Mel's Diner — Restaurant in Louisiana

I went to Mel's expecting some down home cooking. I'm a cajun and appreciate good food. I remember eating at Mel's when I was younger with my father and was so excited when I passed the building on Hwy. 90 & relized it was still open. I noticed the sign outside advertising their biscuits stating they are known for this item in particular. 'S* on Shingle's' (breakfast sausage in a white gravy served over a biscuit) is a favorite breakfast food of mine though I refuse order this item from a restaraunt due to the fact it is almost always made from the packet. And I have been utterly dissapointed every time I've tried the packet version, I thought maybe since my train of thought was that this restaurant was a smaller business they would offer home made, legitimate cajun food. This is not the case at all. I specifically asked my waitress before ordering if the gravy on the biscuit was home made or from a packet. She stated it was in fact, home made. At this point in my experience I am still extatic over the fact that I am about to have some cooking like my MawMaw would have done it. After hearing this I went ahead and ordered a plate lunch of rice & gravy as well and a breakfast plate of Pain Perdeu (French Toast) for my daughter. Horrible. The waitress brought me out a plain ole biscuit, noting to brag about as they have avertised in fact I'd rather a biscuit from a fast food restaraunt with, wouldn't you know, white gravy prepared from the packet. I'm a Boudreaux, I can very well tell the difference between a packet of gravy and a home cooked gravy. I politely sent it back after one bite and waited for my meal, still pretty excited for that. Maybe they don't do the biscuit gravy the right way but surely their rice & gravy for lunch is prepared correctly. Wrong again. Packet gravy! I was hungry, I ate half after dousing it in salt & pepper in an attempt to make it edible and brought the rest home only to cook my own meal that night and throw that pitiful excuse for 'momma's cooking' away.

The wait staff though not rude were inexperienced and very laid back. To be expected when visiting a small town restaurant, yet I still have to rate my customer service experience 2 stars. Just not a very well job done by any. I was hardly acnowledged.

My daughter's meal was amazing, I will say but anyone can make a french toast so that doesn't say much for me.

I will not...

Who doesn't love Mel's Diner, right? However, they have a practice that really annoys the heck out of me that I have to bring up. Table of four, three waters and I'm the soda. The waters come to the table with half ice. My soda comes to the table, at the same time as the waters, with ice overflowing from the glass. This is clearly a directive from the management. So, the drink that is being paid for comes with less to drink than the free drinks. How is that fair to the person paying for a drink? You're not making enough profit off of soft drinks? Now, you've also created an inefficiency because your server most likely has to service my table more often than necessary because I am emptying my drink faster than normal because you've made a policy of bottom-to-top ice in a soft drink. Also, I order a soft drink to enjoy with my meal. However, with so much ice, I'm less likely to do so because of how little soda you have provided me. What upsets me most is you've made this a policy choice as opposed to how the server randomly prepares the drinks. It makes me wonder what other cheapskate methods Mel's uses to cheat its customers. Otherwise, I have no other problems with Mel's, but the overwhelming amount of ice to squeeze a profit on what's already a highly profitable menu item makes me wonder what else you're being cheap with to the detriment of...

My ham and cheddar omelet had easily two to three times as much ham as I expected I would given the amount at other restaurants. The pancake was also really good, but my hash browns we're not a golden brown color in any means if anything they looked like they had a tint of black are something coating them. The middle of the cake of hash browns we're a little soggy. The biscuit, as it typically is, was probably the highlight of the meal for me. The amount of milk received what is considerably less then I have previously the received on prior visits, instead of the usual 20- 24 oz glass, I received what I believe was a 16 ounce glass that was maybe three-quarters of the way full. I had to order a second glass of milk because of this which put me paying $6 for milk which is roughly the cost of a gallon and a half of milk. My waiter did an excellent job and came back to my table to ask if I need anything multiple times without being overbearing. Even though I was being particular about some of the food gamma the waiter I had went over and beyond what I would expect from most similar establishments. So much so that I'm more than doubled my normal tip I would receive given the taking them out...