Odyssey Family Restaurant — Restaurant in Menomonee Falls

Came for late breakfast with my husband - he had come here as a child and was excited to show me as I am from out of state. Menu looked lovely, got some coffee. Everything on the menu came with pancakes or toast, which is pretty standard.

Quick side note: My husband has a gluten allergy, and becomes extremely ill if he ingests anything that contains gluten. Cross contamination, as long as it is minimized, usually isn't too big of a deal.

Anyhow, we generally can sub these items out after telling our waiter about the allergy. We communicated this to the waitress, who told us "no, we don't do substitutions at all unfortunately."

Basically, after some painful back and forth, he had two options. He was either going to have half a meal made that he couldn't eat, sit on the table getting cold, and making him feel horrible (trust me, he wants to be able to eat it!), or pay for half a meal that literally wouldn't exist, wouldn't be made, and not get anything in absence of a main part of the meal. Also $5 per side of meat on top of the price of the meal made the price of such a small amount of food for him atrocious. Not equivalent to what it would be for someone without an allergy and no attempt to even pretend to make it so.

However, these words weren't minced. No one listened to him. He came up to the counter, asking if there was anything that could be done in the possible substitution of menu items due to allergy. At this point, he feels guilty, I can see it all over his face. At one point , the manager told him "perhaps you should make some dietary changes".

Okay, I get not being familiar with a gluten allergy. We can't expect everyone to cater all the time. We expect that. However, we also expect to be treated decently, and to be listened to, communicated with. Both of us have worked in the service industry many years and we were appalled at the lack of tact with which they handled such a simple request - a food allergy.

He was really excited to take me here, a place he remembered loving as a kid. I left after my coffee, and my husband was made to feel lesser than for a simple allergy. Do better and be better to...

The Odyssey is dependable... in the sense that it never closes and there's always coffee. They have an impressively huge menu, although I rarely stray beyond breakfast and tuna croissant sandwiches, so I can't comment on the quality of more exotic fare. What I love most about the Odyssey is that it really is kind of designed for the older people who've lived in Menomonee Falls for decades and decades. There are lots of oversized floral patterns and overstuffed booths. The paintings on the windows are changed every few weeks. Entrees come with bread (extra crumbly), a soup/salad (chicken dumpling offered daily), and a dessert (and they provide, like, ten options, including tapioca pudding). Basically, it has the ambiance of a supper club with the convenience of an all-night diner. Brunches are busy. For everyone's sake, please remember that you do not go to the Odyssey to complain about the service (the staff is always polite) or the food; it gives the place bad juju, which is simply inexcusable for this...

I know this is a good review but I have to start this review with the most amazing feature of my visit today. We were able to be served by the amazing Jenny! She’s absolutely amazing. Her personality is energetic and a great spark to start one’s day. Not only did Jenny have an amazing personality but she was very attentive and quickly hands on when it came to refills, menu suggestions and so much more.

Now that I’ve highlighted the best part let me get to the restaurant. The food was just basic not to bad but nothing special. The chicken tenders and fries were just flat out dry. The extra crunchy fries and tenders were over cooked. My breakfast was good. The eggs were a little weird but with enough salt and pepper they were tolerable.

The chicken noodle soup was bland. It taste like water with noddles and vegetables. There were extremely small pieces of dark meat chicken which gave the “chicken” flavor. I’m guessing since I got the first bowl of the day I didn’t give it the time needed to soak...