Harbor House Café — Restaurant in Huntington Beach

I hadn't been here since pre-Covid days. I remembered it was one of those 24 hour places with a ton of food options and I wanted to surprise my girlfriend with a late night date, and I knew she would find something she would like on the menu!

Before we even got in the door, it had a paper sign on it that read "last call at 11:45pm" - which I was busy reading when there was this aggressive shout (from what turned out to be the hostess) from the kitchen that yelled "TELL THEM LAST CALL IS IN 3 MINUTES" or something like that (which I didn't pay attention to, my girlfriend pointed this out after the fact).

We sat down at the counter and looked at the menu and finally came to a decision of two French toast combos, ordered, and waited patiently, since we were the last call of the night and I felt bad for not knowing it was no longer 24 hours.

Closing out our ticket was ok, the girl (I forgot her name, but she had fair complexion and short blonde hair) gave us good but super apprehensive service for some reason...but we left her a good tip anyways. When it came time to get our food, I didn't want to delay their closing so I grabbed our bag and we left without checking it.

However, when we got home, we realized that we were shorted food - specifically my 2 scrambled eggs and sausage patties! I was pretty forgiving of this, since I've kinda been concerned about my health and figured, what the heck, I'll call them tomorrow and explain the situation and see if I can get a refund over the phone or something for another visit.

So Sunday came, and I phoned them in the afternoon at the first opportunity. I asked for the manager and got someone named Susana Perez, who told me that she would take down my information and investigate via cameras. Susana called me back after what turned out to be 20 minutes and basically called me a liar. Her literal words, in broken English, were "OK sorry but I look at the cameras and you got everything".

I was kinda stunned about this - so I repeated to her what my order was, and she had it correct, but what I couldn't understand was how she was completely missing the fact that they should've (and failed to) packed an entire separate second bag with my items! In fact, they had overstuffed the first bag with 3 plastic trays of food and 1 small tray of nothing but syrup and butter that ended up melting all over the container because of how lazily it was packed!

What transpired next was me yelling over the phone at her asking if she did her job correctly, because she kept trying to cut me off and talk over me:

1. CAN YOU SEE EACH ITEM INDIVIDUALLY PACKED ON THE CAMERAS? (If she could, she wouldn't be blatantly lying stating I got everything)
2. DID YOU TALK TO THE HOSTESS?
3. DID YOU TALK TO THE COOKS?

She got flustered - she repeated that I got everything, then stated she would block my number and proceeded TO HANG UP ON ME

At this point I was pretty irate so I called the other location and got hold of a girl named Maritza (which, btw, thank you for your patience Maritza) and asked for the owner's information. All I was able to get was the first name of the owner: Naomi.

So I gave them my information and have been waiting 4 days for any kind of contact from the owner Naomi. I've received nothing. Susana did text me back after hanging up on me, but I responded that I wanted to settle the matter with Naomi and have heard nothing.

Therefore, I can't recommend this place. Leadership principles come from the very top, and if Susana was able to get away talking like this to a customer, I can only imagine what type of owner Naomi is to allow her subordinate to get away with it.

The food is bland and overpriced. The employees don't seem happy.

The atmosphere is DATED, and not in a cute way - there's movie posters from the early 2000s mixed in with the typical diner setting and aesthetics, which makes for a chaotic and distracting dining experience.

It's way out of the way, and its only redeeming aspect (24 hours) no longer exists.

Go to...

Small hole-in-the-wall diner where locals eat. It's small quaint and a bit tight, but in a good kind of way. It's part of what makes this place cozy, different & unique. The decore is eclectic and a welcoming snapshot in time if you appreciate nostalgia like I do.

Service is quick & courteous. No frills, no fuss.

I had a breakfast burrito with bacon as my protein of choice and extra cheese. It came with a small side of salsa, sour cream & quacamole. I was very happy with the burrito...it was good, simple and hit the spot! Items inside the burrito were well-balanced and evenly distributed. Nothing worse than a burrito with cheese all to one side and bacon on the other side, or all at the bottom or the top. It was just right here! I didn't care that the sides came in disposable plastic though. It just seems like unnecessary waste & more plastics in landfills than need to be. They could easily serve those in washable dishes or all three on a side plate.

My husband had the blueberry pancakes, which were very good & a generous serving along with a few pieces of bacon. The pancakes came with two small servings of syrup in disposable plastic containers. Again, unnecessary waste when they could put the syrup in a dispenser at the table. He did have to ask for two more servings of syrup, as there wasn't enough to go around. We both tried for several minutes trying to catch the attention of staff to ask for more, but we couldn't get there attention, despite it not being very busy. My husband ended up going to the counter, where the gal behind the counter brought out extra syrup right away, so no big deal.

We'll definitely be...

It was a special day for my husband and I it was our 35th wedding anniversary and this was the place I chose to go to because it's so wonderfully unique and the menu his fabulous there's anything you want to choose from twenty-four hours a day. The walls and even ceilings are covered with movie posters and pictures even signed pictures actors and anybody famous just go there you'll see what I mean it's so much fun just to look around. Well before this review gets to be too long I'd like to see what happened on this day to me at this restaurant something that has never happened in my whole life my husband was trying to take a picture of the two of us and a nice young man from across the way said let me take that for you guys we said great he took the picture several of them great ones and I told him it was our anniversary we spoke for a little bit and that was it. When it was time to leave we asked for the bill and our waitress said that nice young couple over there paid for your meal 4 year anniversary I couldn't believe it they were only about 30 years old younger than how long we've been married even. We went over and thank them a thousand times over couldn't believe that anybody would do such a thing I gave him a hug and on the way home I realized we didn't even get their names we definitely need to pay this forward your kids to paid my way if you're ever reading this thank you for the dinner very very much you made some old folks very...