Heidi's Pies Restaurant — Restaurant in San Mateo

Overall, everything was good...but, I'll be completely honest, my 3-star rating needs to be explained - I debated whether to leave a 3-start, or 4-star review. Until a few months ago, I hadn't been here in over 20 years, when I worked part-time at Warehouse Music across the street. When I initially returned, it was for lunch. I no longer remember what I had, other than it being "good", and the service being & friendly (exactly as the service was 20 years ago). If I were only rating the service, it would easily be a 5-star rating...however, a rating is not based on service, alone.

This time, on a Sunday morning, I came in for breakfast around 7:30am. There was one table with a family, another work a couple, and a third with a single gentleman...so, not very busy. I ordered the spinach, mushroom, & Swiss omelette, with French toast, plus a large OJ. While delicious, the first thing I discovered is that the OJ is no longer fresh-squeezed, however, I did not deduct any stars for this, as I did not know it was no longer fresh. The French toast was cooked almost perfectly...just ever-so-slightly undergone...but, again, no major deduction (say 0.5 stars), as it was still far better than anything you'd get at IHOP.

Unfortunately, the omelette...the real reason for the deductions...wasn't anywhere near as good. While the mushrooms appeared to be fresh (I say "appeared to be" for a reason...read about the spinach, below, and you might understand), and the cheese was plentiful, the egg portion of the omelette was on the thin side. If you compare a pancake against a crepe, you'll understand what I'm referring to. As for the spinach, this is why I down-rated my review. If I were rating only the food, because of the spinach, this would be a 1-star review.

Not only was the spinach NOT fresh, it wasn't even freshly-sauteed. What I found inside my omelette was (thawed) frozen chopped spinach. Anyone who has ever opened a package of chopped spinach will instantly understand how I know this. If you're making a spinach dip at home, then, by all means, thawed frozen chopped spinach is your "best friend"...but, for anything else, I'd never used it. For a restaurant to be using it, talk about SACRILEGE. First, why would a restaurant use ANY frozen vegetables? For one thing, it costs MORE then fresh veggies. With each, and every, but if my omelette, all my teeth keep feeling the "mushy" texture of previously-frozen chopped spinach. Normally, I would have alternated between the omelette & French toast...but, wanting to get through this "disaster", I ate the omelette as quickly as possible, so that I could enjoy the French toast.

In all likelihood, I will return to Heidi's...possibly even for breakfast...but I will NEVER again order ANY food items (other than, maybe, a salad) that contain spinach. In my 50+ years, I don't think I've EVER come across a restaurant using frozen chopped spinach...until this morning.

Don't allow this to dissuade you from going to Heidi's...the service IS fast, and friendly, and the food IS good - just don't order anything cooked that...

If negative numbers were possible, I would rate it at the lowest! In over 60 years, I've never had such a universally bad experience. My friend and I arrived at about 11:30p on a Sunday evening, looking for a quick meal after a very long day at work. The restaurant was almost empty but it still took the waitress almost 10 minutes to bring us menus. She then left and came right back with water and an expectation to take our orders. When we told her we would need a minute or two to decide, she went away and didn't return for an additional 20 minutes. After a couple of questions (my friend has several food allergies), we placed our orders. My friend specifically ordered from the breakfast menu so that she'd have the least chance of encountering anything that would trigger her allergies. It took more than half an hour for my pot roast and her scrambled eggs to arrive. My meal was adequate, if indifferent (tv dinner quality). Hers was inedible, including very runny eggs when she'd specified "scrambled hard". She sent them back and, sometime after I'd finished my meal, her plate was returned with no change other than that her scrambled eggs had been chopped up! It took yet more time to get the waitress back and protest. Her response was that the eggs were fine and my friend should just eat them. After some no little disagreement, my friend finally got her point across that her order was unsatisfactory and unacceptable. She requested the pot roast instead but stipulated extra potatoes rather than the mixed vegetables as she's allergic to peas. After another prolonged wait, the waitress brought her order . . . wrong again! At that point, we'd had enough. She demanded the bill for my pot roast dinner so that we could pay it and go elsewhere so that she could get a meal. The waitress ordered her to eat the pot roast and walked off. We spent an additional half hour waiting for her to bring the bill but she studiously ignored us until, 3 HOURS after we'd arrived and thoroughly furious at the treatment, we got up and left. I have never not paid for a meal in my life, but this whole experience was horrific...

This place had a cafe diner like feel when you walk in small town. We had the shrimp, louie and the fish and chips. We would compare the fish and chips to something similar to gordon ramsay's fish and chips in las vegas. If that's a reference to anyone. The batter is not too thick and they give you plenty of tartar sauce and they have Malt vinegar too. The shrimp louie was fresh and the salad underneath was fresh too.

The waitresses were very friendly in a kind of no.B.S sort of way. We sat near the entrance way which we found out, got a lot of traffic from people coming in and out, picking up pies. If you don't want to feel the riff raff of constant opening door from patriots, then sit deeper inside the restaurant.

We also had multiple pies here, and they were generally all delicious. Definitely tastes different compared to Nation's. For example, if you get the pumpkin pie here, it will have more of a brown sugar taste sweeter. Nations taste more pumpkin. I personally like the banana pie the most. If you're not a banana person, then obviously don't get this one.

This place would've got five stars from us if it wasn't for the soup that came with the fish and chips. It gave my wife food poisoning, because we both shared each other's food, but I didn't drink the soup. Obviously it was spoiled.

Overall, a great small restaurant place that is definitely known for their pies more than anything. We came back multiple times just...