The Original Pancake House — Restaurant in Kennewick

Horrible place. On a Monday, at noon, we had to wait 20 minutes for a table to be cleaned (we counted 6 empty ones), another 10 minutes for water, and 20 minutes for someone to take our order only to be told that they had run out of the over-priced food that we had wanted. (HINT: A restaurant with good customer service tells the customers BEFORE they order that an item is out of stock, often as the customer is given the menu.) Terribly rude staff, a dirty restaurant, more concerned with getting a lot of people through the door than with serving them. A cramped, muddy, dirty parking lot on a strange side street with a view of the freeway. Worst experience with a restaurant in the Tri-Cities and completely over priced for breakfast food. On the positive side, just down the road in the Tri-Cities is the Sageport Grille, with an affordable, hearty breakfast, and fantastic staff. Check out my review for there!!!

UPDATED RESPONSE TO "MANAGER": If you read my reviews you will find that I am deeply sympathetic to the plight of any non-global-chain establishment. That being said, you missed the most salient points of my review: Your restaurant was NOT busy when we visited. Again, we counted 6 empty tables (completely cleared) from the lobby, not including any we couldn't see in the interior. Your staff chose to be inefficient (and there were plenty of them within view), nothing more. You say you have NO control over the condition of the parking lot (YOUR parking lot--really, you have no say??), but your staff is fully capable of cleaning the tables, floors, and walls. Nobody should have to eat food in dirty conditions. Again, there was plenty of staff available to do the work. They mostly seemed to prefer to mill about and gossip with each other instead. We sat for at least 30 minutes with menus in front of us. Many staff members passed by without making eye contact, without checking in on us, without a word to us, intent on not serving us in any manner. Your staff chose not to be customer-service oriented, the most basic tenet of the customer service job. That's what most needs to be fixed in your restaurant. You can keep cutting and pasting these responses (it is easy to see the trend in your restaurant's reviews as of late, and my review matches to many of the negative reviews your restaurant has received), or you can fix these issues. Thank you for your consideration of these...

Having grown up near an Original Pancake House, when I saw the restaurant in my travels through Washington State, I felt I could get a decent quality breakfast.

That was not the case however.

Walking in there was trash and dirt on the floor. The entry was disorganized and the host grabbed napkins and silverware from a little tray sitting by a trash can. Three different hosts and hostesses came up and passed us off between them with nobody actually getting us to a table. Finally somebody took the reins and took us to a table that needed cleaning. The hostess gave it a quick unsatisfactory wipe and set us down. The table was sticky and booth seats were not cleaned properly and dirty.

They were very few customers in the restaurant at the time of our visit and even still service was slow.

My biggest complaint is both my girlfriend and I found our food to be off.

I had county fried steak. It smelled funny and tasted even funnier. I thought maybe it had just been left in the freezer too long and was old. I feel it was more than that however.

I brought it to the server's attention and was ignored.

Even the potatoes and eggs on my plate had a off-putting taste and aroma. The meal came with pancakes and they were good. Mistakingly I ate a couple of forks of potatoes one of the eggs and some of the steak.

The more I ate the more it smelled and tasted funny.

My lady had french toast which she did eat and sausage patties of which she ate some but not all. She mentioned that it tasted odd also.

Again we brought it to the server's attention upon receiving ourcheck. We did not asking for any discount. We were thinking that something should be done or at least they should be aware they are serving poor quality rotten food.

Upon cashing out we were given a small discount. A very small token considering.

We both got sick with food poisoning for 4 days.

I realize when the food's not bad we should not have eaten it. That was a foolish maneuver on our part.

I don't normally give bad reviews but people should know you're literally taking your health in your hands.

Very disappointed.

The original pancake House used to be a quality place to eat breakfast. Like so many other things I guess that is no...

Tuesday morning, we arrived and no one greeted us. We stood for a few minutes with no employee in sight until someone finally came to the front to get us on the waitlist. There were quite a few empty booths and seats on the left side of the restaurant with no one sat there. Seemed to only be 2 servers working total.

We waited 10 to 15 minutes to be seated and were still there almost an hour and a half. (Got there about 10:10am and left at 12pm. We didn't even sit and talk after getting the ticket. It was all waiting for food and people)

3 stars for the ridiculously high prices and the slow service. You can't find anything on their menu under 16 dollars unless you want the senior section of food. Anything added or substituted on their menu is around 2 dollars or more! Paid almost 40 dollars for a meal for 2. I got the eggs and Bacon platter (2 eggs - I added cheese-, 4 pieces of bacon, 3 buttermilk pancakes and potatoes) and my companion got the pecan waffles and 2 eggs. We only had water to drink because the drinks are almost 4 dollars a piece.

Our waiter was good, but the service was extremely slow. Our waiter had 2 big groups plus 4 other tables by himself. We asked for straws, we waited 10 mins to get some so we could drink our drinks. Wanted water refills, waited quite a bit for those. We waited quite a while for our food as well.

On a good note, the bacon is the thickest and best tasting I have ever had. It was Not one of those skimpy pieces and I got 4 of them with my eggs and Bacon entree. The buttermilk pancakes were perfect! Very fluffy and delicious flavour. The potatoes were ok and the eggs were good.

The food was good, but the price and service was...