Mark Twain Dinette: Maid-Rite Restaurant and Diner — Restaurant in Hannibal

This was hands down one of the worst dining experiences my wife and I have ever had. Where do I even begin?

When we first got in, a hostess saw to us fairly quickly and said she'd clear a table off right away... and then she went and did about 5-6 other menial tasks while completely ignoring us. About 2 other groups piled up behind us in this tiny waiting area, which is also apparently where you settle your tabs, so all of us constantly felt in the way.

Finally some guy came from the back and had us sit at a dirty table while he cleared it off. That's when I noticed they had an entire spare room sitting empty! I understand they don't want waitresses overworking or covering too large of an area, but perhaps this would have been a better solution than letting people pile up out the door on a cold day?

Our waitress came over and handed us menus, and then promptly fetched us waters in tall glasses that were completely topped off with ice, but no straws, so there was no way to drink the water past 2 sips without throwing ice onto our faces. She also asked if we knew what we wanted when we'd had about 30 seconds to look at the menu. I figured it was fine because she would be back in a few minutes, so I just asked her for a couple of straws. But then she was gone in the back for several minutes, and alternated between going around topping off people's drinks at tables and checking up on other random tables all while thinking we needed time to memorize the entire dang menu! Those are the two options? 20 minutes to decide on your food or 25 seconds? We were on the road and new to the restaurant, so we obviously were both in a little bit of a hurry and didn't know the menu. By this time I'd forgotten about the straws and apparently so had the waitress.

My wife was thrilled to see they had their own brunch menu for weekends, an entire section of which was dedicated to different styles of Eggs Benedict. But when my wife ordered it, the waitress asked how she wanted her eggs... on an eggs benedict. I thought maybe the waitress was new, and she didn't understand that the eggs in eggs benedict were ALWAYS poached. We figured, "Oh well, the cook will know the difference, they have an entire section of their menu dedicated to Eggs Benedict, after all."

I'm not even sure how long our food took at this point, but it was at least half an hour. The groups piled up behind us spilling out the door got their food, ate and left. The waitress finally came by after some of this had gone on and said that it was just taking a while to cook the eggs. Sure enough, the eggs come out entirely overdone and the hollandaise sauce was broken (not made properly).

The meat on my dinette horseshoe was so bland I can only conclude they cooked it in boiling water. The onion rings were also flavorless and there was sparing amounts of the cheese and chili ranch sauce to help amend the lack of flavor.

At this point we just wanted to get the heck out of there. We had been nothing but polite and kind to all the staff, and they still seemed completely unconcerned about the poor quality of our food and service. We quickly paid and left and grabbed fast food (with a lot more flavor) on our way...

We tried to order kids meals. As the menu plainly states kids meals come with one regular side, kids drink, fresh fruit, and kids portion of fries. My boys (both under age twelve) decided they wanted Mac n cheese for their side. We ordered the waitress a bit unsure due to new menus she said but she thought the only sides we could have was mash potatoes, fries, or fresh fruit. I asked if she would check with the manager. She came back and said we get fries and fruit and the only side choice is mashed potatoes. I asked why would anyone want mashed potatoes with fries? I asked to speak to the manager? She came to the table with a look on her face like why was I bothering her? I read the menu allowed and asked why we couldn't have a choice from the sides menu? She responded with this is a reasonably priced kids meal and you can have mashed potatoes, but I'm not giving you Mac n cheese! I said we'll take the check for the appetizer and drinks or actually we'll just leave we had just recieved the appetizer and hadn't touched it yet. She said no you'll have to pay for it because we've already cooked it and brought it too you. I told her she was awfully rude for a manager she said I was rude apparently for bringing their false advertising to their attention. DO NOT GO HERE THEY ARE RUDE AND APPARENTLY DO NOT STAND BY THEIR MENU. I would have been fine if she had been pleasant and said sorry this is just a typo on our menu but she came at me like I was the bad guy for trying to get some clarity. UPDATE POST OWNERS RESPONSE : Perhaps if you had shown an ounce of customer service and explained that Mac n cheese is a premium side instead of looking at me thru your condescending eyes and assuming I was trying to scam you. Nowhere in the vacinity of the sides menu was your code system explained. Rather than suggesting we needed to choose from the non-starred sides you simply said "I'm not giving you Mac n cheese!" As for the drink mistake, I never mentioned it to you, I merely pointed it out to our waitress since she wasn't the one who brought the drinks. I ordered 2 smalls and a medium and did not want to be charged for the 3 larges I was brought. In regards to the other customers I never said anything unpleasant to your staff (yes I reciprocated your poor negative attitude back to you) and maybe if they knew the circumstances and had seen and heard the entire conversation they might not have been so willing to interject. Maybe if you are not good at interacting with people you shouldn't be in the public service industry. My family was in the restaurant business quite successfully for nearly 20 years and you would not have lasted 1 day on our staff with your poor customer...

We placed our delivery order around 7:30 PM tonight. When our order finally arrived at 8:30 PM, we were told 8:16 PM, the order was wrong. We purchased 3 shakes, only one had whip cream and a cherry, the other two did not. The shake caddy that I am assuming belongs to the restaurant was just left behind. When we brought the food inside, we only received a burger and fries. We had also ordered a horseshoe burger, but that was not in the bag. Instead we received a box full of cold onion rings. As soon as we realized the mistake we contacted the restaurant, which of coarse was closed. When we finally reached someone she was highly unprofessional. She told us she could only refund the one item missing and could not have anyone bring out our correct food. That would be fine if we weren’t stuck at home sick. Maybe it was on us for ordering so late, but maybe they should stop accepting delivery this late if you are unable to fulfill the orders if there is a mistake. We did ask for our entire order to be refunded and they could just pick the food that was delivered up and she refused. This is not the first issue we have had with this restaurant, but we did decide to give them another chance and I can promise you NEVER again!! We do have a family business downtown as well and I would never treat our customers in this manner. This restaurant will never receive our business nor be recommended when our customers ask where to eat. So $40 down the drain and a hard lesson learned that this establishment obviously does not care about their customers. Highly disappointed in Mark Twain Dinette. I’m sure you don’t care but I will make it my goal that you do not receive one dime from our family or friends...