One Love Cafe — Restaurant in Gainesville

First on the Pro side: Because most of the seating is outdoors in a roofed over patio with a large grassy park this place is VERY kid friendly and pet friendly. Some of the dogs seemed overwhelmed by the noise and the crowd but the kids were all having a blast. There's a horse shoe pit, tether ball, and corn hole.

Now the bad: The way the roof is designed traps the noise so it's very difficult to talk even when the band isn't playing. When the band started up it became nearly impossible. The band was excellent but the sound system is really bad with a lot of distortion.

The service from the two employees I interacted with ranged from indifferent to condescending. I got the unsweet tea and it was undrinkable. It tasted as if they hadn't properly cleaned the urn in a while. When I reported that instead of getting me fresh tea or offering me another beverage the waitress grabbed a cup, went over to the urn. tasted it and said, "That's just our tea", and walked off. I ended up paying $3 for water I helped myself to from a different urn.

There isn't any table service beyond bringing your food out to you and clearing the dirty dishes. You order at the counter and are responsible for your own refills.

Between that and the behavior of the waitress over the tea I highly regret that I included a 20% tip when I paid for my food at the counter.

The tea wasn't the only thing that was bad. I got the hamburger with bacon and fried egg and requested it be cooked medium well. It was maybe medium rare. Much more uncooked than I was comfortable eating in an unfamiliar restaurant but after the tea thing I knew it was probably better to eat what I got than to try to get them to fix it. I was with a group or I might have just asked for a refund and left. The meat was barely seasoned at all so that was extra nasty.

I chose the greens as a side and they were most definitely seasoned with a lot of pepper vinegar. Which, yes, a lot of people like that on their greens but I don't and I'd rather it have been an on the side option instead of an undisclosed feature. I only had the one bite and nobody at my table wanted it.

I will say that the bacon on the hamburger was excellent and the egg was cooked just right so maybe they should just be an all day breakfast place?

I will not be going back unless it's with a group and if I do I'll eat first and stick to just getting something to drink...

NO LOVE FOR 1 LOVE. I really dislike leaving bad reviews, but I just have to this time around. The only reason this restaurant gets any stars is because the front counter person was so wonderful. After waiting an hour and 15 minutes, I finally got my steak meal. The steak resembled something out of a Dollar General freezer. The grits and eggs both have been, I guess, sitting in a hot pan for an hour or so they had no flavor and kind of tasted like drywall. The biscuits were like someone pulled it out of the side of the concrete block building. You could have used it as a hockey puck. Oh, and by the way, when they brought me my food, they informed me they were out of knives, so I was supposed to just pick up and gnaw on this gnarly steak, I suppose. Luckily, my friends had already eaten and gotten their food. Of course, they waited about 45 minutes themselves, and one of them had a knife I could use. One of my friends very strongly informed the staff when ordering that they could not eat onions lo and behold their omelet thing was chuck full of onions. My mom had a very 50/50 experience as one of the egg poached eggs rather of her two eggs poached egg Benedict was cooked solid through the egg, and then the other was absolutely perfect. And by the way two of my friends including my mother had ordered bottomless mimosas now I believe it was almost $20 for the bottomless mimosas after 2 4 oz cups of mimosa they ran out of mimosas let me tell you they definitely did not get their money's worth. Back to my own eating experience. After attempting to douse my robbery grits and eggs in salts and ketchup, no hot sauce to be found anywhere unfortunately, and eating two bites of my Dollar General steak I just gave up. I think maybe in my adult life at I've only taken or sent food back a handful of times cuz I'm just not one of those people but after spending $26 on this absolute dumpster fire of a meal I just couldn't do it. The counter person was so polite and refunded me my money and was very kind about the whole situation and I give mad props to them. I was so disappointed because this was my first time there it was my mom's birthday and we were trying to celebrate her. And I had heard really great things...

I love the whole vibe of One Love. They have great food and amazing live entertainment. What I can't stand is how inaccessible the food and drinks are. Why would you have a place that seats 200 people that are there to eat drink and be merry and only provide one place to order food and another place to order alcohol? How difficult would it be to put remote drink stations in every corner of the outdoor area so you could easily walk up, buy a can of beer or a glass of wine and never miss a song. Having to stand in line for 15 minutes amongst everyone else looking to obtain a drink is ridiculous. You almost have to order a beer and go to the end of the line because by the time you get through drinking your first beer it will be time for the next one. You could also order 2 or 3 at once but who likes warm beer? They could make 2 food lines inside to speed up the process for the diners. The food is great but having to wait forever to order then wait even longer to get it is irritating. If you show up hungry ready to grab a drink and some food quickly, forget about it. You're staring down the barrel of a good 30 minutes in 2 lines. Not exactly the recipe for a relaxing night out is it? They're sitting on a gold mine but everyone I talk to agrees that the inefficiency is not only bothersome but completely unnecessary. They could hire a wait staff too and bring good paying jobs to the NW side of town and drastically increase their efficiency and in turn satisfy the valuable customers. It saddens me that a lot of my friends refuse to go there because of the amount of effort the customer must put in to eat and drink especially when there are so many other places that offers table service or at least a place where you can quickly get a drink. I like the place a lot but would love it with every ounce of my existence if they make it 63 times more efficient. When I go there now I show up buzzed and make sure I've eaten. They'd get an extra 30 or 40 dollars from me every time. I just don't have the patience to jump through all their hoops to imbibe and eat their...