The Colonial Pancake & Waffle House — Restaurant in Hot Springs

Normally we go to the pancake shop. Their c/c machine was down so we walked down to colonial. There was a wait and we got a buzzer went to the Christmas shop across the street and candy store a few doors down. When the buzzer went off the woman behind the register took it and just pointed without a word. Once seated the server came quick and took drinks followed by food. I asked for gravy on the side and she told me no I had to order something else and I could get the gravy on the side. I didn’t understand the reasoning All the whole we waited I observed the wait staff including our server being short with their tables or just ignoring them. My food came out minus the sausage, she said it would be a minute. I ate half my plate and still had no sausage. I had to tried to ask a server busing the table next to ours who just ignored me. I had to stop anoth who was walking by and ask about the sausage. It a small place and I could see and hear her ask our server who was ignoring us and never came back since dropping the food. My server in turn asked the kitchen. After a while she came by and told me it was cooking. I was over this place by this point and told her I was done and she could take my plate and only charge me for half a meal since that’s about what I ate. She started to argue with me and I told her, No she never brought me all my good abs I will pay for the half a meal I ate. She went to the back and returned with $7 off the $14.99 meal. When we left the cashier asked how it was and I told her. The servers are rude and no good and the food was just mediocre. She asked if I was ok with the ticket price seeing the discount already there and I told her it was fine. I ate half the food I was given and my partner ate his so I would pay for it. In retrospect putting together how she treated another table with a black lesbian couple who dared to correct her on being given the wrong item she sent the bill with a different server who was asked about being incorrectly charged. The other server went over to her at the back of the restaurant, she told her she had already taken $3 off. When the server took the bill back to the table their actual server who was the same as ours was bad mouthing them to other servers and making faces. (It’s a small place you can see and hear clearly). I have a strong feeling they or at least our server in addition to being lazy and rude was...

Pancake House down the road was definitely a higher quality product/mean. Portion sizes are adequate at each place and prices are about the same. The food at Colonial though definitely takes some short cuts and is not spectacular. The syrup literally tasted like....nothing.. almost just like sticky watered down sugar. I make my own syrup at home and you'd be (probably not) surprised to know that most companies don't actually add any maple to theirs, but I wonder where Colonial gets theirs from because it didn't even taste like vanilla or sweet. Again, Pancake House down the road is real maple syrup per my taste buds.

Shrimp and grits were really tastey. If I had to come back... I'd actually order that again.

We tried to biscuits and gravy. I'm a huge fan of biscuits, but to eat this one, I had to take a knife and fork to it. Pretty overdone. The biscuits for free at Comfort Inn up the road we're better. I'm not trying to be insulting, just honest. The gravy was a pretty typical sausage gravy. Wondering if hash browns are made in house..not sure. They were good.

Also got pancakes.. I prefer a sweeter tasting pancake, and these were them. Very sweet, so that might be why the syrup was tasteless. The butter was also weak, not salted. With these pancakes, a salted butter would be better. Again, versus Pancake House that has in-house cream, butter, juice... Hard to compete.

Also had no offer to refill coffee after the waitress stopped by to pick up dirty dishes multiple times and just left the coffee cup hanging. Kollective Coffee across the street fulfilled my caffeine needs for the morning.

Go to Pancake House. Go put your name on their list, shop while you wait. It's worth it.

Colonial is antique looking, cute, and the candy shop down the road is also owned by the family. But the food was...

We recently visited Hot Springs and, despite the several negative reviews on the restaurant, decided to stop in to the Colonial Pancake & Waffle House for breakfast. The host was friendly and informed us there was a bit of a wait, which we didn't mind. The wait wasn't terrible and we were able to choose between a booth or a table. The waitress was less than friendly and very unaccomadating. I had sweet tea, which was bitter and tasted like it was brewed the day before and sat out all night. I downed it and asked for a pop instead, which was switched out without issue. The waitress would not let me finish a sentence before running off from the table. She also rushed us to order and to check out. She did not check on the table more than a couple of times and only brought drink refills once. The food was not worth the hassle of dealing with the terrible staff and the PRICE. The eggs were bland and not seasoned. The country fried steak came from the frozen section. The waffle was dry and we had to ask for syrup (we asked the host, not even the waitress). Additionally, while we were there, another waitress was complaining to a table about how one of her other tables was being "needy" and constantly asking for things "Can we get ketchup? Can we get a refill?" etc. As we were walking out, our waitress asked a table if their sweet tea was okay because "another table switched drinks.", which was clearly referencing me. Overall, we should have listened to the reviews and not wasted our time/money here. If you rely on reviews as much as I do when traveling, I urge you to take your business elsewhere. You will be...