Kerbey Lane Cafe — Restaurant in San Marcos

I have never written a review like this before and it has taken me about 2 weeks to get up the courage to do so. My experience with Kerbey Lane was like a waking nightmare and I feel it’s important to be public about it. My husband was visiting family in Japan & had been gone for a few days so I thought I would treat my kids to dinner. We RARELY eat out so this makes the story all that more painful. I saw Kerbey Lane did a free kid’s meal per adult entreé on Tuesdays so I thought why not? Eating out is a luxury for us but we were in town for my daughter’s sport event and decided to have dinner there. Myself, my 9-month-old, 2-year-old and 7-year-old all ate there. We dined for about an hour and since it was getting close to their bedtime I thought we should get going. We had parked just on the side of the entrance to Kerbey Lane and could see the river. I wanted to show my kids real quick the historic sign on the side and so I grabbed our stroller for the baby (because he’s quite huge & hard to carry lol) and we wheeled over to the side of the building to get a better view. We were absent from our car for just over 5 minutes and when we turned around to walk back - we looked up - and our car was GONE… I cannot describe to you the sinking, awful feeling that came over me. All of our car seats, my wallet, kid’s medication - gone with it. Someone had taken our car while we were just barely out of sight from it. It. Was. Horrible. And unfortunately, it gets worse. My daughter was freaked out and although I was shaking badly from disbelief & shock, I thought surely someone would help us. We walked back up to the parking lot & some strangers informed me that a towing truck had taken our car. They were pretty outraged when they realized it was my car that had been taken. I thought that they must be mistaken because we had just dined in the establishment and the parking lot was almost vacant of vehicles? We went back inside Kerbey Lane and told them my car had been taken. I couldn’t hold it in any more & finally tears started flowing hard. The management started scrambling & making phone calls. Other families panicked while leaving just thinking about their cars being taken. Some wanted to help me but I had the baby boys and clearly no one had any extra car seats. I assured them we would figure something out despite the fact I did not have a partner to come rescue us. We waited for about 20 minutes. The kids were getting a little loopy from being tired. Management came back to me & informed me that the towing company HAD TAKEN PICTURES OF ME AND MY KIDS stepping our feet off the parking lot grounds and therefore making it legal to tow me. The absolute SHOCK that washed over me. I could barely swallow & put on a brave face 😭 There I was from out of town with my two babies and my young daughter. No partner to help us. No car seats. And the sun was going down. I was so stressed I basically ran away from the establishment because I could hardly speak. The manager gave me the tow people’s name & I found them on Google maps. They were about 1.3 miles away. I did not care that it was still 90-something degrees, I decided to walk my kids there. We almost made it but the side walk disappeared & I did not want to push my baby in the street. Thankfully a friend picked us up & drove us the rest of the way there. The towing place was unsurprisingly run down. I called them and the lady was unfriendly & rude. She told me someone would be there in an hour. We waited in my friend’s car and watched possums & rats go by. After an hour, I called again. She assured me someone would be there. Another hour passed. My poor kids were starting to fall apart. A tow guy showed up 2 HOURS past when they said they would be there. And it cost me over $150 to get my car back. We commuted back home at 11PM that night, and I could not go back out for days because it was so traumatizing. I don’t care that San Marcos is a college town/river town - that is NOT how you do business or treat paying costumers. I felt totally preyed upon and taken...

Ok so there are not many experiences that I have that make me think immediately "omg I need to leave a review" but LET 👏 ME 👏 TELL 👏 Y'ALL 👏

Ok so first, we walk in and ask to sit outside because it was beautiful outside and we wanted to sit by the river/spring lake (my husband, when at TXST many years ago, studied aquatic science and has his master level and archeological scuba certification and was one of few permitted to scuba dive in spring lake. So we wanted to sit by it, and so I can hear all his stories and fun facts).

Anyway, we sat outside. Not many available tables which was okay but one party was leaving (they had the best table) and I know servers hate this but I asked the waitress if when they leave/bus the table, if we could move over there (so we could watch the waterfall) and they were all SO nice and said absolutely and made sure the hostess knew as well, so as to not sit anyone at that table. It's the little things, but that meant a lot.

