Blue Bench Brunchette — Restaurant in Idaho

It takes a lot for me to leave zero tip on a meal but boy this was really bad.

They seated us after a 30 minute wait. The server didn’t acknowledge us at all for like 10 minutes. That whole place is run by teenagers who clearly don’t know what they’re doing. After flagging the server down she comes over to us to take our order but she didn’t bring a pen. So she leaves and comes back and I order the savory French toast and my husband orders the hipster toast with some stuff on top of it. I also ask for a vegetarian sausage patty on the side because it says it’s available on the menu.

They bring me a chicken sausage patty. She puts it down in front of me, and i ask if that is actually the veg one and she said yes. I said it doesn’t look like a veggie sausage and she insisted it is. I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years and I know that isn’t a veggie sausage patty. I took a bite and knew immediately it was meat. I flagged her down to tell her it was not veggie and she again insisted it was. She said she could get a new one made for me and I said what’s the point when I know it’s meat and I don’t eat meat. She just seemed confused by this whole notion. I told her to take it off the bill.

The “hipster toast” says it’s topped with fresh avocado but they use guacamole from a pouch that you can buy for cheaper than fresh avocado. Owners, Don’t even try to argue against this because I can tell the difference. It was not fresh avocado. I eat fresh avocado many days of the week and I worked in the food industry for a long time and I know that that is not fresh avocado. You charge $13 for this? Biggest rip off ever. Also the mushrooms we paid for as an add on weren’t even cooked all the way through which is gross.

We waited 45 minutes for our food and it was not even good. We ate as fast as we could just to get out of there.

When we got the check it said chicken sausage on there and I showed her and said this is why they gave me chicken and not veg and she again said that’s not why I got the wrong one. How dense can she be? This girl is in the wrong line of work if she can’t even understand that if you put an order in the computer that says chicken sausage the line cooks give you.. chicken sausage. Duh!!

The long wait, the bad service, the subpar food… terrible. What a terrible experience. I’m shocked at the 4+ stars for this place. We came here on a recommendation from a friend so maybe it was just a bad day but golly...

Overall a disappointing experience. We came to this place e with high hopes, I love brunch and eggs Benedict is my jam, so I thought we'd give it a try when we were in town. I'm sorry we wasted our time. The place isltself is cute. A little overly feminine and kitschy. I felt like I was at a country wedding or something, they could tone down the decor a little. After standing, in a nearly empty redtaurant, at the hostess counter for 5 minutes while one girl talked to someone on the phone and took a reservation, while the other girl just looked around the other girl was finally able to seat us. One of the first things I noticed, there seemed to be more employees than customers. Our waitress brought waters and took our drink order and brought our drinks promptly, and it all went downhill from there. We weren't in a hurry, but we're hoping for an efficient experience as we were trying to get back on the road. Once we decided what we wanted I was looking around for our waitress and there she was chit chatting with a coworker. No big deal, eventually she came and took our order. Our food seemed to come out quickly, but somehow in that short time, my French toast was burnt. The cook had strategically placed them face down, so I wouldn't see the burnt side, but it was pretty easy to figure out. I managed to eat 1 of the 8 pieces that came on my plate. I set the French toast aside and looked around for the waitress only to see her leaning against the counter sipping coffee and chit chatting with the same waitress from before. I'm sorry, but customers should not see your employees eating or drinking, it's unprofessional in the food service business. I decided I would just eat my eggs and sausage only to find my sausage over cooked as well. My husband seemed to be enjoying his food, but he wasn't impressed by undercooked bacon and over seasoned potatoes. I was finally annoyed enough by the waitress that I asked another employees to speak to the manager because our waitress was still chit chatting. Now the waitress finally come over to her and I explained what had happened and stated that I still wanted to talk to the manager. Finally, the manager comes out and I am able to explain what happened. Perhaps if he were helping out and managing on the floor on a Saturday he would see what his employees were doing. We won't bother going there again, I'm sure we can find better everything...

The place is so damn cute it’s wonderful. Like a cottage. That’s what saved it from the one star. Based on these other reviews here I feel like I’ve been robbed of a great breakfast experience. But… alas.

We’ll start with the food. It sounded great. The menu looked good! It was cute, fun names, it all sounded good. I decided to go with what I think was called “the stuffed tortilla.” Either way it was a burrito. Clean as day. It said it had fries in it! The brunchette’s very own Idaho cut fries! I didn’t know “cottage fries” were a thing at the time so I expected, yanno, fries! But they were little potatoes cut into round flat things. They were still yummy, I had some on the side. The burrito though was unfortunately not good. It was, like, runny? But not runny eggs runny. Like watery cheese and citric acid eggs. It was kinda sour! The bacon too was a let down. We asked for extra crispy. The strips came out charred lookin extra crispy indeed only to be soggy and greasier than usual and made our tummies not feel so great. We also got a muffin that was so moist and small it felt like it was a gas station muffin warmed up in a microwave. Unfortunate.

Last up is probably the service. We might have just come at a wrong time on a Monday brunchtime. It wasn’t very busy but they did have one large table. There were at least three servers while we were there and the one who took us didn’t make eye contact or converse further than what we were ordering. He seemed distracted and stressed. Which, fair, you can be in a breakfast environment, but bro if we’re gonna pay 40 bucks for two plates, coffee and orange juice I want to be talked to. That’s not the biggest thing though. fella didn’t come and check up on us during the meal and took our plates when we were done (he asked if I wanted a box for the burrito I tried my hardest to love but couldn’t). After he took our plates we sat there waiting for 25 minutes before we got our bill. No refill on the coffee, waters, or orange juice. We felt forgotten. And by the time he did bring us our bill we were so antsy to get out of there it wasn’t fun anymore.

TLDR; food was greasy and gross, some eggs were sour....