Hidden Manna Cafe — Restaurant in Rich Township

My Hidden Manna review(lunch today)

I patronized the restaurant in Matteson for lunch this week. I’ve witnessed and received poor service from mediocre to very fine establishments in my many years of dining. However, I have never been been anywhere that the server brought my meal to the table and NEVER returned. When my husband and I arrived, there were 12 patrons - all had been served. By the time that we had finished our meal, everyone was gone. We watched our server clean 11 tables without uttering one word to us or looking in our direction, even while he cleaned the table right next to us.

I informed the manager who indicated that she would speak the server and that the owner advised that I reflect the service in my tip. I asked to speak to the owner, since a few of my family frequent the restaurant. She came over and told me that “she is merely responsible for the food alone and that the server gets paid under minimum wage. She further explained that the server is an independent contractor, and she will not suffer a discount because there would be no lesson in it for the server and it’s against her policy unless it’s related to the food.” I wonder if she would be responsible for the gnats that I constantly fanned away or removed from the table, since it wasn’t in my food or if the server shoved me or used profanity, since it’s unrelated to the food. The is responsible for everything in the establishment. The service is a huge component of the entire customer experience.

Let me be clear, my bill was $27, and I certainly didn’t need a discount to afford it. The owner is sadly mistaken if she regards a discount in any form as suffering and that poor service is “between me, the customer, and the server”. Needless to say, I will NOT return EVER, Furthermore, I will make share this experience with my family and friends. Hopefully, the owner will have a change of heart that will trickle down to her employees before the ‘TRUE” suffering of lost patronage is her unfortunate reality and downfall. Perhaps, Hidden Manna should be a take-out/drive-through only since the owner wants to be accountable for the food only!

One of her restaurants is already down(Homewood) and...

I ate at Hidden Manna on April 1, 2023. If it were up to me, I would never patronize this place after my horrible experience with them Mother's Day 2020. I never received an apology, refund, phone call, or any acknowledgment that they ruined Mother's Day for my mom. My mom treated me to lunch this past Saturday. Upon walking into Hidden Manna, we were not greeted. There was an older silver haired man behind the counter who I assume was in charge, but he didn't say hello or acknowledge us. The servers looked confused and walked by a few times before someone greeted us and took us to a table. Our server was a nice young lady. Our food was really good. Honestly, I don't see myself returning or recommending this restaurant to anyone. The atmosphere is very cold and unfriendly. This is the most unwelcoming restaurant I have ever been to. There needs to be some better training around customer service and the hospitality industry overall.

Here's what happened on Mother's Day during the pandemic: My mom has dined at Hidden Manna twice and she enjoyed both meals. She wanted Mother's Day dinner from Hidden Manna. I placed an order on Saturday evening for a Sunday pickup at 3pm. I was waiting for a text at 3pm for curbside pickup of my meal. I called at 3:15pm because I had not received a text. The voicemail was full and no one answered the phone. I arrive at the restaurant at 3:30pm and SURPRISE! My food wasn't ready. In fact, I was told it would be another 45 minutes to an hour. What was the point of ordering in advance? No one offered any explanation or apology for the delay.

I didn't get a call until 5:50pm that my order was ready. They ran out of potato salad and only had one peach cobbler left for my order. I was given a slice of pound cake instead. I was very annoyed by this unprofessionalism and terrible customer service. Why were they not prepared to fill these orders?

My annoyance only increased when I made it home. The food was terrible. My mom said her catfish wasn't seasoned well. My chicken was undercooked and the French fries were soggy. The pound cake was hard. This was my first & last time patronizing Hidden Manna. Thanks for ruining my mom's...

We were so looking forward to eating here after reading the great reviews. It was a little expensive but we thought we would try. Unfortunately our visit was one of those rare visits to a restaurant where so much goes wrong that you almost can't believe it. Like a comedy show. At first the three of us were seated on one side of the restaurant. The ambient jazz rock coming over the speakers was rather loud so we moved to another room so we could talk. It was quiet at first but soon a solo electric guitarist playing for tips started in, playing to loud rock and blues tracks with a couple loud amps stacked up. So much for conversation. After we had moved we waited and waited and evidently no one knew who was supposed to be our server. We were there at least twenty minutes before someone noticed we had no water. The newly appointed server was very nice and apologized and told us she would give us 10 percent off our whole order because of that mistake. Also she promised each of us free desserts. So we made our food orders, which took a very long time to come. When the food finally did come, each order that came was either wrong or partially missing. No soup, no lemon for fish, no salad dressing, wrong sides, missing sides. Our hungry vegetarian friend never got anything from his order but a salad. It was just a mess. After waiting so long for them to get it right we were told it would take another half hour to get the side of broccoli. The fried potatoes never came. No more time to get it right. We had to go to our next engagement after being there an hour and fortyfive. After we got the bill we saw we were charged for things we never received A heated discussion with the manager ensued, whereby she said "well, you got food, didn't you?" trying to justify that she couldn't subtract any more from the bill. She kept pointing out all the free desserts on the ticket. "But we didn't order dessert! One of us can't even eat dessert!" She says "well, I can't help that!" Finally we didn't feel like arguing about it anymore. I couldn't believe all the money we were charged for so much of our time and frustration and not a very pleasant...