The Arcade Restaurant — Restaurant in Memphis

We couldn’t visit Memphis, Graceland and Sun Studios without stopping at the Arcade restaurant! Without asking, we were fortunate the hostess seated us at Elvis’s table. This made my wife’s day!! I naturally had to order the Fried Peanut Butter and Banana sandwich (Elvis’s favorite) since we were at his booth and I had never had one before. It was good, but would not be a “go to” for me. My wife had a grilled cheese and enjoyed it.

The decor and atmosphere of the restaurant was fantastic! I love the old nostalgic businesses, businesses and homes. Not many left around. The hostess, our waitress and everyone at the restaurant were fantastic and above and beyond! I want to especially give a shout out to one of the cooks at the restaurant. I wish I would have gotten his name and shook his hand, but didn’t get the opportunity. A homeless gentlemen came in and sat in the booth behind us. He said he was going to order something so they allowed him to stay. While waiting, I observed him get up and go to the table across from him and pick up the waitresses tip and start to put it in his pocket. I called him out about it. He stopped and looked at me. The gentlemen from the kitchen came around and got the waitresses tip out of his hand and handed it to the waitress. He then told him he was going to have to leave and could not stay since he was streaking from the waitress. He told him he would call the police, but the gentlemen would have to leave. ADDITIONALLY (and this is what impressed me) he told him he would still give him (the employee was going to pay for it) the cup of coffee and sausage biscuit he had ordered, but he would have to eat it outside. He never got aggressive with the homeless gentlemen and was very polite and courteous with him, despite the attempt to steal from a coworker. Even the waitress was kind to him. It was heart warming to see the kindness and courtesy shown to this gentlemen.

The food, service and atmosphere was fantastic. If we are back in Memphis, we will definitely be back and would highly recommend The Arcade to anyone in the...

I can't rate the food as I didn't stay long enough to... when we walked in, some customers were waiting to check out. The hostess ignored them and tried to seat us which we said we'd wait for them to check out. Then she told us to seat ourselves... well okay could've just told us that to begin with.

Sat at the only clean looking booth and it was still grubby but whatever I'm willing to move on. Vibes were weird, multiple waitresses running around but not really accomplishing anything. I watched them walk by multiple dirty tables multiple times and go to the back without taking anything with them. I own a restaurant and often serve in my restaurant. Top priority is always the customer but the next is cleanliness and having multiple dirty tables like that is very off-putting. Just grab some plates, at least! You're walking back to the dish area, might as well not go empty-handed...

Finally a waitress came by and she was very nice. Gave us menus and got us waters... and then didn't come back. Later we found her at the register chatting up people. She didn't even acknowledge us as we left or anything...

As we were waiting, waitresses kept walking by; they had a surplus of wait staff, that's for sure. They were complaining about personal things and then one was angrily stating how her checks were closed out wrong and she's "missing money now" which I 100% understand the frustration of but that's not the time or place to be venting your frustrations. It's tacky.

After 10 mins of waiting, and unable to stop staring at the dirty crock pots by the food window, I asked my husband to leave because I wasn't impressed. Everything was dirty and just grimey looking. This place needs some serious love put back onto it. I'm not saying to change it, as the 50s diner atmosphere is what drew us in, but my god, take some pride in your restaurant. Don't just let it continue to get run down. I'm not trying to sound like a complete ass, just trying to give...

This was some of thee worst service I had in Memphis but the atmosphere and food made up for it. Visited on a Thursday before 1pm.

My server appeared to be working both restaurants (not sure if the restaurant next door has a separate name but the two are connected via a walkway at the rear of Arcade). She would disappear for long stretches. I would see other servers passing by and they would say "ok" to my requests and never come back. I was unattended most of my time there.

One example of a few: I had to ask for another coffee because the one I received, I couldn't get anyone to bring me a spoon/utensils or sugar to put in the coffee my server quickly dumped on the table then flew away. It was actually cold by the time she finally returned to the table to take my food order. The service was a huge letdown to the point I wanted to leave. But this is a landmark, the oldest cafe in the city. So I stuck it out and glad I did.

That breakfast was delicious! The fried french toast? Frying it gives it like a beignet flavor. Whyyyy did I only order the sampler that came with one lil small piece??? Don't make the mistake I did - just order the whole plate of fried french toast on the side of whatever entree you're getting. It's soooo good! The sausage patty and strip of bacon went a long way, surprisingly. The perfect salty sidekicks to the sweet french toast (!!) and buttermilk pancake, all accompanied by cloud-fluffy scrambled eggs and buttery hashbrowns. It was certainly one of the most satisfying breakfasts I had while visiting the city.

It's a shame that the service was so bad because I was looking forward to coming to this restaurant. I feel like if it was busy, the service would have been better. So maybe it's better to go during peak hours.

Reasonable prices for it to be a touristy spot. Parking lot (I think - at least I didn't get towed) around back. Right next to a...