Spready Oak Country Cafe — Restaurant in Maryland

My partner and I were headed home from a weekend camping and we thought Spready Oak Cafe looked like a nice place to grab brunch before hitting the highway. It was busy, which we took as a good sign. We grabbed a booth, had menus slapped in front of us and in a few minutes the waitress came around to check in. Now, she was very busy, and wasn't outright rude, but by the end of taking our order she had given us the distinct impression that we were not welcome. I suspect this had something to do with the fact that I started my order by telling her I hsve some food allergies and asked if the cooks could wipe the grill down before cooking my order to help avoid cross contamination, and the fact that we were clearly not local.

But whatever, the food coming to the tables around us looked pretty good and luckily it didn't take long for our food to arrive. My partner ordered an omlette and it looked pretty solid. I had ordered the eggs and pork tenderloin and well, I am willing to assume the meat had at once point been a tenderloin. I can't imagine what trauma it experienced before it reached my plate. Because to the best of my knowledge pork tenderloin should not resemble curled grey shoe soles.

For reference I am not a picky eater, if something is put in front of me that I can eat, I'll eat it, and if it doesn't taste good oh well, at least it's calories. So when I say this pork was inedible I don't mean it was bad, I mean it was not something the human body was designed to digest. After struggling mightly to cut it I tried what looked like the least gristly portion and, after chewing for a solid couple minutes, gave up and spit it out into my napkin.

My boyfriend, who is familiar with my utilitarian approach to eating, was duly impressed. I believe he said something along the lines of "Yikes". I worked on my eggs and side of applesauce while waiting to see if the waitress would check in on us (spoiler alert; she did not) and those at least were fine.

After we both finished the edible portions of our meal and agreed that flagging down the waitress would be futile we waited for the check. And waited. He used the bathroom, I used the bathroom, we waited some more. Eventually she slapped the bill down on our table, which was utterly indecipherable. The scribbles on it resembled numbers and letters in much the same way that my pork resembled food. Trying to catch the waitress's attention to ask would have clearly taken much more time than we had patience for at that point so we decided that a scribble that looked like 189 was probably a total of $18.90 and because my partner is both overly generous and overly cautious he put down $30 and we left.

On the bright side it does not seem I was exposed to allergens...

been eating here for 3 + years, never complained before, bur several weeks ago I stopped in on Wed for cheeseburger night, requested roll be heated (didn't happen) fries had been doubled dipped (in other words already fried than refried to heat again which than meant burned fries not really appealing, left most of them as even though I had brought my teeth I opted to keep them unbroken.. I asked the server if they had a new cook as I had not seen him before, she said he's Austin the owners nephew, who normally works breakfast but was filling in as normal cook needed off. I had already let her know the food was not up to the usual standards, she just looked at me, didn't offer replacement of anything. That was fine, no biggie. I came in the next week again on Wed & saw that Austin was again cooking. Because of the bad experience the previous week I opted to not stay. Then this Wed I again stopped for Cheeseburger night. I walked In was actually the only patron and as the server lounged against the counter sipping her drink she informed me she would not serve me & I was no longer allowed in the restaurant. I said "I don't understand" She said "You were rude" I in turn said I certainly was not rude to you & she than said I could not ask for a particular cook to prepare my food (don't see how that was rude) & the owner said I could refuse to serve you & tell you to leave. Which I did. I must say that in my 76 + years this young lady was the rude one, lounging & Sucking on her straw. As a customer when the food was not up to par previously & you see the same person that sent out burned & tepid the last time you were there and decide to leave but still return as this had been a one time thing (keep in mind in the three years I had been coming there I had never seen this person cooking) how absurd to be told 'never come back, we don't want your business. The server who during a previous conversation told me she plans to become a Social Worker really needs to seek a different occupation, don't think she will...

Ok... not sure where to start. The lady taking the order was dour and looked annoyed when we had trouble understanding the 'complexity' of the menu. So you order a main meal and it comes with a host of sides consisting of vegetables, salad, salad dressing, soup, bread etc which you had to decide on the spot as she reeled them off. As for the food, it's a road side cafe on a road in the middle of big cities so I wouldn't expect much but for a small reheated crab cake which was slightly burnt with a serving of 4 average tasting sides it was disappointing. My husband thought the meatloaf was ok but left most of the sides as they were a bit ordinary. Our toddler's chicken nuggets were a bit overcooked as well. Stop if you need to break up your journey and maybe order something other than...