Hippo Café — Restaurant in Hutto

We moved to the area a few months ago and discovered the Hippo Cafe. We love a good local diner and easily become regulars when we find a place we like. The food is great but we are considering being done with this place due to the infuriating slow and awkward service after food is served. The staff have the first part pf service down. Greet, drinks, take order bit that's where it takes a turn. Every time. Every server. We will specifically ask for things like hot sauce or biscuits with our meal. They serve it and forget. No biggie. So we nicely ask again. It takes them like three trips to get three things that we asked for at once. Or they ask if we want refills and we say yes but then they make a trip for every drink or just don't listen to the actual response when they ask and we have to request again. But the worst thing is trying to pay. It's a 10 minute or longer process every time. We have usually been ready for a while before they come back to start their incredibly inefficient check closure. We often just end up going to the counter to pay. We ask for the check and wait. And wait. And wait. They finally come back and don't seem to register that we are done and have been done. Today, anticipating this, we offered her our card so she could just take care of it but while standing in front of us she basically refused and said we had to pay at the table. OK whatever. We sit and wait. And wait. We see her coming back and she has drinks for another table. Again, whatever, she needed to serve them too but then she took their whole order!!!!! At this point we've been done eating for 15-20 minutes and asked for the check 5-10 minutes ago. She came to the table and whips out the handheld POS and turns out I can pay with that. So why didn't she just let us pay on it when we tried to give her our check instead of basically admonishing us that we had to wait to pay at the table???!!!

I worked in food service for 10+ years. The basic tenants of service are full hands in - full hands out and consolidate. Get everything you can at one time at the table and when returning from the back. Oh, they want to pay now and I have the ability to make that happen? Do it. Please for the love of breakfast food, don't make us wait over 10 minutes just to pay.

And also, I'm still not clear what the actual payment process is here. With a paper check? Sometimes. With the handheld POS? Apparently yes. At the counter? Yes as well.

I love the food, the vibe, the hippos, and the servers are nice people but they drop the ball in the second half of service every time. Maybe do some training on how to efficiently serve and...

This is a typical greasy spoon restaurant. I happen to really like greasy spoons. A large part of the charm is the fatty goodness, the cleanliness, and the hospitality. This failed on all three counts. We (a party of two) got there at 8.15am on a Saturday. We were seated promptly (by the bathrooms so everyone, including the wait staff, walked by us repeatedly) and were left for at least fifteen minutes. We were then greeted by our waiter who took our drink order and left. We got part of our drink order within ten minutes. The rest we had to remind a different waiter, twice. After we finally got the last part of our drink order we were left before they could take the rest of our order. We're were never offered nor received a refill for the remainder of our meal. We were reassured by no less than three waiters/waitresses that they would be right with us to take our breakfast order. Meanwhile, no fewer than three tables walked in, sat down, ordered, and were served. Around then I had the persistent company of a fly who either would not leave or had lots of companions. He did not leave until we left.

When finally they took our order, we still had to wait for it's delivery. Of note, both of our orders were wrong when they arrived. We both ordered an additional berry topping, which translates to three small strawberries for me and two small spoonfuls of blueberries for my partner. They fixed the orders and we ate. My breakfast tasted funny, I told the waitress when she came back, and she explained it was part of the dish and walked off. When my partner was done, she came back, noted I hadn't eaten and asked if I didn't like it. I told her I didn't. She left again. She came back, asked if we wanted the check, which we did. And she left again. She proceeded to make her way around the entire room, delivering water, food, and boxes, before returning with our check. She then left, got a box gave it to us, and left again. We followed her to the counter to pay at which point we were stopped by another waitress who asked if it was good. We told her it wasn't. She then asked why, so we told her just about my meal. She explained that it was part of the meal, but it wasn't on the menu. She then offered to make us something else... as we were leaving. By that point I wasn't convinced that they could get something timely, or that it would be correct, so we declined.

Since then I've been running to the bathroom every twenty minutes for the last three hours. I only ate two bites of the stuff. I was going up give the leftovers to my dog, but I'm seriously concerned about what's in it. Take that...

I was at Lowe’s in Hutto and decided I wanted to try a local Hutto place to eat afterwards instead of a chain. I was pleasantly surprised to see a name pop up I’ve never heard of. Hipp Café!

I stopped by for lunch and had a very friendly server. A fairly new server but very friendly. I ordered a Buffalo chicken sandwich grilled with fries and an additional side of mac & cheese. I was very happy with the sandwich, great flavors and delicious overall. The fries were plentiful and nice and hot but seemed to be the breaded fries that you get in a lot of fast food places. They were good but not my thing. The mac & cheese was also nice and warm but didn’t look as fresh as the rest. It was still good and I really enjoyed my lunch.

The server really only came back once, again very friendly but never offered to refill my tea. I did finally ask for a tea to go which was quickly retrieved.

When it came time for the bill she came over with her device and told me the total. I’ve never been anywhere that they didn’t give you a print out first, then come back. Ever! She was able to print that out for me. When I looked at the bill everything was okay except for an “Admin charge”. So I asked what it’s for. I was told it was to cover fluctuating prices. It was an answer. I didn’t like it but it was an answer. I’ve owned a small business before so I get that it can be hard with inflation, that’s why you build in that cost in the price of your product. I asked if the menu mentioned that cost so my new server had to ask someone else who (not in a friendly tone) said “it’s right here on the wall, it’s all we are required to do”. I feel like if you’re not trying to be sneaky about something you state it on your menu and you give the customer a printout of their bill before trying to charge them. I told them they should let the owner know it should be on the menu. This isn’t Portland where they add a % for everything, it’s Hutto Texas. Build the cost in to your price, it’s easier for a customer to take that way.

I was excited to find this place and even with the not so great mac & cheese was excited to find a little place that I could take my mom to. Somewhere local. I know my 4.00% admin fee was only .81cents but I hate being nickel’d and dime’d. Still not sure if I will take my mom there. It looks like some good stuff in the menu.

Sorry for the not so great...