Bluebird Diner — Restaurant in Iowa City

Been here twice with an excellent experience both times. Sunday morning, January 26 my wife and I arrived early with only several people at tables. We chose a table and a somewhat bland young woman brought us water and menus. She came back and took our orders and a couple of minutes later brought our coffee. Our food arrived and we proceeded to eat. Now please understand, we were here because we loved our previous visits here. I had ordered the fried chicken steak but received beef instead which was ok since I had considered both. I thought that I was getting hash “browns” but there was very little brown, just a pile of string potato that was at least hot but barely any crisp brown crust. The scrambled egg had been poured on the griddle and turned once, more of an omelet, rubbery and chewy. My toast was a 3/4” thick slice of bread that spent enough time in the toaster to melt the butter, but had no toasted color other than white to match the potatoes and was more like bread than toast. The beef gravy over the fried steak was very good, the best part of the meal, but there was not enough of it, it would have been nice to be able to spoon some over the potatoes. My wife had the same potato issue but had ordered a pancake in lieu of toast. The pancake looked beautiful when served, but the ball of butter never melted even a bit, but cold is ok since that was to be her desert. Her first two bites off of the edge of the pancake were consumed, but when she looked at her cuts into the pancake, raw batter was oozing out of the inside of the cake, not edible at all and the meal was spoiled completely. Oh, I forgot to mention that after the server presented our plates, she never came back to check on us and midway through my meal I had to walk up to the server station for more coffee as she never came back to see if we needed more coffee. So while the food here has always been very good to excellent, we definitely had a bad experience this visit. Wait staff needs training or this young lady needs to find another profession and ditto the cook. I fault the management for lack of training and oversight. But we did get one dollar off the bill. Not...

The Bluebird Diner sucks. Period. I ordered an omelette. The menu said it came with hashbrowns but did not mention toast. Sure enough, I saw that toast is a "side" that costs $2 extra. That immediately resolved me never to return — but then when the food arrived, the hashbrowns were stone cold, and they gave me ONE LOUSY SLICE OF TOAST FOR TWO DOLLARS EXTRA. The waitress didn't check on me till I was 3/4 of the way thru the meal, at which point I complained. She got huffy and asked if I were criticizing her personally. No, I told her: the establishment. A manager, some minutes later, came over with a hostile expression on her face and asked, "You have an issue?" I told her all of what was wrong. She argued and rationalized. "It says on the menu that toast is extra. You knew it." Yes, but I didn't know about the cold hashbrowns, nor that it would be one piece of toast for two bucks. I said, "How you disrespect your customers!" I asked, "What are you going to do about it?" She replied, "I'm going to expect you to pay." I said, "Oh, I'll pay. And so will you." This review is a down payment. (Oh, she did forgive me the two dollars, most magnanimously, after a great deal of argument. Sorry, that doesn't cut it.) When I went to the cash register to pay, I told her, "When I was very young, my boss told me, 'If a customer has a complaint, if you handle it well, they will go away better pleased than if they had had no complaint. If you handle the complaint badly, you compound the problem, because they'll go away mad — and they'll tell everyone else.'" She said nothing; barely even looked at me. My last words to that manager were, "You have learned...

I decided to visit this place on 11/8/2015 because it came highly recommended. I had the pleasure of sitting in the first seat at the bar next to a lovely couple.

For those of you that don't know the bar faces the kitchen, the toaster, the register etc...you know a lot of the things you don't get to see at a booth or a table.

Prior to looking at the menu, the cook caught my attention. He was coughing like he had every symptom of the flu and yet he was preparing the food. Next, I noticed there were packs of bread falling over the place next to the register. Which wouldn't be so bad but it became apparent that the waiters are suppose to make the toast for the meals and Well...

None if them washed their hands, they weren't wearing gloves, some of them even had money and debit cards in their hands while throwing toast on the plates.

The couple next to me noticed my disgust and while they agreed with the lack of hygiene they assured me the food was worth it. I attempted to overlook it until, the cook went on a coughing attack and didn't bother to cover his mouth. The transfer of germs was so disgusting I just know if they have this level of disregard and lack of care in the places that customers can see, I just imagine what's happening in the places we can't see.

After 10 minutes, I realized this place wasn't for me and I left. Now, I'm not expecting anything perfect but someone who works with food and is sick should be sent home. And handling money and making toast simultaneously should not be a tolerated practice. Sitting receipts on top of bread slices before toasting should also be...