Jimmy's of Santee — Restaurant in Santee

7/11/21 5:45 PM

Jimmy's has changed Management! Pre-Covid the Original Owner (at least since we arrived to the Neighborhood in 1987) were awesome! We had dinner or lunch in there at least twice per month.

We were regulars and our favorite is the Broasted Chicken (absolutely delicious!) Things have changed since the State has allowed the Restaurants to open back up. The original Management has retired, leaving a Family Member to step into the role of Owner/Manager and unfortunately she is just not up to the task.

I've had several encounters with her, and she just doesn't understand the concept of Customer relationships. For years the best homemade soups, and salad dressings, incredible home style entrees, decent portions and great prices kept us coming back. When one of the Owners (Rodger) retired I was concerned because I knew that he came in early and made all of the Soups and Salad Dressings. But not to worry he had trained several people in all of his recipes before his retirement. Jimmy's Santee did not miss a beat!

This next generation of Ownership has not been prepared, and though I am sure she is great at bossing her employees around and getting them to kowtow to her Leadership style, I predict that the Customers are going to leave in droves.

Hopefully she will get a clue and realize that the Customer is the reason she has a job and a business to run. I'm giving her less than two years to run an extremely successful business into the ground.

Again, not the food, the not the employees, Management/Ownership will be the ruin of this Santee favorite.

7/11/21 7:45 PM After Managements Response

I feel compelled to reply after the new Owners (she has claimed to be the new Owner on several occasions) reply to my review. The stated hours are until 8PM. We arrived at 7:15 and waited in the Foyer to be seated. We got our table and placed our order at 7:25 and we were told that the Kitchen could not prepare our order as it was too close to closing time. I told the new Owner that we had been waiting out front, and that we have been Customers for 35 years. She made it clear that she is the new Sherriff and old standards no longer apply. She explained that her policy is to no longer prepare the Chicken Dinner prior to less than 30 minutes of closing time. We didn't place our order at 7:55 (or 5 minutes prior to closing time) not at all it was 7:25. In any case we wont be back while the Restaurant is under her...

This is sad to write. The Jimmy's that once was is gone. I dined there with my mother and my 4 year old son for lunch recently. There was no check in or organization for guests coming into the establishment, just a host who appeared every 5 minutes to ask who is next. We were seated and had a decent wait for our waiter to arrive in order to be told what options were on the kids menu as they had no printed menu available. Once we were able to place an order, my mom asked for coffee and creamer. My son drank a few of her creamers and almost immediately threw up on the table as there was one that was extremely sour. About 1/3 of the served creamers were bad. We finally found our waiter to let him know and we were told that he knew some creamers were a problem as a night server forgot to place them in the fridge. Somehow he knew there was foul milks and still chose to gamble on serving it to us. If this weren't bad enough, we were served more milks that he said he thinks these are better without any confidence. Our waiter then sat with a customer at her table and served our food cold after a decent amount of waiting goes by again. My mom had to ask him to microwave her egg dish as they were just gross cold. While taking our dishes, we were given our bill and told that our waiter is our cashier. Over 20 minutes passed and our waiter never returned to our table. Going to the front and waiting for the hostest to pay our bill, she came out and let us know we needed to pay the waiter. We tell her we cannot wait longer and she says we can only pay our waiter. We insisted she handle it, and finally could pay our $65 bill for two adult brunch meals and a kids meal, so we could leave. Only to have my kid full of sour milk throw up for the next two hours. I will never return seeing how little they care about customer service or experience. I will happily take my...

The guy in the front told us it would be 15 min to be seated, yet seated 8 tables prior to us. The was 3 tables open for 6 or more. We were 5 with a toddler. I asked if the kid had common sense to seat us there, the kid said it's for 6 or more. Which made us agitated. I called for a manager and all over a sudden we got seated in the same seats he said no. We sat down, and we were ready to order si ce we sat there long enough. The blond thin girl who attended us would not take our order, she said I have to get ur drinks first and then came back 5 min later to take our order. Annoying. Sat there drank our drinks and the girl DIDNT even attend us but we saw her attend all her other tables. Asked her for refill, and nothing. Asked another server, old guy with punk rocker hair, acting as if he was in his teen, while looking 50. He yelled out drinks, and did NOTHING, to assist. 10 min later again asked for a refill and nothing, then after seeing we are getting agitated, 50 yr old server guy decided to serve us drinks. Again annoying. For was decent. Service sucked 1000%. Then I get up and inover hear the 50 yr old guy who thought he was a teen, talking about me in a hush hush... caught on I over heard them, beyond unprofessional. By this time we were done with this, poor service. Asa business owner, if my clients over heard my service ppl talk about my clients. I'd fire them! As we r leaving the girl at front desk I take her to close out the tab. And she was like I can't close out, u need to close out with ur server..... again poor! What is the point of having a P.O.S infront and a girl who is incapable of operating it. Had to search for server to close out tab, and then gets an attitude with me.... ZERRRRRROOO TIPS. TO INSURE PROMPT SERVICE, she did NOT provide, nor did any of ur service provide prompt service. 1000 percent...