The Breakfast Club — Restaurant in Silver Spring

I had previously been to the breakfast club in January of 2024.

I don’t know what happened. On September 27, 2025, my mom, dad, my boyfriend, and I, went to the breakfast club for her birthday. When we walked in the hostess greeted us and said to wait for our table. We did have a reservation. We were waiting for a while and the server was cleaning the table. Which is normal. When we got to the table, there were people standing and dancing in our way, which the restaurant can’t help, but was annoying. The restaurant does have a mix of a club and restaurant feel to it. Some time passes and we get our food and drink orders in. It seemed like the waiter was doing every job themselves because all we ordered was a water and it took -5 minutes. So the food comes out and as we go to take a bite, we realized we didn’t even have utensils. Ok… So we flag down a different server to give us some, as he’s holding them, and then flags down another server to get us some.This is the part where I’m really writing a complaint for. 3 people at our table has seafood allergies. This is important. There were 4 of us, 2 people ordered the oxtail and rice, spicy, and 1 ordered the chicken fried rice, spicy, and I ordered the chicken and waffles. Once again NO STEAM coming from the food. I saw the waffle came with honey syrup and I am allergic, so I ask the server if they had maple. He said “no we have regular.” Ok… So I put some syrup on a knife and smell it and it’s indeed maple. Moving past that, my father starts to eat the oxtail and rice and my boyfriend starts to eat the chicken fried rice.My dad has tears in his eyes. Being that it was spicy rice, we think nothing of it. But then he starts to gag. He immediately throws up. We make this aware to a server. A gentleman comes to clean up the mess and we thank him. We tell our server to come here so we can ask him about seafood. We ask if the oxtail or rice is cooked in any type of seafood oil, grease, touching it, etc. He has NO CLUE what we are talking about. We ask him again, “ we are asking if any of the food is cooked in seafood. We have seafood allergies here.” The sever blatantly tells us “no. We cook everything separately.” This detail is very important. So we tell them ok. My dads lips start to swell and get numb. We call someone over again and tell them we now want to leave and the number to the corporate office. Again, he is confused and puzzled.Some moments pass and the manager, who goes by the alias Ms.P, comes out to talk. I am coming from the bathroom when I see her standing there. She explains to us that they take allergies very seriously but also blamed the fact that we didn’t tell them we had seafood allergies on us. Which I could understand. But in any restaurant establishment you are not supposed to be cross contaminating anything that could cause an allergy risk. She continues to talk and tells us “I recommend you don’t order this, this, and this” and just starts listing stuff not to order. So I ask her, “so what can we order?” She could not give a straight answer. So my mom asks, “how about the chicken?” Ms. P goes, “well the chicken is cooked in the same grease as our fish.” This was very interesting to me because our server had previously told us that wasn’t the case. This is where the red flags became evident. So frustrated with the lack of competency, we ask that our food just be taken away and we would just like water for my father. We asked if the food could be taken off our bill, Ms. P looks around in the air, stares at the food, and then give a condescending yes. At this point it seem like it was more about the money rather than the health of the customer. Oh and we still never got the water for my father. We asked for her the number to the corporate office and was not provided. When asked how we can file a complaint, Ms p said “you already did” and on top of that we don’t have her real name but an alias. I will be reporting this restaurant to the FDA and the manager to the corporate office for this experience because it was totally unacceptable...

I will preface this by saying I visited here on a Thursday afternoon when they’d only been open for about a week. I love breakfast food, so i’ve been patiently waiting on them to open for months lol.

Anywho.

I am from Louisiana so my palette makes me REAL picky. I don’t like most (90%) of the food i’ve had in the DMV, so I only try new (to me) restaurants during their happy hour to get a taste before investing in a full price meal.

This visit was no different (at least in my attempt lol).

I sat at the bar during the happy hour time listed on their website only to be told there was no real happy hour menu yet as they’re still working that out, but as a one time thing i’d be given 40% off my drinks. well that’s not ideal and a little disappointing. Take it off the site if you don’t have a dedicated menu, but kudos for still trying to honor it i suppose.

There were no more than 3-4 tables at a time while i was there, but service was still super slow for them… One of the benefits of sitting at the bar lol. My bartender Uri was great and so was the other one who is SUPER experienced (i didn’t catch his name even though it was right there on his apron). They also served as food and drink runners to the table when needed. The manager Darnell (?) constantly checked on everyone in the restaurant so that was nice to see him be so attentive and fill in gaps too. He really did care about folks having a good experience.

The ambiance is AMAZING. Between the aesthetics and the music, it’s perfect for a date night or a cute brunch. There’s floor to ceiling windows that let in a lot of natural light, it has a prohibition theme, and an r&b/jazz playlist that is a total vibe at just the right sound level. So much so I stayed way longer than intended.

