Somers Sunshine Cafe — Restaurant in Palm Bay

First of all allow me to pretense this with there were MAYBE a total of 8 customer's there. So our experience was NOT due to them being packed or short staffed. I took my mom and to daughter's for dinner tonight. Our orders were incredibly simple. A minestrone soup, senior tilapia dinner with spinach and mashed potatoes, the Belgium chocolate pancake stack, a 2 egg quick breakfast with hash browns, bacon and toast and a kid's mac and cheese with applesauce. No special preparations or requests, cut and paste simple.

The chocolate stack was deliciously perfectly chocolatey and gooey! Yay for my teenager! The mac n cheese was good the first couple bites in then the macaroni was hardened and stuck together, and I'm not talking al dente due to cooking time. My 5 year old refused the rest. Ok, on to my mom's meal. The soup came out tasting and appearing to have just been poured out of the can, not even warm. Mom asked if they'd please heat it up some and they obliged, it was returned to mom with steam pouring from the bowl as well as a very hot bowl to the touch. The entire plate appeared to have been sitting under the heat lamp far too long, everything except the spinach had hardened edges and tops etc. The spinach..... I don't even know where to start. I'll group the veggies together, ABSOLUTELY ZERO seasoning. Not even butter on the mashed potatoes much less salt or pepper and they were hardened. The spinach? Tasted and looked like someone stomped on it barefoot after having paced the parking lot with no shoes on. And I'm not exaggerating, I assure you. Mom ordered extra lemon to try to season it and soften the fish up, by the time we got it after having to remind the server the entire plate was cold. Of course I saved the best for last. After waiting for a server so that I could get ketchup I ended up going to the register area and asking for it myself. I don't know about anyone else but I prefer to not have hair in my food. Once the waitress returned I showed it to her, she apologized and said she'd have it remade for me. Asked me if there was something wrong with the bacon too, which there wasn't but generally people want to have their entire meal served warm and hair free at one time. Regardless, I took the now cold bacon off the plate. She left the plate of cold toast. I asked if she'd please have them make me some fresh toast as well. My teenager asked to get an order of hash browns as well. Fast forward ten minutes, the food comes out via the manager with a "sorry about that" and he walks away. Now I'm beyond irritated because my daughter's hash browns were LITERALLY soaked in butter or oil of some sort, so much so that when she went to take a bite the oil was dripping off them. The server drops my toast off at the table and leaves. I go to eat my toast and there's no butter on any of it. Fast forward yet another 5+ minutes and I ask for butter when I'm able to get our servers attention, however by the time I get it my food is cold and I'm THAT MUCH MORE HANGRY. I gave my teen my hash browns and opted not to eat. To say I was not thrilled about paying almost $40 for only one dish that was prepared well is an understatement. It will be a VERY long time before I take my family much less ANYONE to that location. I'll go to Waffle...

Update 7 June 2023 It has been over 9 months since last visit. I wanted to try again. After all I am sure the last cook is gone and things have been improved. I requested the same thing I had 9 months ago. The cook needs to learn how to make scrambled eggs. I received eggs that were cooked flat then chopped into squares. The eggs were cold and tough. The sausages were cold. The hash browns were not crispy but hard on one side and soft on the other. The hash browns were also cold. The only thing that was acceptable was the french toast. Maybe I am expecting too much. This used to be a great place, not anymore. If the owner does not turn this place around. They will end up closing like the Palm Bay Diner. They had great food when the "new" owner opened up. After about four months the cook was changed. I quit going. The new owner made a lot of changes. Did not work. I have a better breakfast going to two different close by locations. I did contact the owner before coming back yesterday. I wanted to see if anything has improved. Annie was my server. Always great. I don't understand why she did not tell the owner or the manager I was unhappy. Maybe neither was there. I may go back in another 9 months to try again. Only if they are still open.

I have been a customer when they were IHop. Many years. I have a select wait staff I ask for each trip. All of my trips only one time has the manager talked with me. Monday (Aug 8, 2022) I stopped for breakfast. I requested french toast, two eggs scrambled, bacon, hash browns crispy and coffee. The eggs were super dry and robbery. The hash browns were uncooked inside and dripping in oil. Both were so bad I could not eat. The bacon was over cooked and brittle. The coffee. Apparently they changed to a cheaper brand and added water to serve more customers. The only thing worth eating was the french toast. I told my server what had happened. She said she would talk to the manager. The manager did not come out to talk with me. I thought that was unprofessional. The manger did not offer to comp my meal. He charged me for the coffee and french toast. He charged me over $7.00 for this. If he would have offered to comp the breakfast I would have refused. But he never gave me the chance. If they continue to provide this type of service and this low quality food. They may have to close their doors. Already their hours have been cut again. I will not go back because of the way a loyal customer has been treated. I was never looking for a free meal. I believe (if they continue treating their customers to low quality food) they will be closing their doors before the end of this year. This is my opinion from my experience over the many years as a...

Somers Sunshine Cafe 1107 Malabar Road Palm Bay, FL 32907

4 Stars

After 25+ years in the same location, Somers Sunshine Cafe was bound to come up on my random name generator sooner or later. Still family-owned and operated, I figured they must be doing something right to remain in the game for over a ¼ Century. As I waited with 6 other groups of people to be seated staring at 15 open tables, I realized they did not have front of the house figured out yet. Quite an inauspicious start to the meal, to say the least. The rank incompetence of the seating system was fully exposed to me by the glib and friendly Natalie, who explained the 15 open tables were a function of not being allowed to seat people until it was the next server's turn. This resulted in literally 1/3 of the tables being vacant while people waited. A host/hostess would rectify this in a heartbeat.

Finally shown to a table, it wasn't long before our server, Danielle, introduced herself. She fits in perfectly with her charming demeanor and spunky attitude. With the front of the house obviously in a state of suzerainty to the back, I would lay dollars to donuts; this place has to have good food. To this end, I put in an order for some Peanut Butter Pancakes and one Patty Melt.

I had just enough time to snap a few pics of the joint and relax a bit when I saw Danielle joyfully returning with my grub. More pics for you, loyal followers and it was time to get to work. If the pancakes tasted half as good as they smelled and looked, I knew I was going to be in for a gastronomical treat. Consisting of buttermilk pancakes filled with chocolate chips, layered with peanut butter sauce and topped with yet more chocolate chips, whipped cream and chocolate syrup this smacked of a Reese's. Only in pancake form and better. Much better. Nothing beats homemade buttermilk pancakes for breakfast/brunch. Well, maybe eggs Benedict, but that's about it.

Sighing regrettably as I had to move on, I eyed the patty melt. If you take a gander at the photo, you can see that this chunk of ground beef was hand formed, just the way Grandma would have made it had she made patty melts. The meat was seasoned to perfection, cooked as ordered and nestled between two superlatively grilled pieces of rye bread. The fries were fried to a delectable golden doneness and were a fine accompaniment to the melt.

The Big Boy says, “Ignore the helter-skelter front of the house mismanagement, ask for Danielle and focus...