Word Of Mouth Neighborhood Bistro — Restaurant in Salem

This was my very first visit her ever. (Friday, Oct 4th, 2024 , around 12:40pm )

My thoughts -welllll, It's really not as special as so many people make out. It's not horrible either though. Good service, really great food options/choices, quaint atmosphere. BUT I ran into a major problem with my food ! My biscuit had a HAIR in it - I didn't know until later. See more details below.

Service was very good, my wife and I only had to wait 25 min to get in due to coming on a mid week day. If you seat at a table be aware the chairs are very hard lol. Could bring a seating pad with you for sure.

I got the biscuits and gravy along with egg and potatoes. I really like that they offer options like this! Most restaurants only offer biscuits and gravy, but here will additionally get 2 eggs and some breakfast potatoes along with it, so you can get a more fulfilling varied meal. So I just got the single biscuit meal. I also ordered two sausage patties

I got my eggs scrambled and they were perfect. Nice and hot. The breakfast potatoes had several that were not cooked entirely through, some raw potato in the middle still. The sausage patties were very flavorful and I thought they were good - they apparently make their own patties. The sausage has a TON of onions in it, and you will get the onion texture too (little crunches) so keep that in mind if you don't like onions in your meat. 25 years ago I would have hated that but now I don't mind it and I think the sausage is pretty good.

The biscuit was pretty typical, and the gravy was good. The biscuit was HUGE lol even though I only got a single biscuit. However, the biscuit was very dry and pretty bland. No buttermilk flavor here. The gravy had to save it, and thankfully it did.

My wife got the Gluten Free French Toast and some bacon. The bacon was perfect, nice and thick but yet crispy.

The French toast - its almost like candy! I didn't like it, far too sweet (and I'm a huge French toast fan). It has almost a carmelized sugar coating on it. The pictures of the french toast look amazing but it's honestly just far too sweet. My wife didn't eat much of it. If you have a large sweet tooth you will probably love the French Toast, though.

I couldn't finish that whole biscuit , the food was very filling (good) so I took the rest of my biscuit home along with one of the sausage patties. So, we boxed it at the restaurant and took it home and I put it in the fridge. In fact this food was so filling that I had to skip dinner lol!

Now , here's the aftermath and where things went downhill! Two days later I decided to finish the rest of the biscuit. I took the box out of the fridge and heated everything up for 1 minute in the microwave. The sausage tasted even better than before after reheating.

I sat down at my desk and started finishing the leftover biscuit that I had brought home and IT HAD A HAIR IN IT. No it wasn't from me, it was dark hair, I have red hair. It wasn't from my wife, the box had never been opened by anyone but me, and the HAIR WAS INSIDE THE BISCUIT. It was buried in the biscuit mix. I hit the HAIR while chewing a pieced of biscuit that I had carved off with a fork. WTF my very first food I ever bought here and it had a hair in it. I threw the rest away.

Final bill...

Word of Mouth has always been my favorite restaurant, which makes today’s experience especially disappointing.

My teenager and I stopped in for breakfast before heading out for some Black Friday shopping. Since we don’t live in Oregon anymore, we make it a point to visit this spot whenever we’re in town.

Given the holidays and the restaurant’s usual business, I fully expected a wait and was totally fine with it. When we arrived, we were told it would be about an hour and ten minutes. We joined the waitlist and received a text notification to confirm our spot. As expected, people were called, seated, and new groups joined the list while we waited. All normal so far.

About 40–50 minutes into our wait, I received a text saying our table was ready and to press 2 once we were on the way. Since we were already in the waiting area, I pressed 2 right away, figuring it accounted for people arriving from offsite.

Then we waited. Ten minutes passed—nothing. Twenty minutes—still nothing. I’m a patient person and generally avoid bugging the host staff, especially when they’re busy. But after 25 minutes of watching other parties, including newer arrivals, get seated, I decided to check in.

I approached the hostess, who seemed less than thrilled to be there, and explained that I’d received a text about 25 minutes ago confirming our table was ready but hadn’t been called. She looked me up and down and said, “Yeah, we paged you a while ago and got no response.” I let her know my name was never called, and looked over to my teenager who agreed. Then she mentioned it was through their online system which relayed a text.

I showed her my phone, proving I’d replied to the text as instructed. She doubled down, claiming, “You’re supposed to check back in after you get the text.” I explained that I wasn’t aware of this since most places discourage hovering around the host stand, and I’d seen her calling out other parties when their tables were ready. Why would our situation be any different?

Her response? “I only call names when I can’t recognize someone in the crowd.” Wait—so she saw me sitting there the whole time and still didn’t call us? How does that make any sense?

Then she dropped the bomb: “Your table was given away because we didn’t get a response, so it’ll be another hour wait.”

Obviously, I wasn’t waiting another hour. As we left, she mockingly chirped, “Have a great day!” in the most condescending tone.

I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I called the restaurant to speak with a manager. To their credit, the manager was incredibly kind and apologetic. They admitted this was not normal, acknowledged the hostess’s behavior was out of line, and explained she was new and only working because they were short-staffed. They even offered us a table immediately if we wanted to return. While I appreciated the gesture, the damage was done. We declined.

That hostess’s attitude was next-level terrible—definitely not the vibe you expect from a place with such amazing food. If you see a sour-faced, dark-haired hostess in her mid-thirties with a chip on her shoulder, proceed with caution.

Great food, awful service today....

This was theeeee best breakfast EVER. The wait was extremely long....an HOUR AND 50 MINS...2HRS...HOW CAN BREAKFAST BE WORTH THAT WAIT?!? It can. I started off with a bloodmary which tasted exactly how it would if I had made it myself...and for me...that's rare. It was unctuous, tart, meaty and it had a healthy dose of vodka...more than I could handle...however...I'd prefer that over not enough and you could not taste the alcohol...but I felt it. Perfect. I had a caprese omelet with the best fruit cup...not cantelope, honeydew, a grape and one piece of unripe strawberry...this was kiwi, grapes plural, mango...ripened to perfection, blood orange...and not tiny...sooo good. The in house baked sourdough was phenomenal. Perfect texture and with their homemade strawberry jam...yummo. I knew I'd be full, but I dont live nearby and dont normally even eat bread so I went for it...I had a piece of creme brulee French toast with vanilla custard baked in...it was essentially burnt sugar encrusted bread pudding and I was not mad at it. Sooooo good. I'll be dreaming about it...until next time. Also the decor spoke to my heart. It was kitschy...a lot...with dog pics, paintings and photos EVERYWHERE...but so much more. Somehow I got a sneak peak in the mens room because there was a line for the ladies room and the bold woman behind me decided to "just go for it" so she flung the door open and their was cool sports decor and I saw a t-rex next to the poo spray...and the womens restroom is absolutely gorgeous...weird to say, but its littered with vintage pendant lights that are mostly brassy and the room is also just a collage of gorgeous mirrors. They played Meet me in the ladies room by Klymaxx on a loop which was also not lost on me. Theres a ton of smelly good lotions and hand soaps...bath and body works specifically and I also appreciated that. I told my daughter I felt like this place was my idea and my brain exploded here...because these are all the things I love. A good cocktail, dogs, decor, food...good, quality, attention to detail food, pendant lights...a good quote or a thousand...in my decor. The servers were friendly and not annoying. A little gangsta, but not offensive. All the things that bring me joy ..especially that burnt sug encrusted bread pudding aka creme brulee French toast. I died.

Thank you word of mouth. I will return from Seattle as soon as I can...and I will wait an hour and 50mins...