Emigration Cafe — Restaurant in Salt Lake City

I feel compelled to write a review of Emigration Cafe for Mother's Day brunch, this review applies to only that as I haven't eaten there otherwise. We did Mother's Day brunch here this year, when booking a reservation for the brunch they do a $60 per adult and $10 per child credit card hold (not charged until after you've eaten). The restaurant itself is quite nice, bright and open, not loud, and they have a great patio. For Mother's Day they do a buffet style brunch with many options, overall the quality is very mediocre and in a few cases, just bad. I can appreciate the idea of holding a buffet style brunch given the numbers of people, simplifying the menu and making things easier for customers and staff. But the food is in no way, shape, or form even remotely worth $60 (actually more, just wait).

So, I had a typical brunch, eggs ("scrambled", soft, lots of liquid, barely warm), bacon (they essentially just took several packs of bacon, opened them, tossed them in a pan for 5 minutes, left half of them completely soft and barely cooked and the other half about normal, all stuck together), potatoes (hard, overcooked, decently seasoned), and "brioche" french toast (the whole buffet warmer was filled with burnt pieces, I found the least burnt one, which was somewhat soft, but the rest were completely rock hard and obviously nobody was touching them). I tried to go back and get a couple sweets, the cinnamon roles looked good, except they were completely dry, hard on the outside, with zero glaze except a thin layer on top. My wife did enjoy their shredded potatoes dish, my daughter ate about 10 grapes and a few pieces of cheese, my dad is basically a garbage dumpster who will eat about anything. We also got 3 lattes and a children's apple juice, the lattes were good, and that was literally the only table service we had the whole time, one guy ordered our drinks and someone else brought them, that was it for waiters.

Final bill: $294. What they don't tell you is that an automatic $50 gratuity is added, who charges an automatic 25% gratuity for a table of 3 adults and a 3 year old? For a buffet? In which the only service provided is a couple drinks!? I about fell out of my chair when I saw the bill for what we ate, completely outrageous. I've had far better brunch buffets at a typical Courtyard Inn hotel for a quarter of the price. Do NOT do Mother's Day...

Got to the restaurant at 7:15PM. They sat us outside. At 7:45PM, after waiting 30 minutes without anybody waiting on us, I decided to go in and let them know we still haven’t been waited on. They quickly apologized and I returned to my seat. Moments later they came and took our order. I ordered the artichoke dip flatbread as the appetizer and then the 3 of us in my party ordered the Bison Burger. About 20 minutes or so later the Burgers came out. No artichoke dip. When the burgers came out they were insanely messy. We wanted to get started eating but unfortunately we had no napkins or silverware to cut it because we were never given any. We then LITERALLY sat there for 20 minutes waiting for a server or anybody to come by our table so we can ask for utensils and napkins so we can start eating. By the time they came back with them our burgers were cold. By the end of the dinner, the appetizer never came to our table. Nobody ever came to check on us. We strongly felt like we were sat in a section without a server and nobody wanted to help us. Eventually I started to laugh because I could not believe that NOBODY was taking care of us. How do you apologize for us not being waited on then continue to ignore us? I hardly complain about food establishments, but this was really disappointing and when your paying 20-25$ a meal for dinner. I really felt like we had no assigned server and I’m shocked that after everything they didn’t offer to comp the meal or do anything...

We went for dinner on Friday; the third day after they opened. Usually I dislike (hate is such a strong word) going to new restaurants because the service is awful and the food is inconsistent. We really liked the previous restaurant in this location, but we had worn out the menu and it felt a bit stagnant. Still, we continued going because of the previous restaurant’s great location and outside dining.

Emigration Café surprised us. To my knowledge it is not related to the Emigration Brewery. After experiencing this newly opened restaurant, this is my favorite Pago owned location. We shared the Zucchini Pinsa (hand-pressed pizza), the Truffle & Asparagus Grilled Cheese sandwich (that thing is extraordinary), the Arugula & Fennel salad, and washed everything down with Vadio Tinto, Bairrada red wine from Portugal. To top things off, we had the House Made Ice Cream Sandwich for dessert.

For fans of the previous restaurant in this location, the interior and exterior are the same. I assure you that this is an improvement over the old, and Pago's management made sure that everything ran like clockwork. The food, service and general atmosphere was first rate. For a newly opened restaurant the atmosphere was very calm. The food was fantastic and creative, and what I really liked was that we got great value for the cost. Emigration Café made food I can't make, I couldn’t even think of, and I am sure to go back again for some more...