Keys Cafe & Bakery — Restaurant in Forest Lake

Best breakfast in Minnesota! We love coming here for a delicious, hardy meal after church. It's also a preferred breakfast destination when we have family or friends in town. The menu has tons of options. Basically, eggs and omelets any way you can imagine plus a super-sized serving of hashbrowns or pancakes with most entrees. They also have incredible French toast and 4 variations of eggs Benedict. Don't forget a side a crispy bacon. YUM. If you want something that's not on the menu, if they have it in stock, they're typically happy to accommodate requests. (Like banana French toast... one of my favorites!)

They include bread or toast with almost every menu item. I'm a low-carb eater, so I typically avoid bread. However, Keys has a homemade berry jam that's INCREDIBLE. The bread simply becomes a vehicle for jam consumption. Fortunately, they have sourdough and gluten-free bread options, so I don't feel as guilty for eating the bread.

They have fresh baked desserts, cakes, cookies, and more that are easy take-home or pick-up treats for special events.

For seating, there's walk up [cushioned] barstools [with TV view], booths, tables with wooden chairs, a hybrid booth/wooden chair option on the back wall, and seasonal outdoor seating. I have back issues, so we opt for the cushioned booths or barstools. The variety of seating makes it easy for solo or group dining. Tables can optionally be joined together for larger groups. The very back section is partially divided by a decorative wall with a fireplace, which is a great backdrop for photos and a pleasant ambiance on chilly days.

There's a large shared lot to accommodate parking. For our party of 4, if there are some parking spots clearly visible, table wait time is usually around 10 minutes. If the lot is super full with only a few spots left, table wait time is 15-30 minutes depending on party size. We like visiting the next-door pet shop, Chuck n' Don's, while we wait. (Key's has nice bathrooms to easily wash up before meal time.)

Service here is always friendly, and being a family-owned and run business, it's nice to see familiar faces and smiles over the years.

We highly recommend Key's...

Todays experience was enough to not go back. Turkey dinner came barely warm, Not Hot. Standing water beneath the turkey and potatoes. After three bites was enough to say no. Waitress microwaved my plate 30 sec and it really didn't make a difference. The burger and fries ordered werr terrible too. Fries were cold and more soggy than crispy. Burger was cold and dried out. Waitress made excuses for the kitchen and everything was referred to as our food is kept on steamers and should be hot. We paid for our drinks and left a $6 tip on our $9 bill. We did not pay for our food and the kitchen and lack of cleanliness really left an impression with us with having future plans to meet friends in two weeks at Keys for dinner at Forest Lake and our gifting a catered lunch from a different Keys location to a local business are now off the table and webwill go somewhere else for a better experience and quality of food. The young manager seemed disconnected to our complaints and really didn't do anything to make a mends and retain our comeback business. Food does have a required temperature and shelf life according to food service licensing and inspections. The other remarks are floors were dirty with spilled food. No one bothered to sweep in down time and our beer wine card on the table was dirty and sticky. It was not clean. We were there at 6 pm and they...

Today, we had an uncharacteristic dining experience at the Forest Lake Key's. We know Key's has standard's and the kitchen staff let us down. Coffee was served cold. When bringing this to the attention of our server, a new cup of bathwater coffee was served 30 seconds later. That is atypical. My dining partner ordered the ham and cheese omelet. Normally, this is a good entree. Today's not so much. The omelet was served with burnt ham and cold toast. Bearly edible. When an order of toast is served so cold butter will not melt, that's an issue. Now for my order: The bison burger. I skip "white carbs" so I ordered a side of broccoli. The broccoli was served cold. The lettuce on the burger was brown and dark grey. The bison burger should have been served medium, but arrived as a hockey puck. We tested the Key's chocolate cake and that too was disappointing. The slice served was Sahara desert dry. That too was atypical. Thank goodness we had non-dairy coffee creamer at out table. Drizzling that over the cake made it palatable, but cold. Our server was extremely apologetic and removed the charges for the coffee and the broccoli. Could kitchen staff have done more. Yes. We frequent Key's and always had a great experience. We had to wonder if the Forest Lake location lost its...