Emmily's — Restaurant in Johnston

Edit (5.14.23):

I am truly disappointed - my husband and I regularly eat at Emily's and have always enjoyed the brunch. However I just had the worst experience that I hope the owner will think long and hard about rectifying the unethical business practices.

Today is Mother's day and the restaurant is understandably busy. To streamline things, they limited the menu. This is not a bad thing. The issue is that nothing was special about it other than being pink and more expensive than the regular menu. Being a regular, I ordered the old fashioned (two eggs, toast and home fries) which is normally $7. I usually get a side of avocado ($2), and a coffee (usually $3, but during today's price gauging it was $4). I was expecting my meal to be $13. My meal ended up being $21. Let me repeat that...the most basic breakfast...two eggs, toast, and potatoes with half an avocado and coffee cost $21.

I can afford a good meal and don't mind paying for quality. However this was the owner just looking to profit off of mother's day by offering less options and charging more for the same food. In the bartender's defense, she did offer to reduce the price. But one person's fixed ticket is not going to matter for a whole business's bad practices. I asked to speak to the owner to share the feedback that it is wrong to price gouge. I made it clear that if he couldn't make the time to chat and consider fixing his bad practices, I'd leave a negative google review detailing why this was wrong. He couldn't be bothered to speak to me and sent the bartender back to me with a $5 bill. It was insulting to think $5 was going to make me be quiet about a truly unethical business practice (offer less and charge more). Taking advantage of people's love of their moms (and apparently they also do this on Easter), is disgusting. You know that you're going to be packed (re the streamlined menu). This would be a big profit day anyway. Upping your prices for one day is insulting to the regulars and unfair to those looking to create a nice experience for their families.

So here we are with a negative review. I don't like writing negative reviews, but the unethical practices of Emily's where they intentionally offer less, but charge more is disgusting. The food is good. The servers are awesome. The owner is unethical.

I sincerely hope the owner will reconsider his position. Your customers deserve better. Great food, friendly service, and a true treat for Sunday brunch. I am addicted to their garden omelet, and the hash is my husband's absolute favorite....

This place was highly recommend to me and maybe that's why my visit felt like a bigger disappointment than it really was.

First, we arrive and aren't greeted for about 2 minutes even though the host is standing right there. She was reading some notes out of a notebook and seemed sort of frantic. When she did greet us she didn't look us in the eye, just said "be right with you guys" and walked away, never coming back. A different girl came and sat us, but she didn't say a single word to us either. Odd, but whatever. They took our order right away. We got a mimosa first and it was warm. Warm!

I ordered the huevos rancheros and it was sour. My first thought was that something was spoiled, but then I realized it was the red sauce. Nasty! They also made my eggs wrong so I wasn't even able to eat it. I just nibbled on the edges and ate the avocado.

My BF ordered the western omelette and it was bland. The home fries were bland and the best part was the toast... Hard to mess up a piece of toast, it's just bread and butter.

We also ordered the almond-joy waffles to-go but they forgot and never brought it to us. We decided not to remind them because we didn't want to subject our housemate to that, plus we just wanted to leave. It was really hot in there. Apparently the A/C was off because they turned it on as we were leaving.

After the food was brought to us, no one came to check on us again. I had to go up to the bar to ask for extra napkins and the check. To be honest, I was getting a little impatient but our waitress was just standing around at the bar so I went up.

The food was priced decently, so no complaints there. The place was clean and neat and the food presentation and portions were big (picture attached). Too bad it was gross.

I would never return here and I would NOT...

My fiancee and I went for dinner as they advertised a special including two dinners and a bottle of wine for $45. I thought that for that price it can't be spectacular but maybe still worth trying, as I liked their breakfast when I had it a few years ago. We got there and there were only two waitresses in the whole place. I like to consider myself rather patient but waiting 5 minutes to be seated with multiple open tables and then an additional 15 minutes to even be acknowledged by a waitress is nuts. I guess we were in one woman's section but she wholly ignored us so the other waitress had to pick up her slack, bless her heart but it was clear she was very new. Extremely frustrating that the other one just hung her out to dry like that.

As for the food, it was your bog standard chicken parm. The sauce was tart, the chicken buried in cheese, pasta slightly overcooked, but still good enough. The wine was Barefoot, very sugary and not very good. I had to wash it down with water that we asked for 4 times and didn't get until after we finished eating. I can't complain too much because for 45 dollars we had a full dinner with soup/salads, entrees, and a bottle of (bad) wine. Hard to come by. Don't look at the ceilings because they're dirty. Walls are chipped to hell. Atmosphere as a whole was just "we haven't updated since 2008 using 1990s...