Toast Milwaukee — Restaurant in Milwaukee

Our Order:

2 Coffees California Benny Barbacoa Hash Skillet

My wife and I came here at the recommendation of our hotel staff. Being from the Chicagoland area, I am no stranger to excellent food; especially breakfast food. I came here expecting a decent meal and normal coffee. What I instead found was the most flavorful breakfast I've ever had at a restaurant and one of the best cups of coffee you can get.

The moment you walk into the restaurant you'll notice it's very narrow but cozy shape. Wooden floors and wooden decor give the restaurant a very tavern-like welcoming feel that makes you want to sit down and relax. Despite it being pretty narrow, there's actually room to breathe and when you do sit down at a table, you don't feel like you're being packed into a tin can; like restaurants in other Downtown areas.

My original selection was going to be the Smoke Show Hash. To my disappointment (and probably for the best) that dish was only available over the weekend. It is now Monday. So I decided to go with something I wouldn't normally order at a breakfast place, the Barbacoa Hash skillet. I took one bite of my food and I was immediately in breakfast heaven. The dish was one of the most flavorful dishes I've ever had at a breakfast restaurant; there was no need to add any salt or pepper; even to the eggs. My wife really liked her California Benny as well. She gave me a taste of it, and I found it to be pretty tasty.

Our waitress was very attentive and accommodating to our needs, always making sure to pick up any empty cups on sight and always making sure our needs were met; especially on those amazing coffee refills.

Overall, Toast in Milwaukee is a must try if you happen to find yourself here on a get-away; like ourselves. It's a departure from your normal breakfast diner menu and honestly, probably a great spot to broaden your breakfast horizons. If I could rate it over 5 stars, I would. If I ever come back to this city in the future (I mean, I'm in Chicago, so that's definitely a possibility), I have my first morning meal...

If you have a group more than 5 DO NOT GO HERE. I had a group of 7 people for my best friends wedding weekend and they told us that they could accommodate that large of a group. We did the online waitlist and when we checked in they didn’t give us any amount of time. After about 10min I ask. The hostess says 15-20min. Another 15-20min go by, I ask again. She says that because it’s a large group they were needing to wait till the table up top finishes. So we wait again. Then the table up top finishes and they don’t seat us after it’s all cleared out. I ask again. They say that only seats 6 and that they are going to move tables downstairs for us and it should only be 15-20min. So we keep waiting. After an hour of waiting I ask again. They say that they still can’t seat us. Then another hostess comes in and says that because we won’t split up then we have to wait till they can figure out tables. We said no one asked if we could split up and that we could. There was a table for 5 open and a table for 2. I point out these empty tables and that we could split up. She says that because we didn’t put in the waitlist that way that those tables go to the people who are on the waitlist. I know that no one has waited over an hour for a table so you would think we’d be top priority. They were still not willing to accommodate. I walk out and my group follows and then they quickly tell us that they can seat us in the 5 and 2. I don’t know why it took us threatening to not give them business to get a table but that’s what it took. I will say that the waitress was extremely understanding of our frustration and worked with us to get food out right away. She was a great waitress! And the food was very good. But the lack of understanding and accommodation when they said that they would accommodate us made the...

EDIT: First, the good stuff! We had an AWESOME server (I wish I could remember her name); cheerful, perfect amount of attentiveness, fast. Loved her. The Bloody Mary. Still as great as the first one I had and soooo glad to be back in Wisconsin where you get your beer chaser as a matter of course. Second, not bad but not great, the wait-list system. We wait listed with the understanding that we would be notified by text with a seven minute cushion for arrival. When we signed in it said the wait would be about an hour. So we went to the hostess stand and discovered you had to physically check in in addition to wait listing online. We don't know what would have happened if we had not done that and just patiently waited....maybe we'd still get the text? But we also found out the wait was really only about 25 minutes (it turned out to be 15, so yay!) And finally, the bad. I ordered a cherry waffle. I got something that LOOKED like a waffle but immediately upon cutting and taking a bite, it was more like a very limp waffle shaped pancake, soft no crunch at all. The cherries tasted very much like from the can pie filling (not necessarily a bad thing but not what I was expecting). It just ended up being a sad pile of misbegotten breakfast.

First time, had brunch....it was awesome! No reservations but we did find out they have online wait-list. Even without that, an early-ish arrival had us seated within five minutes (even though we were told it would be fifteen!). The hostess was incredibly nice, especially as it was getting pretty busy. Our server was prompt and friendly. The spicy Bloody Mary was amazing, and came with a complimentary beer chaser. We had eggs Benedict and dulce de leche french toast. Everything was phenomenal and we see a...