Egg N' Joe (SanTan Village) — Restaurant in Gilbert

I’d give this place a solid 2.5/5 stars. It’s just middle of the road, mostly mediocre, fairly bland breakfast fare. Truthfully, I don’t understand the hype, the line outside, and the quality of the reviews this place garners.

For starters, they serve pre-ground coffee. There’s no freshness in this cup, very little aroma, and it has a flavor profile of something like soaked cardboard and burnt toast. It’s not that it’s terrible coffee, I’ve had WAY worse, but it’s just not good. When I saw that “Joe” was in the name of the restaurant, I had expected them to take their coffee seriously. Sadly, they didn’t. No espresso drinks on the menu, either. Straight up, their attempt at coffee is half-assed at best.

My friend ordered the sweet potato pancakes, which were actually very good! I ordered the chicken fried steak, and was disappointed. The “steak” appeared mass-produced and frozen, too uniform and clean to have been made fresh. The hash browns also tasted like they’d come out of the freezer earlier this morning. I asked for extra crispy and ended up with extra mushy. The eggs were cooked nicely, but if you mess up that part of your name, too, then you have no business being in business. Overall, my plate was forgettable, borderline regrettable. Even the gravy looked unappetizing, and tasted about as exciting as it looked. What a shame.

The experience, as a whole, was positive. The staff was friendly, service was speedy, and the place is clean with a pleasing color palette. That being said, it does sort of feel like a brand new restaurant built in 1995. The decor is dated, yet oddly modern, comfortable with a hint of that old-timey diner feel mixed in. It comes across as cheap; a half baked, fabricated effort to mimic the nostalgia of vintage breakfast diners, which ends up mostly feeling like an inside joke that I was...

The place was nice and clean. The waitress was very attentive and very cool. I would have given this place five stars just because of her. The Sunbelt omelette was delicious. However, when she walked up to get our order, I told her I wanted an omelette with chorizo in it. She said, “Oh, you want the Sunbelt.” I am 98% sure that is what it was called. Maybe it was called Valley of the Sun. I don’t remember. I don’t have a menu in front of me. She then asked, “So, you don’t want the bacon in it?” I told her I wanted, whatever came with it. If it does not typically come with chorizo, that would’ve been the time to tell me that there was a $4 dollar charge. She failed to tell me that. I was prepared to give her a $10 tip on a $30 bill because her service and attitude were so great. However, I reduced it to a 20% tip of six dollars and let her pay for the chorizo she charged me for. I tried my son’s pancakes. They were decent, but not spectacular. And I really really don’t give out five stars for breakfast places because you can only do so many things with eggs, pancakes, and bacon. I give five stars when the biscuits and gravy are spectacular, or they have some delicious twist on French toast. I will say my omelette was incredible. However, I ordered water, my son ordered a kids’ meal, and I got an omelette; our bill was $30. No, thanks! $20 for an omelette is insanity! It was incredible, but it wasn’t $20 incredible. We definitely will not be back. I do not like hidden charges when the...

We have heard nothing but amazing things about this place, and my husband and I decided to try it for the first time yesterday thinking a Monday morning would be slow.

It was pretty busy, so we waited about 30 minutes outside without being paged. When my husband went to check on our status, the hostess said she had been trying to page us and she wasn't sure why it wasn't working but good think we checked.

We were seated and our drink orders and then food orders were taken within a reasonable time. Our food seemed to take an extended time, at least 30 minutes, and we saw two other parties who were seated after us get their food much sooner than we did. As we continued to wait, my husband began looking for our server to check on our food but couldn't find him. Shortly after, another server brought our meals. They were just barely warm, so maybe they had been sitting awhile.

Our meals were fine. Based on the rave reviews we had heard from family and friends I guess we were expecting more. Our water and iced tea were refilled promptly, but once again when it came time to get our check we couldn't find our server and had to ask a different one for help.

Everything is more difficult during COVID, so maybe it was just an off day, but I don't think we will give it...