Mr. Perkins’ Family Restaurant — Restaurant in Milwaukee

The fall from grace that is Mr. Perkins' Family Restaurant is epic. I grew up in Milwaukee and this was always the go to spot. Black owned and operated, it was the pride of our city for generations. I now live in Los Angeles and upon hearing Charles Barkley rave about this restaurant (he obviously has not been there in years) and the fact I was in Milwaukee for a wedding, I decided to take my elderly mom and my future wife to one of my favorite childhood restaurants. We arrived at 11:45am and we were greeted and seated very quickly. There were about 6 people in the restaurant enjoying breakfast. The waitress (Brandy) came to our table a little too early for our order so we sent her away for coffee while my elderly mom decided her meal. She came back with the coffee at 11:50 and waited an uncomfortably long time standing above us without saying a word. Just holding a pen and a pad of paper. So once again we told her to just give a few minutes and when she came back next we would be ready to order breakfast. The hostess Mia walks over and plays with my new nephew (whom my mom was babysitting) and is generally pleasant to us. HERE COMES THE MESSED UP PART: She comes back at 12:03pm and we all order Salmon Croquettes with eggs and grits. A simple order but the waitress says she has to ask if we can still get that order. I ask why and she tells me they stopped serving breakfast at 12pm. She asks and they tell her that we can only get the Croquettes with a Dinner order. What kind of scam is this?? The waitress or hostess did not once tell us that there was no breakfast service after noon time or we would have ordered a tad more quickly. Even after the coffee's were ordered and she stood there with the blank stare on her face she could have nicely told us breakfast service stops in 10 minutes so we need to get our order in immediately if that's what we wanted. Instead she comes back 3 minutes after the time to service breakfast. Simultaneously there were 2 orders coming out with grits and eggs on them. Another lady (I assume one of the Perkin's family because she tells us goodbye when we leave) comes in and gets some grits and eggs and sits in a seat 2 spots away from us. When asked about all of this (and the 6 orders of pancakes another table was getting) the hostess looks us right in the eyes and lies about how they "must have run out of grits and eggs". Mr. Perkins must be passed away by now because if he had been in there this would have NEVER happened. Basically I paid for the coffee and left embarrassed that I raved about such a horrible place. AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COSTS. EVERY BLACK OWNED BUSINESS IS NOT GOOD FOR THE COMMUNITY. WE AS A PEOPLE NEED TO STRIVE TO DO AND BE BETTER TO EACH OTHER. OR DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE 1 TRILLION DOLLAR ECONOMIC POWER THAT IS THE BLACK COMMUNITY. We ended up going over to Joe's on Silver Spring for a great meal, good service, and they even gave us some homemade apple jelly to take back to...

Service was confusing, they had a sign that said please wait to be seated yet they told me to go ahead and sit down. I thought um where? The waitress came within one minute for our order which we asked for a few minutes to decide. After we ordered we waited a fair bit of time for our food, not long but longer then then portion size should be. The food was good, my girlfriend said her eggs weren't fully cooked but fine otherwise, so no real complaint on the time for the food. Once we got our check it had no total on our order and no information on how to pay it so my girlfriend guessed where it would be but I waited to see where another guest paid. The place was good and I'm sure the whole experience would be better another time however the first time was...

You don't know this but I was just talking to Mia over at the Mr. Perkins Family Restaurant this morning about their longevity. She told me that Mr Perkins opened that restaurant in 1969 and I had just told my son sitting in the parking lot, the very small one, that I've been going there all my life I'm 50 years old. Lol they always serve the best food you need anything special like those good old pig feet chitling dinners you get that kind of stuff over there try them out I promise you...