Mayfield — Restaurant in San Juan Capistrano

After three visits, I feel the need to write an honest review. Mayfield is simply something you should avoid in San Juan, especially when many other great options surround it.

The food is decent—nothing special but not terrible. The main problem, which occurred during each of our three visits, is the service and general operation of the restaurant. It is obvious the owner of Mayfield has no clue how to optimize and run a restaurant. I even had a discussion with him at one point, where he somewhat admitted he is trying to reduce payroll expenses in what I understood to be an attempt to be more profitable.

At a place where a breakfast platter is $14 but it costs $6 to simply add bacon, payroll expenses should not be the concern; quality of service should be the priority.

If you value your time, DO NOT come to Mayfield for breakfast or lunch. They are understaffed at all times—not sometimes, all the time. The kitchen is too small for the seating capacity. They have too many customers for what their kitchen can supply. It can take 30-45 minutes for food to arrive once you place your order, which is even worse as the servers rarely visit your table to take the order in the first place.

The food is good, I'll give them that. But in SJC, you're surrounded by places with great food—the difference being those establishments are run by experienced restaurateurs who know how to run a hospitality business efficiently and deliver great food AND great service.

Take your business to Bloom, Trevor's, Ellie's Table, Rancho Capistrano Winery, or Ramos House Cafe, which are steps from this place. You'll be glad you did. Hopefully, this place will be replaced by some other concept in the near future, as the location is great, but the owner and management are not.

EDIT: Owner has responded to my initial review (below) with misinformation regarding my review. The time he claimed I "lectured" him on how to run a restaurant was during my second visit (which I wanted to write this review then, but decided to give them another shot later) when my wife and I sat there for 46 minutes waiting for our food to show up after we ordered it.

Our order was literally a breakfast sandwich and avocado toast... 46 minutes? To top it off, our waitress never checked in to refill waters or even mention this supposed delay. I spoke with the owner and again, I could have written the review then, but gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Months later, our third visit, we decided to try again after he had fed with my the excuses you read below in his response. Guess what? Same result... except our server was nicer and more attentive this time around. However, contrary to his inaccurate response, it was never mentioned to us until AFTER we placed the order that the kitchen could not serve ANY orders for at least 30-40 minutes regardless of what I ordered. If it was due to my steak and eggs, i'd have gladly ordered something else, however- that was not mentioned.

Yes, we cancelled 5 minutes after the order was placed. But the owner says we "wasted a steak" that was already cooking? How would a steak already be grilling 5 minutes after placing the order (which was ordered medium rare) if they said it wouldnt be served for 30-40+ minutes? Dude, you're clearly lying.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt and tried your business 3 times. Please learn how to run a restaurant. Mayfield is the only restaurant i've ever given a 1* review to and trust me, you earned it... go visit your competition that surrounds you, they know what they are doing and they definitely won't take 30-40 minutes to cook up great food that isn't microwaved as...

In short, this is a place for hipsters not families. The food and presentation are good, but also somewhat lazy. The wait staff put in an effort, but in all the wrong ways. Let me explain. We found this place with the expectations of getting true North African/Mediterranean cuisine. We made a Sunday night reservation, and arrived 15 minutes prior to the 615 reservation . The host made a show of "seeing what she could do." The resturant was empty and the got us a seat soon after our request. The resturant was nice inside, the music was a little loud to have regular conversation, but not over the top. Once we sat down the waitess came to start our order. She was nice, but again very showy, calling us her darlings and her loves. She explained the format for dining as family style (using about 10 more sentences). We were with our two small children (8 and 9 yo) one of whom is vegetarian, and we're told the kids options were fried chicken with cuisecus or fried chicken with fries. Of course nothing was as straight forward in ordering, as you would expect from a hipster resturant. The food came out. It was genuinely good, but the portions were small for the price. Despite waiting over an hour, we did not get one of the items we ordered (chicken). By this time my wife was clearly frustrated and hungry. We asked to just pay for what we received and leave. The waitress was dutiful, but never said anything about the chicken not coming out. She had already included a 20% tip for herself when I went to pay the bill. On the way out, I noted that multiple people who had come in after us were eating the chicken we had waited for so patiently. Needless to say, it was clear that our waitress had forgotten to put in our complete order. We left out of frustration that one of our children didn't have a reasonable option for a vegetarian child, and one person did not gait the main meal. For this reason, I can not recommend...

I recently dined at this restaurant and, unfortunately, had a pretty disappointing experience. I started with the dips, which were mediocre at best. The baba ghanoush had no flavor and tasted overwhelmingly like tahini, while the hummus was just decent. The highlight of the meal was the sweet potatoes — easily the best dish of the night.

For my main, I ordered the risotto because I have dietary restrictions and the options for someone plant-based and dairy-free were extremely limited. The dish was a complete letdown. The mushrooms tasted spoiled, and the rice was undercooked. I rarely complain at restaurants because I understand how tough things are in the industry right now, but this time I felt it was worth mentioning to the server. She passed the message along to what I assume was the manager, who approached us just as we had our card out to pay.

The manager informed us that they were “cooking some of the mushrooms to check if they were okay” to determine if they could comp the dish. I told her it wasn’t necessary, as I wasn’t looking for a comp, but she insisted — which came off as a bit pushy. In the end, they discounted the dish by 50%, which felt strange. When I asked about it, I was told the chefs agreed the mushrooms didn’t taste right. If that was the case, why not just remove the dish entirely?

The whole situation gave off weird vibes, and overall, the food was overhyped and overpriced. I left feeling like the experience didn’t match the reputation. Definitely not somewhere I’d...