Elli's Great American Restaurant — Restaurant in Salinas

This was my second time in, I had been up traveling and just wanted to sit down and enjoy a good meal. I called a bit after 7 am. to ensure they were open. It took 3 separate calls for a rude woman to finally answer. Once we arrived, there was a short haired waitress in the middle of wiping a table. She looked right at us several times, but not once did she greet us or smile. She looked upset and fed up as she hurried up to finish. Once she approached us, she asked, "How can i help you?" a bit odd since it's a restaurant, and one can assume we want to eat, right? She quickly sat us next to the only two customers she had and asked if we were ready. I asked her for a few minutes so we could review the menu, but we were ready for our drinks, but she just left me talking and walked away. She came back about 5 minutes later to finally take our drink order and when I asked her for sugar for the coffee she walked away, back tracked and rudely flipped condiment rack on top of the table and slammed it down and said "theres some right here". It takes a lot to get me mad, so my reply was to laugh,and i said, "woaaahh woahh, there settle down." I didn't want my child to be upset and let this waitress ruin our meal, so I did my best to distract her and not focus on the horrible service. Once our meals came, my child saw that mine came with a huge flour tortilla at the bottom, and of course, wanted one as well, lol, so I ordered one. The waitress was so in shock that she literally asked me twice and felt the need to walk inside the kitchen to order it instead of over the bar. When she went into the kitchen, she whispered to one of the cooks, and it suddenly got quiet, and all eyes were on us. Over a tortilla? Really? Me asking for a tortilla that comes in the meal should not shock anybody. Then we ask for 2 containers to go, but we got 1, i told her i was also ordering to go, so i had 4 containers in total, but she gave me no bag. That is, until she heard my child tell me how rude she was and saw me debating to leave 0 tip. It was horrible, even as we left, no "thank you, have a great day" nothing! She is so rude, slamming the condiment rack, walking away from us mid sentence as we're trying to order, no smiles, no welcoming, friendly vibes, just rude! She made us feel as tho we were bothering her by even being there, it was just horrible! Even how she treated the Doordash people, just rude! and this poor lil old man that came in asking for cornbread, and she barked at him that there was no more! She needs some serious training on customer service or maybe a career change where she doesn't deal with the public. I hope the owner has cameras and sees how she behaves. I feel bad for her cause you can tell she is just miserable! Huge difference from the first time I went. it's like...

I’ve been here several times in the past, and have never had any issues. We are normally sat promptly. And food is always good. However this time around, I ordered the French toast combo and the French toast was cold, the butter wasn’t even melted.. and my eggs, which I ordered scrambled were still partly raw. Super gross. We also ordered the Stacked Salsa Verde, and everything needed salt! The food was much blander than I remember. I’m a bit disappointed as I loved coming here. Our server, was nice enough, but she passed by our table several times, without much acknowledgement. We waited about ten minutes before being able to flag her down for more creamer. Three stars for the orange juice, at least that’s still good.

Edit: I just read a review, about how someone had a negative experience because the servers and staff seem to ignore Hispanics. And I believe we had a similar experience. When we requested a table for two with the host, she dismissed us, and said the wait would be 30 min. They seemed busy, but we were determined to have a good breakfast. And we weren’t too keen on driving around to find somewhere else. So we agreed, she seemed annoyed, and took down our names. And what do ya know. We didn’t even have a chance to sit down before, someone else called out for our party of two. I believe she thought that by exaggerating the wait time, we would be discouraged from dining in. Nonetheless, we were seated, but the experience just went further downhill from there. Our server checked on her other tables several times, and only came around to ours twice, throughout our dining experience. Once to take our order, and another time to let us know she was leaving on break. (We were the last table she informed.) She seemed like she was going to leave without letting us know, until we made eye contact and she finally made it over to our table. Like I said we wanted more creamer, she brought it over. But never offered refills for juice, or coffee. We felt as if we were stuck in a corner, and forgotten. It’s not like we didn’t leave a great tip. Very upsetting now that I put two and...

The manager Karla is extremely rude and unprofessional with a serious attitude problem. I was trying to place an order to-go and received the most absolutely worst customer service from her I have ever received in my life! She was rushing me. She was very snarky when I asked questions about the desserts. She kept walking away and not coming back to the front counter for long periods of time. I was in the middle of trying to add desserts to my order and she kept asking me if I was “done yet?”, and acted like it was so hard and arduous for her to finish taking my order. I asked her why she was treating me so rude, and she would roll her eyes like a child and gave me no answer. There were three other parties that walked in and ended up leaving after hearing and seeing what was happening to me. She refused to give me her name when I asked, or any information on how I could contact someone higher than her to tell them about my experience. Finally, another employee that heard and saw everything from the back, and apologized for the way she was treating me and told me that she is “always like that with everyone”, and said that she even treats them that way, too. I feel bad for the other employees that have to deal with her for even longer periods of time, compared to the 55 minutes it took for her to complete my order. I’ve been going to Elli”s for years and never seen her before, so she might be new. Now, because of Karla, I will never go back, and neither will anyone in my family that I just told about my awful experience. They are so upset. She should not be working in customer service if she is going to be treating people the way she treated me. I hope someone that works up higher than her reads this review and does...