So, our food comes and we're eating and it's delicious. I ordered the Kirby combo with blueberry pancakes. He ordered the buffalo chicken and pancakes which he LOVED (and he said were still good reheated too). Everything was great. Food was good. Mimosas were great. Coffee was a tiny bit bland but if that's the worst thing then they're still doing great.

Then suddenly, a waitress (not our waitress but a different one) comes over with another plate of blueberry pancakes and we were confused and were like "no, must not be us because we already have our food". A few minutes later, the MANAGER (Sam) comes out with a take out container with the blueberry pancakes inside. He said the waitress noticed that the pancakes I received were not up to their quality standards, and the manager had agreed with her so they made me two new blueberry pancakes and packaged them up to take home. Which, this absolutely baffled me because neither my husband nor I complained, or even said anything at all about the pancakes. We were blissfully munching away lol. Actually, I was fine with the pancakes but the manager said "no no, we can do better, we want to do better. So here's some to take home, and they're even good reheated too" ALL OF THIS without prompting.

The waitress (Megan) REALLY took care of us... Even better, she continued to take care of us on the back end without us even knowing, and advocated for better food even though we weren't complaining. She was SOOOO sweet, and so personable. It honestly seemed like she really enjoys her job, her coworkers and her patrons.

What's funny is my husband didn't even really want to come to Kirby Lane at first. He thought it was "overrated". Whelp, they definitely won him over (and that can be hard to do as he used to be a chef so he tends to be pretty critical).

This whoolleee interaction just showed how absolutely committed they are to the quality of their food and service. I've never had an experience like this at any restaurant, truly. Most restaurants HATE having to remake food, they hate when people send plates back or complain about the tiniest thing, etc. We did nothing of the sort and were happily eating away but instead, these incredible employees took it upon themselves to ENSURE that we had the best dining experience that they could possibly give us, and they wouldn't settle for anything less. And we did have the best dining experience. It was one we'll surely never forget.

Thank you so much to our waitress, Megan and the manager, Sam (Diddy?) -- and also thank you to the person on the phone who helped look up our ticket in order to tell me the name of our waitress to be able to give her the proper credit and kudos...

I would not recommend this place. The staff here are nice but young and not competent at what they do. The food is engineered to make them money, it tastes below average but is somewhat acceptable. What you are really paying for here is the location and new Austin style decor.

The first time we went here the waitress asked if we wanted any drinks and we had to ask for the drink menu. There were 3 of us and she brought 1 menu, gave it to my husband then asked us all what we wanted to drink before anyone really had a chance to see it. I asked her to give us some time to look over it and she wouldn't leave. It was frustrating. Once we got the food it looked nice but really was not enjoyable to eat. Some of it we just didn't eat because it was not good. They do not care if they serve bad food, they will still charge you for it. I guess it doesn't have to be good though, they have such a good location near the college they are pretty much guaranteed to have customers.

We came here again a few weeks later for drinks during happy hour. The cafe was somewhat empty and we still waited nearly 20 min for the bartender. (We almost left.) (We should have left.) The guy who came up said he is really a waiter and had no idea what the drink menu even looked like. We asked for two drinks and he told us he had never made a mixed drink before and it took like 3 college kids to combine forces and figure out how to read the recipe and mix it. As you can imagine, the drinks turned out impressively bad. They were supposed to muddle mint and blueberries and they pretty much threw them in there whole. We asked the guy if he had tried it and he said no, he doesn't drink. He did not want any feedback on the drinks whatsoever. We drank half our drinks and were charged $15 for them. This is the first time in my life I have ever not tipped.

They should have just said the bar was closed but they would rather take our money.

I'm done with this place. I keep hoping it would be good and it never is. I think I'm not the target demographic though. I think they just want to take money from college kids who think it's a good place because they don't know any better and are impressed by the hip atmosphere. It feels like...