Smitty's Pancake & Steak House — Restaurant in Idaho Falls

I'm not 100% sure why I've given repeat business to this establishment. It must be at the request of people visiting with me who are from out of town and the location is convenient. Being that I don't like to be negative, I don't respond to their requests with the comment that Smitty's service has been consistently poor. Well, after about 6 visits where the staff at Smitty's has been outright neglectful and always indifferent, it's time to make the comment. It's not that the place is short on staff. When we entered and when we left, there were four employees standing behind the counter at the host/hostess station doing mostly nothing; all four looked confused when we offered a friendly greeting. To be fair, I realize that these days there is a shortage of employees who take pride in their work. Yet I suspect it's fair to blame the management for failing to train properly, part of which includes inspiring the best from employees using strong leadership, not just management. Maybe the owners of Smitty's can continue to get by on location, location, location... Maybe that's what they'll continue to do instead of making positive changes... The pricing and the menu items that I've tried are certainly not special enough to make up for not even being able to get a single coffee refill for the entire meal during the most recent visit, especially after answering yes to the waitress who asked if we wanted coffee refills and then did not even return to our table. I would much rather give positive reviews, and have given those positive reviews greatfully when they were earned. However, nothing positive can come from accepting consistently poor service. Hopefully, others will find improvement here if they choose to try Smitty's, hopefully they will pass along the positive as well as the negative, maybe some day in the distant future I'll take a chance again at Smitty's, if they are still around. For now though, I plan on supporting other restaurants that earn their customers' endorsement by, at minimum, simply caring enough to hit the mark for these three qualities: 1: "Great food." (Average food in my experience for Smitty's, though admittedly I haven't tried every menu item) 2: "Better service. Almost as important as having good food, the quality of service can make-or-break a restaurant’s success. Unfriendly staff and slow service are common markers to avoid." (6 for 6 on poor service during my 6 visits to Smitty's; a fortunate thing for Smitty's that their prime location gives them a lot of business from one-time tourists who just want a close place to eat) 3: "Effective management. Understanding every facet of your restaurant’s operations is key. That’s how you prevent problems before they even happen, such as running out of popular dishes or being understaffed during peak periods." (Again, being understaffed wasn't the problem during today's visit, nor was running out of a dish, at least that week ordered. But there have been several times when the wait was significant and the service was slow at Smitty's. During one visit, when the wait was expected to be over 20min, the host(s) skipped over our group because we had to wait around the corner from the host/hostess station and didn't hear their faint announcement due to the high noise level in the restaurant at that time. So fair to say, from my perspective, 6 of 6 visits with poor service is a likely indicator of ineffective management and lack of leadership)

To be honest, I have not spoken with the management to address my concerns during any of my visits. In part this is because I truly do not enjoy having to be the bearer of bad news, the other is time related, as well as it wouldn't be fair to the others with me that they have to wait while I address concerns, even though they shared these same concerns. Please consider this review an opportunity to do better instead of a reason to be offended or make excuses for past and current performance. I truly hope...

Was recently in town for the 4th of July and thought we'd try Smitty's for brunch. Probably due to the holiday weekend, but the initial wait time for a table (of 4) ended up being about 35 min. Not the end of the world. We noted a couple groups of the same size who showed up after us, who appeared to get seated before us because they were complaining to staff about the wait. Being patient and quietly waiting our turn seemed to make our wait longer. The wait staff was pretty solid and attentive.

Food portions were comically large on a few of our items, specifically the kid's meals. The six "silver dollar" pancakes were each about 5" in diameter and each meal was more than I could even eat as an adult male. Wish the waiter would have mentioned how giant the kid's meals were when we ordered one each for our 2 and 9 year olds, when really three or four kids could likely share a single meal. Led to lots of wasted food. The prices were definitely reasonable for the size of the portions.

The biscuits and gravy were meh; gravy tasted like it was rehydrated from a grocery store packet, biscuits weren't amazing. The prime rib eggs bennedict was good but not amazing; I didn't mind it, but regretted not getting something else. The scones are huge, and while not bad, were pretty average. The hash browns were average and, in retrospect, I should have ordered them crispy because I maybe had three bites of crispy hash browns on my entire plate; my fault, maybe, but most places default to a crispier hash brown.

Overall, I'd say the food quality was on par with an iHop or Denny's type chain; nothing we had was all that amazing. I'd be upset if the prices were higher, but it was a lot of food for the price, just wasn't the caliber of food we were expecting. Glad we tried it, but wouldn't go back. We've had much better breakfast food at other places in...

One star too many! But can't put zero, soooo.

I'm not even sure if the food was up to my standards because we never got the chance. I went here from the good reviews. We were greeted and seated fast. The atmosphere was very nice. The restaurant was sectioned off by the front and had 2 dining areas, East and West. Went to the East. There was a huge family (about 15 + adults) we were in the corner and the hostess gave us some water, and said there was only one waitress on this side but she'd be with us shortly. We didn't even see her for 10 minutes. And then she only talked to the big family about some of the food that will be coming out because they got the order wrong. She ran back to the kitchen and disappeared for another 10 minutes. Now the hostess had gotten coffee for the 2 men behind us when she seated them. Our waitress finally reappeared from the bowels of her haven(the kitchen) and was grabbed by the couple in the corner(only due because she had to walk past them to talk with the big family), who had been waiting longer than us, looked like they had actually gotten to order at that time. After she gave the couple their drinks, she promptly went back to the big family table and said the rest of their food should be out momentarily. Now we tried to get her attention at this time but she didn't even hear us calling or look our way just flitted back to the kitchen. Now 30 minutes had elapsed since we had gotten seated and we were hangry! We...