The Park Café — Restaurant in Salt Lake City

I really wanted to like this place, me and my two friends had this place hyped up to us so much and I've never been so let down. I'd even go so far as to say this is the worst breakfast place in Salt Lake, my friends agreed it sucked pretty bad. 30 minute wait, we were used to that since we've been to a good few places that are busy since we go out like every 2 weeks for breakfast or lunch to see each other and catch up. We got in and the place is VERY loud and cramped, we've been to a few places like that but none quite this bad, I couldn't even hear my friends right next to me talking and had to lean in to hear them.

After about 10 minutes a lady came up and we all said 'Hi' and asked how she was and simply got an annoyed "What'd you want?" in response, barely let any of us finish telling her what we wanted and actually didn't let my male friend tell her what he wanted to drink before walking off. She came back and acted more annoyed and like it was our fault she'd just walked away before we were done. I noticed she was very rude with everyone and didn't smile once when talking to anyone, so I'm under the impression she REALLY hates her job. Which I get but also come on now, if people aren't rude to you you don't gotta be like that. My male friend even used to work in food service and was amazed she still had a job acting like that. Everyone else was smiling and seemed happy too so I really don't understand why she was in such an awful mood with literally every table she had. I've had food spilled on me at a place before by a server and it didn't even dent the good mood our table had going like this girls attitude did.

The drinks were pretty awful and you could tell the chai latte was just that super cheap Costco brand mixed with water, none of those got finished. the orange juice was good, I'll give that but that's about it on the drinks being good. The water was tap water and that's all I can really say about it.

The food was mid at best, the pancakes were good enough and so was the ham. The hash browns was under cooked and pretty bad. My male friend got a sandwich and said the bread tasted old and the whole thing he could've made at home so, mid. My other friend said her hash browns sucked but the bacon was good but it's bacon and kinda hard to mess up. So over all just really mid on the food. Though something I need to point out the food looks NOTHING like all these pictures on the google reviews, I'm not sure if we got them on a bad day or what but it looked very thrown together and just kinda sloppy.

A very important note too I asked for grape jam for my toast, sorry I didn't like their jam, I'm not big on raspberry or whatever flavor it was on our table. When I asked, the girl half glared at me and said something to the affect "It won't be homemade." And I said that was fine, she passive aggressively tossed some packets onto our table and walked away without a word. The packets were hard as a rock and looked like hardening resin (I'm not sure if anyone is going to understand what I mean, like the crafting resin when it's not fully cured.) I told her this when she finally came back around and asked if I could maybe get another that wasn't old or see what other jams they had. I got the dirtiest look from her as she snatched them from me and then left without a word, she never came back to the table after that nor did I get more jam.

So yea, over all worst breakfast place me and my friends have ever been, that was our first and LAST time going here. I can't understand how this place is so well liked but if you've never been here and are thinking of going, DON'T. there are SO MANY better places to go that are just as hyped and way better: Penny Ann's Cafe, Sweet Lake Biscuits & Limeade, or Virg's to name three. All of them have WAY better food and drink, the prices are the same, and you don't get treated like crap. If I had to guess why this place is so popular I'd say it's the location and that's about it, it's to bad but...

The wait wasn’t too long. Once we were seated, we had a server come up and ask about drinks. Then suddenly, 5 different people were checking on us back to back. Asking us if we were ready to order - “no rush”, one even came up with a pitcher asking if we needed more water when we hadn’t even touched ours yet. We both settled on the FTF(?). It sounded great. The French Toast was great with the purées they have at your table - blackberry or strawberry. We tried both. Parts of the outer potatoes had some coloring but overall they resembled mashed potatoes , seasoned well yet undercooked. My scrambled eggs were average apart from the first bite having a piece of an egg shell - which I tried brushing off as I was hungry. Till it happened again a few bites later. We felt we couldn’t truly relax as the handful of servers checking in kept coming with what felt like 2 mins apart from each one. Two asked before we even touched our food. The 5 servers turned into at least 7 in total. Everyone had been checking on us in a quick way. One brought our ticket when we were halfway into each, again “no rush” as he quickly said it & left. Another quickly asked the other person in my party, if he was done with his food and went to pick up his plate that had his potatoes barely touched. He stopped eating his plate to drink. He told the server he was still working on it, who then left in another fast pace.

I understand the fast service, wanting to stay on top of things. But I don’t think they realize (or maybe people who pass thru often don’t care) that it absolutely affects the customer’s experience. I’ve been in customer service all my life. Maybe I’m a little bias but the workers did everything you’re not really “supposed to do” as a server. Who am I tipping? Are they rushing to clear yet another table despite a few already being available? Are they even rushing the food? Eyes were constantly scanning the area I assume to stay on top but… approaches were strange.

The place was busy when we got there and it quickly cleared out. Park Café picked up again towards the end of our meal. The service had us feeling off and confused as we left. I’m usually big on making sure to tip well, as I’ve been there. But all of this… I couldn’t. A great location, just need work on slowing down to make sure the food & service are both consistent. I’d like to give it another shot down the road (mainly for the french toast) as it was my first time, so I changed my 2 stars to 3 in hopes it’ll...

Eureka, I found it! After having to endure several unpleasant experiences at several different mediocre restaurants, through a stroke of luck we came upon this gem of a café in a city that we had never visited before in our lives. From the moment we walked in that morning, I could immediately get a sense of the professionalism and friendly demeanor of the staff. We sat down and a server immediately came over with our menus. We were both starving and looking at the menu and glancing over at an adjoining customer's order, it appeared that we were going to end up very satiated by the time we finished our breakfast.

I ordered the Bronco omelet and my partner ordered the Trippy Hippy Vegan Hash. While sipping our waters and looking around at the numerous other customers eating, I imagined that there would be somewhat of a wait to produce our order. It couldn't have been more than 6-7 minutes later that our waiter brought over our food, piping hot and looking delicious. The portion sizes were huge and the whole arrangement of our orders was done with care and attention to detail. We both ordered coffee and our waiter came over a few times to see how we were doing and refill our coffees as we worked our way through this wonderful meal. The veges and ham were fresh and sauteed just right as was the hash browns that accompanied my order. It took a while to finish this feast but I took on this challenge willingly and with enthusiasm. I would highly recommend...