The Diner at Twisters Shakes & Sundaes — Restaurant in Halls Crossroads

Terribly disappointed! My Family and I ate there in the dining room on May 23, 2022 at approximately 5:30 PM based on a recommendation from my child’s principal. They were not busy at all, only 3 other people eating when we arrived but the service was very slow and the food was cold even though I saw at least 4 employees “working”. I felt the food was somewhat overpriced considering the quality ($8.54 before tax, for a child’s grilled cheese sandwich and a sweet tea. A regular cheeseburger, hotdog and a coke for $16.13 before tax) plus there is a 3.5% up charge on top of that if you don’t pay with cash. How sneaky is that? Especially in these post pandemic times where paying in cash is not the norm. The sweet tea tasted watery and not very sweet at all, almost bitter, but that’s just my opinion. We sat at a table ( our receipt said it was table 13) with a clear view into a food storage room with the door remaining open our entire visit. As we were eating, I witnessed a male employee go into the storage room, open a large bucket of pickles and proceeded to fill a glass jar ( he brought the jar with him into the storage room) with the pickles using his BARE HANDS, scoop after scoop with NO GLOVES. So whatever contaminants/germs/dust/whatever was on the handle and the outside of the lid as well as what germs etc. may have been on the employee’s hands to begin with is now inside the big pickle bucket as well as inside the glass pickle jar. Then we all (family of 4) saw a bug crawl across the littered unswept floor and into that same food storage room with the pickles. We’re not certain as to what kind of bug it was but it looked like a roach or “water bug” to us. At this point, I just spit my food out and we got up and left (after paying, of course. $55.08 to be exact, not including tip.) Also, as we walked up to the counter to pay we saw a female employee walking around eating with her hands in the food prep area. Isn’t that a health violation? The craziest thing though, as we were walking out we saw a health department score hung on the wall… it was 100 ! How??? Tipped off/Paid off/ related to or friends with the inspector, perhaps? However they obtained that score is a mystery to me from what I experienced there. I’ve been to another restaurant with a 100 score and wasn’t disappointed there. No matter what time of day or night I went, it was always clean and the food was always good and fresh.

Long story short, my experience there has left me with some important takeaways:

DON’T eat the pickles !! My faith in health department scoring has been severely damaged.

Hopefully their ice cream is better than their food, but I’m definitely NOT going back...

Seriously disappointed in Twisters. My wife and I come all the time and enjoy their food. But the service has been down right terrible the last 3 times we’ve been here. It’s actually wild that ownership and management allow the type of service that goes on here. First issue was rock hard biscuits that we asked to be replaced and was given the excuse that they were made earlier in the morning so they were going to be hard, to which they were only willing to replace one of the two. Second time we waited 30 minutes for our food and were never checked on for drinks or if we needed anything else. This time we went in all ordered breakfast, ordered the special which was eggs, meat, potatoes and business and gravy, asked for chicken as the meat which is an option on the menu and was told 15 minutes after ordering that we couldn’t have chicken, and then was also told it didn’t come with biscuits and gravy so we’d have to order it on the side, but the special literally included biscuits and gravy. Waited over thirty minutes after ordering to get food (all breakfast). We watched 5 table walk in and order after us and get their food before us. I asked one of the serves if she could check on our order since it was taking so long and seeing everyone get their food before us. She was helpful and checked but told us she didn’t know what was going on since she didn’t take her order but that they were working on it. It is too small of a place that is never too busy to make people wait over 30 minutes for their food especially when you have 3 servers on staff. Our server also never checked on us during the meal and we were all out of water and never got refilled only stopped by to ask us if the bill was together or not. I’ve worked in the food service industry and it’s apparent they have uninterested employees who don’t care about their business. It is also apparent to me management and ownership don’t have a lot of pride in their business either. Probably won’t be back, which is too bad since we love supporting small businesses, you are better off at Cracker Barrel...

I am never disappointed by Twisters. The food is great and there is always friendly service.

UPDATED REVIEW 1/7/24 My boyfriend and I went in tonight to grab dinner. When we walked in there was only one other table with 3 people. The guy at the front told us to sit where we like and someone would be with us. After about 5 minutes a young lady brought us menus and took our drink order. She brought us our drinks and told us our server would be out to get our order soon. About another 5-10 passed before a red head girl (don't know her name because she never told us) came out to get our order. Didn't see her again until she brought our meals. She told us she would be right back with our ranch and check on our Mac n cheese bites. She went to the back and we proceeded to eat our other items. Everything tasted great. When the server finally re-emerged, she went to take the order of another table that had come in while we were eating. We gave another few minutes after we saw her finish taking their order before going up to the counter to ask about the ranch and our Mac n cheese bites and also ask for drink refills. This was about 15 minutes after initially getting our food. Another couple minutes passed and she brought the ranch. A few more minutes later she brought the Mac and cheese bites and we had to again ask for drink refills as they had still not been done. We finished eating and waited for about 5 minutes or so and still no sight of or check in from our server so we finally went to the counter to order our dessert and cash out. The guy and girl that got our dessert order and made our ice cream sundaes were incredibly nice and got us our dessert quickly. I know people have off days, etc, but for us to be one of 3 tables max during our visit and not get what could even be considered fairly decent service is disappointing. In all honesty, had this been my first dining experience here, I would not be going back. I hope greatly that this was a freak one off experience as I have been going here for years and never had this kind...