Cafe at the Gardens — Restaurant in Midland

This was my first time eating here— met up with a friend, also her first time here. I really wanted to like this place. It was busy, but nothing terrible. We were seated quickly. She ordered an iced tea, and I ordered an iced water with lemon. We received those promptly but needed some time to look at the menu. After chit-chatting a bit and finally looking over the menu, my friend and I decided to order chips and queso, allowing us a little more time to look over the lunch menu. Our decisions were made fairly quickly, but our server never returned after taking our appetizer order. After about 45 minutes (my friend and I were caught up in conversation losing track of time at first), we realized we hadn’t even received out chips and queso so we stopped someone walking by. Turns out, she was a manager; she looked up our order and discovered our server never turned it in. She proceeded to turn in the appetizer order (which she was going to “comp” us for) and took our lunch order. Eventually, the chips and queso comes out along with carafes of iced tea and water and another 20 minutes or so goes by…still no lunch. By this time, the cafe is practically cleared out of lunch guests— most tables were empty. On top of it, after we had already been there more than an hour, another couple had walked in, was seated at the table next to us, orders taken, and food served to them. Keep in mind, all my friend and I ordered were a club sandwich with salad and a reuben with salad. We kindly asked again if our food would be out soon, and the original server said he would go check on it. We watched him go in and out of the kitchen area four more times with nothing in his hands and no update.

I understand they were short-staffed today, however, there’s still no rhyme or reason why they can get some tables served quickly while ours couldn’t. Needless to say, 90 minutes later we gave up, left money on the table— more than enough to cover the chips and queso and my friend’s iced tea— and walked out.

I give two stars for food only because I don’t feel it fair to give one when I really didn’t have a chance to try it. Service gets two stars only because the staff was nice, but it stops there. The atmosphere was enjoyable being in the greenhouse with its...

My wife took our kids for brunch and Photos with Santa. She called and made a reservation for a table in the Garden, not the restaurant, and when she arrived, she was seated in the restaurant because her reservation was "lost". I'm not sure how you can "lose" a reservation like it was physically misplaced.

Then, she waited for 20-25 minutes for anyone to come and take her and my kid's drink order. She had to get up and ask the bartender who their server was supposed to be. The bartender was kind enough to take their order and help them. She informed me the restaurant only had 3 other tables that had people seated, so it was not like the restaurant server was overwhelmed. This was most likely because they were seated in the RESTAURANT instead of the GARDEN like she wanted when the reservation was made.

After her and my kids finished their meal, after the terrible service, after notifying the bartender about the complete lack of service, NO ONE came to talk to her or even apologize for any of the problems she had. Not the bartender, no server, and no manager had the common courtesy to come and attempt to remedy the problems and oversight that occurred. Thankfully, a table over, that had other customers, saw how my family was treated and out of the kindness of their hearts, payed for my family's meal. So I'm glad we didn't have to pay for the terrible service, but I'm really dumbfounded that some random people, other customers at that, payed for my family's meal INSTEAD OF THE MANAGEMENT WHO COMPLETELY DROPPED THE BALL AT EVERY TURN.

Regardless of the fact the the Photos with Santa was occurring at this location, this was an issue with what is a normal day to day operation. It seems the staff was not prepared to accommodate their guests and patrons.

I am not happy one bit with how my wife and kids...

This was my first time there and gotta say it was prett good. Now a bit confusing as there is signs placed around the business that lead you to the restaurant but a little too hidden at first. Once we got there we had a party of 7, so normaly a 15 min wait. We got seated relatively quick and were greeted by our host.with the first round of drinks ordered we got queso blanco and chips. The chese was perfect temp for the kids at the table and chips all crunchy and lightly salted to perfection. We then placed our order and sat for a decent amount of time not too long as our food arived in a timely manner. I ordered the biscuits and gravy with sausage, one of my all time favorites. This is where it diverted from being 5 stars. The gravy tasted rich and home made, the biscuits fluffy and soft, but the sausage. It literally looked and tasted like precut frozen sausage patty. I have always loved a good cooked sausage but this almost killed the plate for me. The saving grace had to be the fried potatos and scrambled egg. The potatos were perfectly cooked not over done but nice and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside the eggs were fluffy and delicious. Over all the other plates at the table were really good and this one plate wont stop me from coming back i would just like to see a bit more of an authentic sausage if im buying it at 14 bucks a pop id love just a bit better sausage. Overall great staff great atmosphere just a bit kayotic for the workers in peak hours. Never the less i will be back to try more from this nice little tucked away hole...