City Café — Restaurant in Springfield

Where to begin...

We walked in and the waitresses seemed to be confused as to who was supposed to seat us We got seated and we're given drinks without straws. She asked my daughter if she could use her name for a book she was writing...?😕 The waitress came back like 5 mins after giving us out menus to ask if we were ready to order. My coffee cup had a dirty lip stain on it. The next coffee brought after retuning the dirty cup was brought to me cold. (Not to mention it tasted like water) It took like 45 mins to get out food to us. When we got the food we didn't get the whole order. (Not to mention we still hadn't got silverware by this point and we had to ask for it) We were told the reason we didn't get the skillet was someone "took it" and it needed to be remade I didn't get my cinnamon french toast that came with my meal... We will go back to that later.. My fiance finally got her skillet and it wasn't hot. They actually asked her if she needed a box for it about 5 mins after serving it I'm not sure if this is the process but we had to go to the front to pay because we weren't brought a check. (We were ready to go anyways though) When we got to the register and tried to explain that we did not get the cinnamon french toast that comes with the meal and they were more concerned about what we did actually get... So in turn we just paid in full for a meal that was missing items just to get out of there faster. The good news is they did take off the coffee that we mentioned was watery... Overall the staff seemed inexperienced and seemed to be wanting to just get us...

This was our first time here and more than likely, our last. I understand people/businesses have bad days but I will recap our experience:

We were seated by the hostess and told the server would bring our menu. Waited 15 minutes - no sever - and the other 3 parties that were seated in that time the hostess gave menus too? We placed our order and it was an HOUR and 20 minutes to receive our food. Several people left while waiting for their food. In the time we were waiting, a Sheriff entered and wanted to have lunch - he was turned away. It was 1:30 - the sign when we entered said they were closing at 2. This bothered me. When our food arrived the server thanked us for our patience, she told us we were there the longest and waited it out. My order was wrong. I had ordered the Pork Tenderloin but the server had written down Fried Steak. My mashed potatoes were cold - I did not eat them. There was a random potato in my mac and cheese. While we were eating 2 other parties were told they would not be paying for their meals because of their wait. We had informed the server we had a Groupon before we ordered and we were not offered the same service as the other parties when we had waited longer and had received the wrong entree.

This was probably the worst restaurant...

This is not a typical review for me. Normally, I'd give this type of restaurant 2 stars but I can see great potential and I was served the most tender, juicy steak I've ever had. I was shocked in the best way possible. To keep it simple, the menu is large and confusing. Breakfast, Mexican, east coast, west coast, southern, etc. The restaurant lacks an identity. The huge menu results in tons of frozen, not fresh foods. You can tell they can't afford to have more than 1 or 2 cooks at a time so food comes out slow, some items hot, some cold. My suggestion to the restaurant: shrink your menu, cut it down by 70% and buy fresh ingredients. Have a cut off time for breakfast. Make yourself shine and standout. Be better than a Denny's or IHOP because the potential is there! Seriously, steak was amazing and our server was great. Don't let the line cook bully her because he is too lazy to make mashed potatoes. The menu said a dish came with mashed and the cook said it was fries. Sad to see. Also, make sure your customers can't hear the staff talking in the back. I stand by 4 stars if they make the changes they need to make. If not, you are going to have a very hit and miss experience that will often result in 1 or 2 stars from the average consumer. Best of luck and...