and pop shop to support the locals. When we pulled up it looked like there wasn’t any parking but we found a spot close. When you walk in you do have to wait to be seated. They have tables with chairs and booths for seating. I noticed the place was packed but we were seated at a table right away. I had the corned beef hash with two eggs over medium and the hash browns with the choice of rye marble bread than pancakes. The menu is the same as we were given so I didn’t have to update the menu for you to see. Our waitress was Kathy and she was very busy but was able to serve the food to those who ordered from her. The wait for the food wasn’t long which was nice too. You’re served a small bowl of butter in square packets to put on your bread or pancakes than for the bread to be buttered already which for those people who want to have control of the butter intake that would be essential. The prices for the plates of breakfast foods were about what the pricing restaurants are charging these days with the average of 12-15.00. You can substitute the hash browns with fruit if you would like. The biscuits and gravy looked like a yummy comfort food dish but it was 95 degrees outside so I declined that choice. The water was good to drink too so I did not waste it. One thing that I was taught was if you see a lot of elderly eating at the restaurant it’s good quality food which I can’t deny that one bit! In this case, I highly recommend this place to go to for breakfast or lunch! The atmosphere was not bad and it was busy so that should be another sign of good eats, too! I look forward to returning to it in the future and trying their...

Let me just start by acknowledging one thing, I get that this place specializes in breakfast.

Came here for the first time last week. They have a sandwich section of their menu, which makes complete sense because they have a ton of ingredients that can make a ton of different kinds of sandwiches… they have three sandwiches… two of which are just variations of a BLT…

So they managed to provide two sandwiches for their lunch menu. This is just lazy as a restaurant, but I’ll forgive that for now. The lack of sandwich options drove me to the wrap section, where I excitedly found a Buffalo ranch chicken wrap.

I ordered the wrap and it arrived promptish, with one mistake... It was the wrong wrap. It was the most mediocre regular ol’ grilled chicken wrap I’ve ever had.

I woke up that morning with a special kind of hunger, a hunger that could only be satisfied by the surplus of love that I would find slopped all over whatever food I got at a good old fashioned home style restaurant serving up the best of what American cooking has to offer. I finished about 1/3 of my wrap despite my ravenous hunger.

The food I had at this restaurant was so uninspired that it literally stripped me of life force.

My opinion: there are surely places with comparable breakfast food and vastly superior everything else. Check...

Any business should honor what they write, even if it is not what they intended. This especially goes for restaurants & their menu. Our family was dining today when I ordered the vegetable skillet. The menu clearly states "add any meat" to a skillet order for $2.99. I informed our server that I wanted to add corned beef hash to my order. Our server brought us our check, and the bill showed an added charge of $8.99. You pay at the register at this restaurant, so I went to go ask what this charge was. The cashier, who I believe is the manager, called our server over. Our server stated that this charge was for the corned beef hash. She charged it as a side item & not an add-on. It was not brought to me as a side. It was mixed into the skillet. The manager stated that "any meat" doesn't include hash. Our server said she made a mistake & that she should have told me that hash was not considered "any meat". What was infuriating & insulting was when the manager stated that I should have known that hash was not considered "any meat" She was mad that I pointed out what the menu clearly stated. A restaurant should honor what stated on their menu & not get angry when a customer...