Honey Tree Cafe — Restaurant in Sarasota

I've been coming to the Honey Tree for years everytime I'm in town. I was excited to bring my son because it's my favorite breakfast restaurant in Sarasota. I don't know what happened today, but it definitely WAS NOT the usual deliciousness, and I was embarrassed to recommend it to someone today.

My son is allergic to lettuce, so he ordered his Club Sandwich with no lettuce and the cheddar cheese. It came with lettuce, and oddly, the cheese was shredded. We sent it back, and we're pretty sure all they did was take the lettuce off and bring him the same sandwich because most of the shredded cheese was missing from the part of the sandwich where the lettuce had been. Again, my son is ALLERGIC to lettuce, it's not that he doesn't like it, so he couldn't eat it because lettuce will make him ill. A restaurant should understand food allergies.

I ordered a ham and cheese omelet with a side order of Hollandaise Sauce. I always order the same thing every time I come to the Honey Tree because I love their Hollandaise, but not today I didn't. It tasted flavorless and the texture was chunky and thick... definitely not the usual Hollandaise. I didn't eat any of it beyond what I dipped my fork into it to taste it. I let our server know it wasn't good, and She apologized but just gave us our check and didn't take the 3+ dollar upcharge for the Sauce off the check.

My son and I were at the first booth by the cashier station trying to have a leisurely breakfast and conversation on his one day off that we can visit. It was really difficult to hear most of what he was saying to me because the cashier and 2 Young Men were gossiping and carrying on so loudly that I couldn't hear over their boisterous behavior. They also barely acknowledged the customers long enough to stop talking to each other and greet them. It kind of felt like they thought we, the customers, were a nuisance because they looked annoyed when they had to do what is presumably their jobs. The cashier even had to tell one of the guys to be quiet while She was on the phone.

It may have been just an off day, but it was off enough that I won't recommend them anymore, and I doubt I'll be back because it was a phenomenal waste of my time and money. Now I have to still buy my son breakfast because we can't safely say that he won't get sick if he eats the sandwich, and honestly who wants to have their cheese sloppily fall out of their club sandwich because they used shredded instead of...

I’m also a business owner, and I know how these reviews are looked at. So we got the “new guy” and I’m all about the new guys! He was so nervous he spilled a very large cup of ice water on me, I mean I was soaked, the wait staff gave me some dish towels to sit on since our order was already put it. Then the order was wrong… okay not a huge deal. At this point I’m laughing about it. Why am I giving 1 star ⭐️? Well how about the owners of this family business never approached the table, not once! The one server was eating and licking her fingers behind the counter and then serving food. I get my check $30 not a bad price for breakfast for 2, but no compensation for the fact that I stayed wet and cold and still ate there. So I’m waiting for just one of the owners to come over and apologize ask if everything was at least good with the meal or maybe comp the coffee that could have been in my lap instead of water…. No one came. I made eye contact yet again and gestured for one of the managers to come over to my table. I let them know that they need to do better as a business that they need to be able to approach the customer when they know that something went wrong with the service. I didn’t care about paying the check I didn’t want compensation but But what would you have done as a business owner? My sever was so sweet and apologized so many times, I didn’t blame him. I even went as far as to tell him that he needs to have a little bit more confidence when serving he’s a nice guy and he’ll do...

On June 17th I came into honey tree to have breakfast. I paid by credit card. Upon seeing my credit card charge, the restaurant charged me twice for my meal of $17.53. I called the restaurant to notify them of the overcharge and they told me I would have to come in. On June 20th I came into the restaurant. I even waited a few days to see if it would be corrected on my credit card. The owner was not there. The staff was very friendly and wanted to help me. However, even after proving with the original sales receipt and showing them the credit card charge. There was no refund given at that time because the owner was the only one who could authoritize a refund. She had to research the issue and will get back to me. As of this afternoon I still have not received a call from the owner about my refund. I have gone to this Restaurant for many years. However I will never walk through the doors again due to the poor and unacceptable way the owner is treating my issue. If you're going to have a business and run it effectively, you should always have somebody on staff that can handle situations like this, so your customers are not inconvenienced when proven they were overcharged. Shame on...