West Pioneer Grill — Restaurant in Puyallup

I don't normally drop a one-star review, but today was one of those opportunities for a business to self reflect and consider: Are we really providing the best customer experience possible? Sadly, the answer here is no. Allow me a moment of your time to explain.

My family and I are recent transplants to the area and have desperately been seeking out our new haunt and were hoping the West Pioneer Grill was it. We were slowly greeted by what I believe was the hostess. She relented that they needed to clean a table in order to seat us. No problem. Take your time. ... sadly, she did just that. Not a big deal, though. I'm patient. Awesome, I exclaim, we were eventually seated quickly and following a quick glance through the menu for the corn beef and the huevos rancheros. Sweet, both are available! Our hostess asks if we need drinks. I'm good with a coffee and the wife will take water... which she promptly returned with.

Now we wait. And watch. And signal the staff. And watch the table next dine on what appeared delicious. And signal its praises to their waitress. And finish up, and they pay and leave. Still, we wait. Frustrated, and now past the point of trying to grab the staff's attention, I'm working on principal and a single cup of coffee.

20 minutes go by... We're out.

We walk to the register, attempt to pay but there seems to be some confusion why we're there. Do we want a table? No I reply, I'd like to pay for my cup of coffee... more confusion. As the person behind the register is thumbing thru the tickets on her screen. Finally, she turns to me and says 9 dollars and some change... in unison "for a cup of coffee"!?? We were all a little surprised!. Oh just one cup... that's 4 and some change. Disgusted at the complete lack of situational awareness, I dropped a 5 on the counter and walked out.

Now again, I want to be clear, rarely am I one to complain but low blood sugar and a little hanger got the best of me... I called and asked for the manager. She says her name, +1 for accountability. I say hi, my name is Kris, and we were just in. She recalled the entire event. I explained my side of the events, she countered with an apology, and a "we were busy." -1 for accountability. After a short attempt to explain how the situation should have been resolved, I believe she did come to the realization her team blew it and kinda threw her under the bus for it. In the end a good training opportunity for the crew and hopefully we'll find a better customer experience...

First, I wanna say that the staff is not to blame for my experience, the waitress helping my table today was friendly, moving with efficiency and seemed to be really running and making sure people were getting helped, besides my table. Its very unfortunate because Ive heard nothing but good things about this place, and the atmosphere of a lively downtown little bar and grill was a sure fire way to peek my interest. When we sat down I had to ask to get the table wiped down, not a big deal they seemed pretty busy at the moment so it was not that much of an issue, we got our drink orders and about 5 minutes later we get our food order taken, this was at 12:32. My girlfriend who ordered a peach tea said it tasted off, I tasted it as well and confirmed that it could have been sweeter, but did have a slightly off taste to it. 30 minutes go by and we have the waitress come up and say "So sorry were really slammed and I forgot to ask you about how you wanted your eggs done". Totally reasonable I thought, people make mistakes and were gonna be receiving food shortly. another 20 minutes fly by and my girlfriend and I have yet to get any type of food let alone even a drink refill, no one asked how we were doing, if we needed anything, let us know about when our food might be done. At this point we just felt forgotten. two other tables that arrived after my girlfriend and I were also served before us, which just shows a level of inorganization and lack of training on waiting tables. I don't blame the girls working I blame the chef for being unorganized and not keeping the kitchen maintained properly to ensure he can put out food at a high volume. Too top this all off, my girlfriend ended up puking out most of the tea she had drank, which worried me about the food safety. Disappointing to...

I got to say this place came as a surprise. My son chose to come here for lunch when we were on the road and we had a great time. The food was really good and fast. We started with a plate of potatoes skins and they were amazing. They have this light chimichurri sauce on top that took them to another level. After that my son got a breakfast plate. That was pretty good, I tried the pancakes and ware really fluffy and big and the syrup wasn't too sugary, It was a really good sweet Maple syrup and I got the Fish and chips 3 pieces of bathered cod, it was really good. You can ask for a extra piece but 3 pieces ware good enough. They were really crispy and the fish was nice and flaky. You can see how the fish was really fresh, not frozen. I really like this place! for dessert we got 2 things, some canolies with chocolate and Mazcarpone cheese. They were realy crunchy. They where kinda like ice cream waffle when you've bite into it. But the flavor was really really good for me. The churros would be the piece of the resistence. They were long and thin very crispy. It's little bit gooy inside. I'm allergic to cinnamon so I got them only with sugar, for a fillings they have caramel, barbarian cream and Strawberry. The caramel wasn't a flavor a would prefer but the barbarian cream and the strawberry were really good. I actually had one plane and it was also very good. I'm definitely coming back again. but I'm gonna come back for sure for the churros at least once a week and I recommend everybody to at least try the churros. I give them 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️stars. I'm definitely gonna come back with a friend or a family member because like I always say life is better...