Cousins' Restaurant & Saloon — Restaurant in The Dalles

We literally took a left turn for the worst when we came in the doors of restaurant. We were offered the breakfast buffet, and looked at the list of items and decided to give it a try. While waiting a waitress came up and made comment to hostess that made me think they were pushing the buffet at people... They lead us to a conference room of the hotel where they had conference room tables and chairs set up for service and for the food that was on chaffing trays to stay warm. The yogurt was in a giant bowl with a laddle, as were the other salads advertised. None of the salads, fruit or yogurt were on ice. We started down the food line and I felt like that should have been my clue, but I didn't take it....we sat down and our drink order was taken...(ps...your coffee, tea, and orange juice are not included with the buffet price) and had 2 waters brought for 4 people. I asked for additional waters and for silverware. Apparently the silverware were by the door of the room in a thigh level container, easy to see, how could i miss it..... It took a bit for water and coffee to make it to table. We ate our meal and I noticed as people came in and out, they cleared the tables but did not wipe them down....I watched a wait staff scrap all the plates leftover food onto one plate at the table making a heap of partially consumed food before taking it to kitchen. I asked for a water refill and never received one. The bill was higher than expected for 2 seniors, 1 adult and 1 child. I left a tip, but the service was meh and the atmosphere was substandard. My father made a comment about the food tasting "funky," and he will eat almost anything. I ended up ill about 6 hours after the meal complete with vomiting. I have been to this restaurant once before and it was ok. I would just recommend steering clear of what seems to be the pushed buffet they...

Our hotel room was affordable and especially clean. There was a large gathering of rather rowdy Porsche enthusiasts during our stay, but the rooms were well-insulated and we were able to sleep well. The beds are very comfortable, and the shower's water pressure was incredible. The television was a little hard to figure out, and some of the buttons on the remote control didn't work, but we were able to figure it out without too much difficulty.

As for the restaurant, our waitress was extremely friendly and offered to have the kitchen split our plates at no cost, which was greatly appreciated.

The food was good and the portion sizes were very large. The bacon was good, but some of the slices were mostly fat. The hashbrowns were crisp and fresh and the large biscuit was delicious (deciding on whether to use the gravy or apple butter was a challenge). The blueberry pancakes are magnificently huge, but unfortunately we saw no option to order them as a side or with any other items. They were delicious, but not the most memorable.

The prices are very affordable. If you're willing to split some plates and share a little, big eaters can easily fill up for about $10 a person. Overall, our experience here was great and it's worth stopping by when passing through The Dalles.

So why three stars? Well, we were disappointed to learn upon checkout that Cousins' was offering a special breakfast buffet (see attached photo), but neither our hostess nor server informed us of this (we arrived at 11:00, right during the middle). We found out by hearing her offer it to other customers. This was especially disappointing, as we would have loved to have tried it out. Otherwise, this review probably would have...

While our stay at their inn was very good, we never were able to try their food. We went to their restaurant for breakfast and waited in a long line of people paying their bills for their food. They sent family into the dining room to be seated, paid a couple more bills, then got to us. The woman nervously asked us if we would be fine with sitting in the saloon. So she took us into the saloon for breakfast where it looked closed and we were literally the only people there. As we were walking away to go to the saloon, a group of two guys got sat in the main dining room, the woman was happy as can be to seat them. I’m not sure if it’s because of how we dress, my husband has dreads and we wear darker clothes, but we were blatantly treated differently than the people before us and the guys behind us when all we were doing was standing there waiting patiently. Once the server came into the empty saloon, she required our IDs at 7:30 in the morning. We don’t drink, so what if we left our IDs in the room? We were the only ones forced into the saloon and then if we didn’t have our IDs would we have been told we can’t eat? As we ordered our Pepsi and apple juice we watched more people be seated in the main dining room and decided we are going somewhere else for breakfast where they treat us like everyone else. We went to Mama Jane’s down the road and had wonderful friendly service and delicious food, it was a much better choice, and we got to sit with the rest...