The Brunch House — Restaurant in Town of Carmel

My mom picked this place for her 75th birthday and I can't even begin to tell you how terrible our family experience was for Sunday brunch. First off this place does NOT take reservations (which we knew) but when we arrived it was insinuated the wait would be ~20-25 minutes. Not the case at all. The owner Delma kept reassuring us several times to let us know she was working on getting us a table (6 adults and 2 kids) however everyone else with parties of 2 or 4 just kept getting seated. Almost an hour and 15 minutes of waiting (12:30-1:45) we were finally seated. She really underestimated the wait time and we all would have been appreciative if she just let us know it would be an hour long wait and we could have gone somewhere else-esp since we had 2 kids under the age of 10.

Our orders were taken right away. Another half hour went by before we started to get our food. However, it came out in increments: my parents got their breakfast, then 5-6 minutes later 2 more dishes came out, another 5-6 minutes another three dishes came out. Completely forget my 6 year old nieces [basic] chicken fingers/fries and a second entree for the table of lemon pancakes which came out after we were all almost finished eating. We all couldn't even eat together as a family.

As far as the food goes, overall when all the food was delivered it was delicious-nothing negative to say about the food. Except.... My husband ordered a panini "a sandwich made with Italian bread, usually toasted." What he got was essentially toasted rye bread with unmelted cheese, grilled onions and prosciutto-hence not a "panini." It was sent back to be grilled further but he couldn't eat it as it tasted off and was not what he was expecting and ended up vomiting after eating it. My nephew ordered cheeseburger sliders -arrived with a ton of sautéed onions. What 9 year old kid eats a burger with sautéed onions?? He freaked out but luckily once removed all was fine.

The ownder Delma kept apologizing over and over but what made me angry was that she proceeded to say after all the mishaps and chaos that screwed up our brunch experience was that in all the 8 restaurants she has run "this has never happened with a table" basically insinuating that we were "a problem table." Very unprofessional comment. She took no ownership of the mistakes that occurred, never offered to comp some drinks or meals or send something over to apologize for the all the mishaps and prolonged wait time. Until I said she needed to comp off the chicken fingers and lemon pancakes considering this food arrived AFTER we were all done eating-then she did. But then they tack on a $25 gratuity for SH*T service for a waitress who didn't even bother to check on us and forgot some of our food.

Needless to say we will never be going back to this place. I don’t understand how this place has a 4.4 ⭐️ rating. If you look at the several reviews on various sites other people have complained about the service, dining experience, rude waitstaff and the owner. There needs to be some tweaks in how they run their establishment ie, take reservations, improvement on reporting better wait times and female manager needs updated customer service training (comes off nice but is rude and condescending in person and in her f/u comments from...

First off, the 1 star rating in no way reflects the waitstaff. There is clearly a managerial problem with this restaurant that is out of the hands of the servers.

The initial impression of this restaurant was positive. The decor and ambience was very welcoming and has a lot of potential. My family and I were very excited to try a new place for Sunday brunch, and we had high hopes. Having worked in the service industry for over a decade, I also understood that being a new restaurant there would be some issues that normally occur with new restaurant launchings. The waiters were very friendly, seemed to be proactive and trying hard to take care of the guests. It appeared as if sections weren't assigned to the staff, as we had many different servers asking us if we needed refills at constant intervals to the point of intrusion. Again, not the fault of the waitstaff at all. It was packed, so there were no expectations of quick food service. That being said, the food took an extremely long time (around 45 minutes) to arrive. The owner came to apologize, but what she did next turned us all off.

She completely threw our waitress under the bus, who she described as "someone who's been a waitress for over 5 years and she has been having problems with", as if complaining about staff would somehow forgive the lack of management and organization. Our waitress couldn't have been more friendly and accommodating, and by the demeanor of the owner, absolutely deserves a better employer.

Moving on to the food, the burgers that were ordered medium came out well done, and the Over The Top Avocado that was supposed to come over sourdough came with a croissant instead. The poached egg was undercooked and unappetizing, and didn't blend with the croissant at all. The owner came back to address the issue, and informed me the preparation switch to the croissant was voted on by the staff as tasting better, even though the menu didn't reflect the change. She then seemed insulted that I thought it was disgusting, claiming she makes 100s of them and that everyone who eats it loves it, in almost an accusatory tone that I should be happy with what I'm given, and not what's listed on the menu. At this point I had enough. After 45 minutes of waiting and the majority of the food not arriving as ordered, we got the check and paid for everything, even the inedible food, with the 3% "convenience" fee passed on to the guest via the Toast POSI system. We definitely were not the only guests unsatisfied, as the look on a few tables faces mirrored our own (another 2 star review was posted on Google around the same time we were dining). Needless to say, we will never be returning, as there are much better options in a 5 mile radius of...

I’ve been wanting to come to this restaurant since they opened. Finally, we did our first time out since July with no kids! I was so excited and even read the reviews and throughly examined the menu before coming. The ambiance is nice- it was definitely crowded when we got there this morning around 11:45 but we got a table for two right away. It took 35 minutes for my partners drink to be delivered to our table (right across from the bar). I got a $6 latte and they had that out pretty quickly but didn’t even offer my partner a water to sip on. It took them 40 minutes to notice my drink was empty and then I had to ask for a water. The water came and was undrinkable. It tasted like toilet water- waitress came back over and offered a (expensive) bottle of water to our table okay fine I was super thirsty at that point.

We got the fried pickles these were delicious but super greasy and could have used a paper towel or some proper draining but nonetheless still good.

Finally our main course. I got the lemon blueberry pancakes and they were raw. I ate about half until the raw taste was overpowering the tart blueberries. I asked the waitress to take them away and instead of bringing me new pancakes to just take these away and comp them for me as they took so long to come out. She & the sweet busboy noticed the raw batter seeping out of them without fault of anyone cause we all know pancakes are hard to cook when you put things in them. This is where things get crazy- the owner comes to our table and proceeds to rip up my very noticeably raw pancakes and tells me it’s from the cream on on the top of them :(. This was so unprofessional and her attitude was less than appropriate and we never wanted conflict we just wanted the $15 pancakes off the bills so I could go and grab a sandwich from somewhere else (I’m very pregnant and very hungry at this point). The bill came not 3 minutes after the owner attacked us for sending back food and the pancakes were still on the bill- sad because she literally ripped up half of them in front of me just to prove a non-existent point. I wish I didn’t leave this restaurant hungry after waiting so long for our food to come. Maybe I would have felt in the wrong for complaining on a busy Sunday if the bus boy didn’t follow us outside apologizing to us for how we were treated.

I’m giving the restaurant 2 stars because our waitress was very nice and chatty and the fried pickles and drinks (latte and expresso martini) were good. We will not be returning due to the owner which is disappointing because the egg dishes...