Toast & Jam — Restaurant in Schererville

The food at Toast and Jam is always amazing so it is unfortunate that my family and I will never return. Today we went for breakfast and our waitress was Norma. During the summer I went to Toast and Jam for breakfast and also had Norma as my waitress. She was very rude. We didn't get water until about 15 minutes after we sat down. When she came to the table the second time we said we were ready to order and she proceeded to say "Okay I'm going to go to them first." and went to another table to take their order. In addition to that, there were five people in our party. Toast and Jam's policy is that parties of 6 or more get an automatic gratuity charge, which I understand. Norma added a gratuity charge to all our bills (a party of 5). As she rushed us to pay for the bill, she proceeded to ask each of us to leave an additional gratuity on the tablet. Norma, undeservingly, received two tips that day.

Fast forward to our experience with Norma today. We were brought our waters quickly, which I appreciate. Norma returned to our table again to give us napkins and immediately left, without asking if we were ready to order. She then returned again to drop off a hot tea and we said we were ready to order and she said "Ok, let me go to them first." and took another customer's order. Although we were seated before these customer's, they got their order taken first and received their breakfast first. Norma then came back to take our order and I wanted the Hog Heaven Skillet with Oreo pancakes on the side. Every time I order this the waitress/waiter says they can't do the Oreo pancakes but they can do the toppings(cookie crumble, syrup/glaze, whipped cream per the menu). Norma told me that I couldn't have Oreo pancakes and I explained how I just wanted the toppings not the actual Oreo pancakes and she still said no. I ended up just getting an extra side of Oreo pancakes. During this entire experience there were several instances of Norma reaching across our table in the middle of our conversations to put things down or take dirty dishes and never said excuse me. My sister also ordered Oreo pancakes and when our food came out, her pancakes were Oreo and with just whipped cream. We told Norma it was incorrect and she fixed it immediately. She gave my sister Oreo pancakes with whipped cream and cookie crumbles. She then came back and gave me my sister’s pancakes that she bit out of with cookie crumbles. I ignored that because I was hungry and asked her where the syrup/glaze was. She said they never have glaze on the pancakes, to which I responded well that’s what’s on the menu. She again said that they never do the glaze. This experience left us feeling very disrespected...

I am someone that likes to celebrate good food and good service. This is (was) one of my favorite restaurants in Northwest Indiana...until today. I made a reservation for my office days in advance for a holiday brunch. Not many people (under 10). Arrived 20 minutes ahead of time, and was told they were getting our table ready. Some people were running late and some were not attending (people do get sick this time of year, forget things, etc). The majority of us were there in the foyer and were told multiple times they were still getting our table ready. I even got a text saying my table was ready 10 minutes after the reserved time--- to which they told me they would not seat us until everyone was here. We were missing 2 people fyi. One of my guests was in crutches, and no one would offer up a seat in the waiting area for her. This was madness. Finally, I asked again and they told me they gave our table away....even though we were there 20 minutes ahead of time and asked to be seated because 2 people were not there yet and we did not know if they would be coming so we wanted to sit and order!!!! What the heck is the definition of reservation??? I am so confused. They told us we would have to wait longer, they needed to get a new table ready. We asked over and over to be seated and they refused during our 40 minutes of waiting. The service was horrible, no common sense (I mean, one of our guests was standing on crutches for 20 minutes and we had a reservation made a week prior!!). We were going to order with or without the other 2 people, we were not going to wait for them to arrive to order, and even trying to convey this to the host staff, they just kept telling us our table was not ready...until they said we needed our entire party there to sit...and then to give away our table and make us wait longer...it was entirely ridiculous. I don't care about liking the food anymore, the service is not worth it. I will no longer be recommending this place or visiting in the future. Needless to say, we had to leave and find another restaurant that would take us last minute for our holiday gift exchange/brunch. What happened to businesses helping businesses? What happened to...

Update: Just received a call back from the manager and they made it right. Very appreciative and we’ll be back!

Toast & Jam has been our favorite breakfast spot since it opened. Unfortunately, today, my birthday, was the worst service I’ve experienced in a long time at any restaurant.

After waiting forty minutes for a table we then had to wait 10 minutes for a glass of water and then another ten for our drink/food order to be taken. Meanwhile the tables around us were being served promptly by a different waitress.

My wife and I each ordered an iced cappuccino and unfortunately when the drinks arrived the waitress bobbled and spilled one of them. Not her fault of course but I was disappointed in the way it was handled. The drink spilled all over our table and we weren’t offered new napkins or silverware. My wife had to get up and ask. My sons orange juice was also forgotten in the middle of all of it. We had to ask the barista who brought out the replacement drinks for one.

When our food arrived we had to ask the person bringing it out for more water because our server hadn’t offered a refill over the last twenty minutes.

After we finished our food we had to wait at least another ten minutes for a busser to ask to clear our plates. While he was there I asked for a box for my wife’s food and he thankfully took care of that.

Our waitress eventually showed up again for the check. Throughout this whole experience I don’t think we received a single apology for the delays in service.

My son by this point was starting to get fussy so we had to leave quickly and unfortunately couldn’t find a manager on our way out. My wife called to offer our feedback and we hope to receive a call back soon.

I don’t believe I’ll be coming to Toast and Jam again after this. I never leave reviews, but in this case I felt I had to...