IKEA Restaurant — Restaurant in Norfolk

This was the first time for my wife and I visiting an IKEA store. Man, it's like a theme park for furniture. The grand opening for this store was 2 days ago, so the crowds were crazy. They even had a live DJ. Eventually, we found the restaurant and ordered the Sweetish meatballs, mashed potatoes and greens with a sparkling apple cider and pear cider. The apple cider was better tasting. The meatballs and gravy we're amazing!!!! Now, I'm not a gravy eater and I thought it was delicious! They also had a cranberry sauce with a jam type of consistently on the plate with the meatballs. I took that as a hint and put a little on each meatball. Wow, delicious and very well done!! The mashed potatoes and greens were, well, mashed potatoes and greens. They weren't bad at all, but were just as you would expect them to taste with no garnishment or extras in the mix. I would definitely go back just for lunch. The best part is that the price of most of the offered dishes were almost half the price in any restaurant. A great deal and experience for sure....

I’m primarily disappointed in the cleanliness of the self serve areas of the restaurant. At 12 Noon on Monday, the beverage area and the milk/ half and half dispenser were filthy. There were napkins and paper goods that had fallen behind the silverware dispensers and littering the floor. Isn’t anybody cleaning and tidying up? It was disgusting! I can’t imagine it is already so messy after only two hours on a Monday when the store is quiet. This area should be spotless at store opening time. And it seems every time I try to eat here, half of the food is unavailable. 5 minute wait for salmon. 10 minute wait for plant meatballs. Completely out of today’s vegetables already at Noon, so had to settle for corn succotash. More than once have I visited at 10:30 / 11:00 am on Saturday and breakfast was no longer being served.

I don’t know if these problems are only happening here at the Norfolk store, or are chainwide, but they need to...

Location and convenience are key. Having a dining hall within a humongous building with tons of home furnishings, goods, etc is prime. Being served good Swedish meatballs at reasonable price even tops it off. IKEA restaurant offers breakfast items like crepe with lingonberry jam, scrambled eggs, potatoes, etc. Their all day entrees are platters of Swedish meatballs, veggies, they even have riced cauliflower! Their dessert selection is wonderful. The chocolate cake divine with dense chocolate cream layers , very chocolates but not extremely sweet.

Service was great, not a line at all whether at the food line or cashier. Prices are better than reasonable.

From their beverage center you get coffee, cocoa, and wide selection of sparkling fruit drinks like sparkling pear which was flavorful but a tad too sweet for me.The cool thing too is that steps away you can purchase the items that...