Life Pancake Company — Restaurant in Jersey City

Silly, but stupid issues at the Brownstone Diner in Jersey City, August 5th, about 3:30 in the afternoon…

Had a little bit of an issue there, and I want people to chime in and let me know if you agree. But I ask you make sure to use basic logic.

I wanted the Health Watch Chicken. Looking at pictureof the menu above you can see that…

You can order: Soup or salad (salad for me Thx!) and, Pasta, rice or potato (linguini rocks!) and Choice of veg UNLESS otherwise restricted (my choice, broccoli or cauliflower, mmmm)

Waitress denied my choices. Claiming that the menu restricted veggies to the potato side Umm what? No, she’s made a mistake; so I pointed it out to her. Saw said no, that she was right, I was wrong. Ummm, no, not the way it’s written.

Ok, well, the management can clear up this easy issue.

So I hobbled (I have a bad toot) over to the manager after asking the waitress to get a manager

As I got to the desk, I saw the waitress briefing the manager!

I asked her not to and she rebutted that “she was only getting a menu” (no, she wasn’t ), but I thanked her anyway.

I showed the manager my issue and quoted verbatim the menu choices I wanted and she said, “not a problem!”

Then she backed up the waitress and said I couldn’t get my veg!

I explained it again, but that didn’t seem to matter! She said her attorney chose the wording and it had been a bad day and she didn’t need any more bad news. At that point I gave up and went back to my table.

As we were ordering the waitress asked me what my choice was. I decided to not order (politely as I was irritated with the decision) and she got angry with me. I photographed the menu and she got pissed, raised her voice, and started making snide comments literally snatching the menus away from us and walked away not even allowing us to finish our order!

At that point, I decided we were leaving and went to pay for the one coffee drink that we had actually received. We never drank it or even started it, just paid and left.

As we were leaving, our waitress started complaining about us! She was so loud that I could hear her, some 15 feet away, I replied in kind and made NO effort to be quiet and rebuked her behavior. I at that point I was louder by far than she.

TLDR: I was publicly disrespected, the waitress yelled at me and my friends who had done nothing to her, and we were charged for a coffee no one even drank!

I asked a professional copy writer that same afternoon and got the same interpretation of the menu. Taking pictures is THE move when there’s a disagreement, always have proof!

It’s bad enough that when there’s a shred of doubt you tell the customer that you had a bad day, back up an irate waitress, and then deny the customer who has a legit rebuttal. But when you condone bad behavior like that, you send a clear message.

So I bring it to the court of public opinion and ask for a “ruling”. Yes, I may have been technically right and was denied, but to have the other things done to me, well, I’ve lived a long time, seen a few things. I think the Brownstone Diner needs to remember who...

I want to preface by first saying that I've recently been frequenting Life Pancake Company for the past year and I've enjoyed the larger cafe feel while delivering very well on the staple breakfast and brunch items.

The issue I encountered that has altered my experience from wanting to go back to Life Pancake Company again is a strangely rude experience. I called Life Pancake Company earlier in the day on New Years Day to see if they were open and to my surprise they were open until 5PM EST. I arrived at 3:30PM EST for a late brunch and noticed the door was closed on one side so went to the other side to the open door. As I walked in I was waiting with my girlfriend to be seated and the waiter asked if we were dining or paying and I responded "Dining". She replied in a very snarky and obtuse way in front of other customers that they are closed and that she locked the door when she saw me/girlfriend walking up the ramp. She added that this was a way to notify us and future customers that they were closed (1.5 hours before closing) because their kitchen is overwhelmed.

To add there weren't that many people in the restaurant and there was 1.5hours until closing. I honestly would have been fine with the issue of the kitchen being overwhelmed but the way the waiter embarrassingly communicated to us in front of customers threw me off and I felt offended.

I've had this waiter before and she has made some obnoxious comments in the past, but I didn't take any of it to heart because my hunger took precedent. However, it only takes one sour experience to reflect that her service is overall unjustified.

I also understand the kitchen can get overwhelmed but the logic didn't make any sense because there were only 4-5 (less than half full restaurant) groups in the restaurant with the only large group (4 people) leaving. If the kitchen is overwhelmed the normal response is to inform the customers that the kitchen is backed up and inform the wait time. The wrong response is to criticize the customer for wanting to dine-in and be ridiculed in front of customers.

This is quite unfortunate to have this experience because I was really enjoying my experience because their cooks do an amazing job. I won't judge what needs to be changed but I do want to report that the waiter that was very rude to me and my girlfriend should be evaluated. If she is being rude to me on multiple occasions then she's being rude to others as well.

Great food but sub...

SO disappointed! Our waiter was a lovely man, but a TERRIBLE waiter! Had to go over our order THREE times within the HOUR it took to get our food! Sitting 15 minutes BEFORE someone came to bring us water and take our drink order. We knew what we wanted, so we ordered at that time. Took 15 minutes to get our drinks. ne specialty drink took an ADDITIONAL 15 minutes to receive. Food did not arrive until leterally 1 hour after we sat down, despite ordering 15 minutes after being seated. Total of 6 people, so not a large party, yet plates came out with 5-10 minute intervals between them, so by the time some of us started eating, our food was cold Plus some of the items ordered were delivered without the add ons. Avocado toast was difficult to eat because the chunks of avocado were HARD. The eggs in eggs benedict are supposed to be poached and soft - they were so overcooked that the yolk was cooked solid. Hollondaise sauce was so overcooked, it was a thick film. Seemed like our food just sat and sat and sat before being served. Literally 4 tables around us came after us and got their food before us. Two tables around us left after 15 minutes of waiting and not even having a server come to take drink ordders. Had to ask 4 times for to-go containers - from 2 people. Had to ask for ice 4 times from 3 people. We arrived at 10 a.m., but didn't leave until 12:00 because of the long wait for food, etc. Don't understand the issue, since tables around us were getting their meals quickly. Food was OK, but the service was terrible. Do NOT go...