The Café — Restaurant in Louisville

Brunch Masters to Dinner Disasters... The Café has long been known for it’s wonderful breakfast and lunch service. Recently, with their new location and expansion, they added dinner service. Unfortunately, from our experience their dinner service was a complete and utter disaster. We were seeing a concert at Paristown Hall across the street so I made an EARLY reservation for 5:30pm to allow enough time to have a nice meal and still get to the concert early. Upon arrival we were immediately seated to an undesirable table closest to the door with ¾ of the main dining still available. There appeared to only be 1 server working the entire dining room as we were not greeted for almost 15 mins after we were seats. We immediately placed our drink order and asked for water when they got a chance. This was the first of FOUR separate times we had to ask for water glasses. The server returned to tell us they were working on the drinks and asked if we wanted to place our order, which we did. We ordered 3 apps, 4 entrees and 2 deserts (two of us did the pre-fix 3 course special they had). The first appetizer (loaded tots which was flavorless) arrived BEFORE our drinks ever did, still no waters. The first round of drinks arrived after that and then we didn’t see the server for almost 20 mins. Meanwhile, the dining room is becoming busy with guests being seated one after another by the hostess, yet there appeared to only be 1 or 2 servers working the entire dining room. Our drinks became empty, the other two apps had not arrived and we still had NO water. I ended up flagging down someone who appeared to be the manger to ask about the waters. He had someone from the kitchen come out with them for us at the same time they delivered our entrees. The other two apps were delivered with the entrees which was not ideal and overcrowded the table. At that time, we ordered a bottle of merlot for the table which never came. We were ¾ the way through our entrees by the time the server came back to tell us they were out of merlot and offered their lesser quality cab sav as substitution. I had hoped the entrees would make up for the horrible service so far but unfortunately, they did not; they were not cooked to order and basic bland quality. The wine finally arrives at the end of the entrees but only with two stemmed glasses (we’re a table of 4). We ask for two more but it would be another 10-15 mins before we would see anyone again to be able to ask for two additional glasses again. By this point we are running close on time to make the concert. The server finally brings two more (now stemless glasses so I guess they ran out?) for the other two guests and we ask for the check. The desserts never came an no discount/reduction was offered to make up for them. The manager was wandering around the dining room the entire time but didn’t seem to be doing anything to slow the hostess from seating people or assist his servers with the appalling service that was occurring to all the guests. You would think restaurant management would know how to staff in conjunction with the concert schedule and for a busy restaurant weekend. I approached the manager as we left to let them know how big of a disappointment the meal was and all he could say was “give us another chance”. There was no genuine offer made to reconcile the situation. It’s unfortunate that the horrendous dinner service that they are trying to pull off is going to tarnish their reputation for brunch because now I will not recommend The Café at all. Truly...

Today was not the first time I've eaten at The Cafe. And, in the past, I have had good meals. However, today was subpar ... to say the least. I met my assistant at the cafe. She had never been. We both ordered relatively simple breakfast, Traditional breakfast. Mine was called the breakfast special but it is actually a permanent item on the menu. It was very simple. Two eggs cook however you want them, choice of crispy bacon or sausage, toast, and either roasted potatoes, grits or a fruit cup. I chose two eggs sunny-side up, roasted potatoes and crispy bacon. Like many restaurants, the idea of breakfast potatoes is going out the window. Laziness has taken over. They were not roasted potatoes, as noted on the menu. These were simply cubed potatoes dropped in hot oil = super Bland French fry cubes. There was no seasoning. No onions, no Peppers, no garlic ... no salt. These could not have been more bland. This restaurant is better than that. I asked the waitress to come over and I asked her, very nicely, if these potatoes were the type that are put in a basket and dropped in hot oil. She said yes. I asked her for the fruit cup. I think many people have grown tired of restaurants taking shortcuts. But that wasn't the worst shortcut this morning. My bacon was three strips of bacon that were not separated when they were taken out of the package and prepared. When we buy bacon at the grocery store the slices overlap each other as they are displayed in the package. Whoever prepared my breakfast took out three strips of bacon and didn't even bother to pull them apart. So, one strip was half cooked and half almost raw, the middle strip was entirely almost raw, and the other strip was half raw and half cooked. The amount of bread I got was probably the equivalent of one slice of bread, just a fancier type of bread. For many years I worked in food and beverage and purchasing and I know that the food costs for my breakfast was far less than $2. It would be less than $2 if I bought the food at Kroger and prepared it myself. The breakfast was $11. So the markup was well over 400% and the attention to detail, or just the effort and the enthusiasm, was non-existent. It was 8:20 in the morning and there was almost no one there so that may be an indication of what has become of The Cafe. When this restaurant was in its previous location it was always busy, always slammed for breakfast and lunch. It seems like they take themselves too serious and they are now trying to survive on past glory. My breakfast was just a glorified Waffle House breakfast at almost twice the price and with tiny french fries instead of breakfast potatoes, instead of roasted potatoes. The word lackluster is the most generous description I could offer. I don't think we'll be back for some time. We were going to go to First Watch but, as I said, my assistant had never been here. I...

Let me preface this review by stating we have been happy customers of The Café for years, having followed them through now three different locations. I have also used them numerous times for workplace catering. I have eaten their food at least 50+ times over the years and always had a positive experience, until today. We placed a carryout order via ToastTab for an 11:45 AM pickup time. At 11:39 AM we received a text that the order was ready. We arrived a little after 11:45 AM and the counter team was not very responsive, could not locate the order, and kept asking if the name associated with the order was someone else's name. After maybe 10-15 minutes our order was ready (and as it turns out, correct) and we left to go have a picnic. We both got a version of tuna salad that we have gotten before and it was very salty. Extremely salty. I've eaten the tuna salad at least 10 times previously and never found it to be salty. It was like someone had spilled a bottle of salt into the mix. Both of our sides (bean salad and fruit) tasted bad/sour and were inedible. We received 3 cookies (we ordered 2, but we thought maybe they threw in an extra due to the wait) but all 3 were lumpy and not cooked all the way through. This all happened on a Sunday and perhaps staffing is different on the weekends? The restaurant did not appear that crowded. I would easily give 4 or 5 stars for all of the 50+ prior experiences, but today I would give a 0 if possible. The service, entrees, sides, and desserts all had problems. I will say the order was correct and everything was well packed. But we don't plan to go back for a while. Let's hope this was some sort of strange anomaly. The total with tip...