Simple Café — Restaurant in Lake Geneva

Decided to come to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for a quick b-day getaway. On our last day there, I saw this place on Yelp and the food looked good so decided to try them on 12/1/24, a lazy cold Sunday morning. I was a little nervous because many of the reviews talked about having to wait awhile to be seated. We lucked up, this wasn't our situation as they seated us right away. It was packed in there. We got to sit by the window which was the perfect spot. At the particular time we got there, we didn't have to pay the metered parking which was sweet but please, make sure you check if you happen to park in those spaces to make sure you don't get a ticket.

Our female waitress was wonderful - friendly, kind and very attentive. We didn't have to wait long for our food. Breakfast is served all day which I love places that do. Our food was delicious! Everything was fresh! Pancakes were so yummy and yes, they were just as good, buttery and fluffy as my picture shows! Homemade chicken sausage was really good. The red potatoes I really liked - they sauteed it with green onions which really gave it a good flavor (I want to try this at home and see if I can come close to how theirs were).

The eggs get a paragraph all to themselves. My God! Those were the best eggs I have had in my life, do you hear me? They had to have just gotten those from a chicken - even the orangish-yellowish coloring of the eggs were different. I wanted to order more eggs but I couldn't fit it anywhere in my belly - I was too full :(

I really enjoyed my meal and hubby did too as he had the Korean BBQ Breakfast Bowl. Both of our plates were clean when we finished. I definitely want to return here. They have a bakery next door should you want to treat yourself to a sweet.

Simple Cafe, there is nothing Simple about you! Thank you for adding to our wonderful trip to Lake Geneva. A++++ all around in our books!...

Staff told visibly pregnant woman (if observant) to wait outside in heat, humidity and rain for around a half hour and then again after we asked if we could sit down inside. Staff said wasn’t sure if that were permitted even for customers. This made us feel unwelcome from the start.

The uncrowded restaurant needed to maintain several empty tables, we were told. The reason given was a short-staffed kitchen. That’s understandable! So is waiting, 30 minutes or an hour or whatever. We enjoy a leisurely pace on vacation. Why not allow her to get comfortable at one of the small tables-for-2 no one’s using—or at least offer to pull up a chair near the entrance? Why not make small talk: “It’s sticky today, isn’t it? Could we bring you a water while you wait?” It was a hot week. No rush of customers seemed to be coming in behind us. That wouldn’t necessarily be going the extra mile—just politeness and sound business sense.

I suppose I wish for higher hospitality on vacation. (And I concede they’re people at work and can’t know what’s going on in someone’s life.) But the staff could be supported with customer-service training and professional development to grow into roles. Or the owner/manager could implement better policy. We left Simple Cafe to go to Egg Harbor where they seemed happy when we entered regardless that it was busy. We found a cool, dry, lively place to rest after a day of walking around Lake Geneva.

TLDR: denied harbor from the elements,...

This was my second time there this summer (2020). The first time I had the Turkey Hash and it was AMAZING. Lots of food, delicious and fresh tasting. I have very specific food restrictions and they did a wonderful job with my special requests with that visit. However, I went for my second visit and decided to try something else. Again, I am on a very restricted diet so my choices are really limited with any menu. I ordered the tofu dish this time, but I don't eat soy, so I asked for them to serve it w/o the tofu. I asked if there was anything they would be willing to sub for the tofu. There was not.The waitress did comply with my request but when I got the dish there was only about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of food on my plate. It tasted awful, like it was thrown in some old grease from another meal prep. Clearly, if I had to have one ingredient removed from the dish the cook should have added more of the other ingredients to make up for the missing tofu. It tasted so bad that I couldn't even eat half of it. And, what I paid for that bad tasting, small portion of food I could have made several meals of organic, healthy, delicious food purchased at a grocery store. To be fair, our waitress was so sweet and kind. She is really the reason why I didn't send the food back. I didn't want to make her feel bad. I gave 2 stars even though the first experience was good. But, the second one was just so bad. Inedible food is not a good thing...