John & Mary's Restaurant — Restaurant in Town of Lancaster

I understand that restaurants have to cut back on costs and raise prices these days to help stay afloat (after the devastating Covid pandemic), but this is just ridiculous.

This location has a rubber duck claw machine inside. See all those cute rubber duckies in that little machine? They look tempting, don’t they?

And what’s this?…….OHMIGOSH, they have little knit hats on! Kawaiiiiiii! I want one!

One dollar is a bit pricey for a play, but alright. I’ll try out a dollar here for one of these here quackers.

Let’s see, most of the duckies are pushed to the sides of the machine. Let’s try for that dark blue hatted duckie in the back.

…Alrighty, so the claw doesn’t go back that far. So let’s try for those green and red hatted duckies on the right side.

………ALLLLLLLRIGHTY, so the claw doesnt fully reach the right wall, either. Chinese construction quality at its finest.

Let’s drop the claw and hope for one of these duckies.

Alright, not a great grab. Didnt get anything because the claw didnt grip properly. But no worries! I’ve been here in the past, and this machine should give out unlimited tries, so I should have no problem getting it once the claw resets to gimme another try!

…

…

Aaaaaaaany second now…

…

…

I waited, and waited for my second try, but it never came.

Then I saw the sign on the side of the machine. Beforehand, the sign said “Play Till You Win!” Now, it says “Play For $1.”

This means that John And Mary’s modified the machine so that it is no longer unlimited plays for $1, but one play for $1 with no guarantee to win.

Okay, FINE. You got me, John And Mary’s. I’ll play your little mind game. I’ll cough up another dollar for that stupid hat-wearing duckie.

Now that I understood that I only got one play, I tried to make this play count. I moved the claw as right as it could go (and even then, there was still a huge gap between the claw and the rightmost wall) to try for that stupid green hatted duckie.

Upon this drop, this was where I noticed that the claw shifts to the left upon it being dropped. The claw missed the green hatted duck entirely by a large margin and grabbed nothing.

I wasted $2 on nothing, because John And Mary’s changed the programming of the claw machine.

WHY?!?

I’m a grown adult. I dont absolutely need a rubber duck toy. But children do. And if they see this machine, theyll want to play for one.

This is where the unlimited plays comes into fruition. Most, if not all, of these rubber duckie claw machines have unlimited plays to compensate for the CHEAP 5 CENT DUCKIES that the machine offers. But now that this utterly weak claw that cant pick up duckies easily is now $1 for one try, the kids are gonna be begging their parents to put $10-$20 into this machine just for one duckie! How absurd!

The only reason I played the game is because I remembered when it used to be Play Till You Win. Now, I’m never gonna play this machine again, no matter which colored hats the duckies have on!

This type of greed may work at Turning Stone, but this $1 for one play deal, on a CHEAP rubber duck claw, is ludicrous!

I used to not care about all the food price increases and upcharges here at this John And Mary’s, but this ordeal is making me think twice about supporting this restaurant.

I don’t care which marketing experts you have lined up for you to tell you that knitted hat-wearing rubber duckies are a smart product to put in your claw machine, Mr. John. When you upset your customers like this, it’ll take quite some convincing to bring them back when theres plenty of delicious subs and wings across the Buffalo area.

Food was...

I recently stopped here with my three kids, my brother and my niece. We ordered a cheese pizza kids meal, the adult two slice of cheese pizza and a drink combo, spaghetti, chicken fingers, a royal sub and the Greek steak hoagie. While ordering my brother noticed the pizza warmer behind the counter and asked the girl if that's the pizza we'd be getting. She responded "it might be". This pizza looked like it had been in that warmer since the day before. After looking at it, I realized they couldn't give us that nasty pizza because we ordered 3 slices of cheese pizza..the warmer had 2 slices of cheese and 3 slices of pepp. I went to the counter when they called my name and on those trays were a plate of two nasty stiff black cheese pizza slices and another plate with 2 slices of pepperoni pizza from the warmer. I nicely let the girl know that I didn't order pepperoni pizza, since my kids don't like it. She said "that's all we have". I asked why they'd take my order and money if they didn't even have it. She looked me in my eyes and asked me AND I QUOTE "can't I just take it in the back and pick the pepperonis off?" Silence from me. It's not often I'm speechless. Eventually I responded no. My kids would know there was pepperoni on that pizza because it's "spicy". This girl got an even worse attitude with me saying she'd have to make a fresh cheese pizza and we'd have to wait 10 minutes. I didn't mind since our other food was as ordered. While waiting for some CHEESE pizza, we got to enjoy the Greek steak hoagie and let me tell you....HEAVENLY. it was SO GOOD. Eventually they call my name for the pizza slices and my brother went up to get it. The girl nastily slid a pizza box towards him and said we could have the whole pizza since they wouldnt sell it all by the end of the night. This pizza was so underdone, soggy, disgusting...it was clear they were displeased with having to make us what we ordered. It was bad. I had second hand embarrassment for whoever owns the establishment because WHO ASKS IF THEY CAN PICK FOOD OFF LIKE THAT? It was a terrible experience. I'll...

The subs and food is great. But they mess up pickup orders too many times and the service is not great. 4 times ive gotten the wrong sub, twice blue cheese were missing from my wings orders. Once i placed a pizza order and they gave someone else my pizza (but at least that time the gentleman gave me a large pizza upgrade at no cost). Also sometimes the employees seem like they dont want to help or be there. No enthusiasm sometimes you wait several minutes to be served. Good food bad customer svc.

Update 6-5-2020 I still regularly get my orders messed up. Last saturday 5-30-2020, I got the wrong sub but was hope and could not go back to return it. I ordered a cheeseburger supreme 12 inch and i got a cheeseburger sub instead. Today I ordered a chicken club and a cheeseburger supreme sub for me and my coworkers and there was no cheese on either and no bacon on my chicken club. No lie. The food is great but Ive been given wrong or incomplete order 9 times now in the last 2 and half yrs. I can no longer support you guys especially since I moved even farther from you. It takes me 20 min just to get there and to get incomplete or wrong orders in back to back weeks, I can't support this...