The food and drinks were DELICIOUS. I didn’t realize how big the portions would be, so I inadvertently had two meals instead of one. i had the left overs for breakfast the next day. -The french toast is made with real sourdough bread. it was not dry, but also not soggy. literal perfection. I was hesitant about the topping because i don’t like cream cheese, but it was a great addition. Apparently the french toast is also used in the bread pudding and so now i need to go try that bc it comes with ice cream lol. -the eggs were scrambled with cheese to MY liking even with no additional notes given; i hate runny scrambled eggs. -the turkey bacon…. idk how or where they found it but i need it in bulk. -the potatoes were crispy, but not overcooked. and the garlic butter sauce they came with., set them over the top. i’m assuming that’s what it was. i have no idea. but it was good. i easily could’ve gotten just a side of the taters alone.

As far as drinks, I got two. -The first was the Mint Prohibition which was really good. They don’t try to water your drinks down which i appreciate, but the alcohol also wasn’t super overpowering. it was just right. -The second one, the bartenders humored me and created my favorite drink of Prosecco + St Germain. The one not Uri (i really wish i remembered his name), picked up what i was putting down and added a zest of lemon bringing it to pure perfection. Uri saw the initial glass of prosecco was a bit flat before i did and gave me another from a fresh bottle. i appreciated the attention to detail on that, most wouldn’t/don’t care.

My total after tax, but before tip, including the 40% off the mixed drink (but not the prosecco) was $54.

there’s a few kinks that need to be worked out, but it’s only been open a week so that’s to be expected.

Overall i 100% plan to visit again. I really enjoyed it. You are getting your moneys worth for sure.

Also, street parking is questionable as is the norm in that area, but there is a garage nearby so it’s not a true hassle. The restaurant is on fenton, close to the safeway by the post office— for a mental reference if you know the area.

(excuse the trash pictures because i’d already started digging in before i thought about taking any lol. the initial presentation was...

The best thing about this restaurant was the music, atmosphere and location. Everything else was overrated and overpriced. The service was snail slow. We had a reservation for 730. Got there at 730, ordered right away, and it took 1 hour for us to get our meal, which was grits and bread, basically. I got the seafood grits dish (HORRIBLE), and my daughter got french toast and potatoes (which they forgot to bring out with her food) so we asked them not to worry about potatoes and take it off our bill.., and for these two items, it took 1 hour... that's insane.... but they also tell you on the menu to limit your time to 90 mins. Well, if your service is going to be THAT slow, you all need to remove the time limit request or respect our time, too, and get food out in a timely manner. For 36.00, the grits were soupy... I had to search deep to find grits... I mean, grits are cheap. Why could I barely find them in this dish. It looked greasy, and the presentation was less than appealing and lackluster hell they could have tossed some arugula or green peppers on top to make it look like they actually cared about what they were serving. See photos... and again, that was $36.... The french toast... Wow! I know we are in an egg recession, but did you all even dip the bread in egg? Hence the basic ingredient for "french toast," I thought. That's a typical french toast basic... it was dry bread with some powder sugar and strawbeeries on top for $17. Sadly, these black owned restaurants want our money and support, but the food and service are below par. I could have thought of atleast 5 places my daughter and I could have gone for $86 and been VERY pleased and satisfied. IHOP would have been satificstory after receiving this. Do not believe the hype like I did. Sadly, this was very underwhelming, to say the least. If I could say one thing nice. The grits dish tasted ok, and they gave somewhat of a decent amount of shrimp, crab, and lobster. The chef on Sat, June 28, 2025, 730pm, missed the mark... maybe Sunday Brunch is when you can only get a decent meal... because Saturdays meal and service was not what people on here rave about... a side note to the chef... don't serve soupy grits, then give me a fork to try to eat it. It was definitely a soup spoon meal, and I was not impressed at all. The pictures you advertise of this dish... lied it was a "what I wanted verses what I got..." type of meal. See photos. Their picture makes the dish look moutwatering and amazing.... I came based off of that alone.... it was not worth the 45 minute drive thru traffic to experience. I'm not impressed. Maybe the regular chef was off... still no excuse. It wasn't crowded... so that wasn't the issue... I know for me and my daughter, we do not recommend this overpriced, slow service venue (but they add 18% tip to each bill) whether service is good or bad... you pay 18%... our server never came back to check on us we had to wave down staff passing by to ask questions at this establishment. It is not worth your hard earned coins. Please do better Breakfast Club and serve quality to food that actually looks and tastes good, and that will also make us want to come back and visit. Don't waste your time or money here unless you just have money to blow / give away and you want your time wasted. I wanted to love this place but simply did not. To each their own. I see a lot of great reviews but can relate to the poor reviews. Wish I had a better experience. No...