The Pump Cafe — Restaurant in Springfield

I used to love going to the Pump Cafe, but things have been going downhill in the last few months. A few things I've noticed:

1. While staff are nice, they are not actually attentive. Last visit was a quiet morning, only one table being served when we went in, only two others occupied during our visit. Either 4 staff outside the kitchen, or 3 plus someone connected to them just standing by the interior register not working. Coffee was offered immediately, and milk instead of non-dairy creamer was brought as requested, but for 45 minutes, nobody ever came back to offer a refill. At all. Previous visit took 2 requests to get milk, and it took about 10 minutes to arrive. Refills at least happened frequently. Same waitress, very pleasant, just not.... attentive. Lots of busy activity bouncing all around, but not actually doing anything constructive, and not attending to tables.
2. Butter and margarine are not the same thing. Last time I got the French toast, it arrived with margarine. The time before that it arrived with whipped butter, however it had clearly come out of the fridge, as it was all chunky and frozen. Could not get it to come cleanly onto the butter knife, would not spread, just deposited little butterfat nuggets in a couple places. When I asked for some different butter that wasn't still frozen, she brought margarine.... no, they are not the same, and all you have to do is pull the butter out of the fridge earlier than when you need to bring it. Or just wait and serve it fresh.
3. The whole French baguette French toast thing. Look, it's french toast, there is supposed to be batter involved. I get how it's cute to have the tall stack, however if you only barely dampen the two ends, and just heat them up, I'm eating, well... warm bread. In regular french toast, roughly 80% of the bread has the batter on the pan surface. With this arrangement, it's more like 30%. Maybe slice baguette the long way?
4. I think they've switched up the coffee. I get they're supporting a local coffee seller, but I'm just gonna say it, that Guatemalan roast you're using is too weak a brew, and it's pretty bitter.
5. No, I don't want to buy cookies to support a fundraiser, but would REALLY like it if you'd notice the coffee cups are empty and to offer a refill.
6. For all that is holy, season the eggs when you cook them. A little pepper, a little salt would go a LONG way.

I'm not meaning to sound crusty, but it's just a great, cute local restaurant, and I want to see it succeed for a long time. I watched the Flashback Grill descend into cost cutting, and it became awful, and sadly, they had to close. Todd's place had a chef that openly admitted he had a heart condition, and wouldn't use salt, and the eggs were awful for it. Please, don't be just another place I have to ask myself "is it really worth it?" You can be better....

Wow, just wow. My wife and I have frequented this restaurant since it was first transformed into The Pump Cafe from what use to be a real Service/ Gas Station decades ago. Today we decided it was time to return to our old go to place for a nice breakfast in a place with nostalgic atmosphere like we did prior to the Covid pandemic. While the restaurant decor was the same all of the faces working at The Pump had changed and apparently the place is under new ownership again, we really miss the original ownership and staff they were unbeatable. Today our server Chloe was very polite and professional and helpful unfortunately the cook was not. Without going into the full details I will say that I did not receive the omelette that I had ordered even though the order was taken correctly by our server Chloe. The cook had misinterpreted the order and things got mixed up while cooking it so I made it aware to our server and she made the attempt to get it corrected. Never in my adult life and dining out have I ever had anything happen to me like what happened next. The cook apparently thought it necessary to leave the kitchen and come to our table and snapped at me asking what was wrong with my food. When I tried to explain she noticed that I had taken some bites and rudely stated: Oh, you eat half of the omelette before you say anything! So what’s wrong with it? Um I needed a few bites before I knew it was not what I ordered? This was all spoken in a very high snappy tone of voice as though I had insulted her somehow? I finally got a chance to explain and she said fine! I’ll make you another one and huffed off. Ugh, I was a little embarrassed as other patrons were looking in my direction. Eventually another plate with a freshly cooked and corrected omelette was served to me. Unfortunately this was not the food I remembered pre pandemic and was smaller portions and mediocre at best I’m sad to say. The Pump use to be a very inviting welcoming establishment to me and my wife but after this experience not so much. We may at some point give the restaurant a chance to redeem itself and dine there again but for now I for one have a bitter taste left in my mouth from this dining experience that will take quite a while to go away. In defense of our server, she did everything right and was very apologetic and even comped me my meal even though I did not expect that. I only wanted the good food I use to get served so no ill feelings toward her, good job Chloe. If I could have broken the star rating down I would have given the restaurant atmosphere and server 5 stars but the kitchen staff would have received only the one star because there’s nothing lower. Hopefully things will improve in the future as The Pump Cafe has always been a very welcoming quaint little place with good food, time will tell if the...

I've really enjoyed going to The Pump for many years now, anytime I'm visiting the Eugene/Springfield area. They had a sign out saying they are under a new owner, but I'm not sure how long ago that has been. I ordered a half order of their raspberry cream cheese stuffed french toast (my long-time favorite) as well as sides of sausage and eggs. The sausage was very delicious and piping hot! The eggs were done well and had good flavor. The stuffed french toast was disappointing. The bread was room temperature and the cream cheese and raspberry jam were cold, so it all seemed blah. The bread overwhelmed the flavor balance and the cold combination was a let-down.

The atmosphere started off as usual, but then got a lot louder, to the point of being too much as a tween- or teen-aged boy jumped out to scare a waitress and the staff got louder, the patrons also got louder.

The service was quick (and the food came out more quickly than I remember it being in the past), but the waitress didn't check in on how my food was, nor did she offer me a refill on my coffee. I had to ask for it. She was friendly, but seemed more interested in showing the tween/teen how they wait on tables than actually providing good service.

It was an ok experience, but disappointing after looking forward to it for so long. Had the French toast been as good as it had been in the past, I probably would have been more likely to overlook the...