Bill Smith’s Cafe — Restaurant in Van Alstyne

Absolutely a one and done for me. The nightmare starts the second you walk in the door. One would think there would be a hostess stand to take down your party's name, but no...everyone just stands at the door waiting for someone to acknowledge them. Today, that took 10 mins. Finally a woman comes over and asks if we put our name on the list yet and all 4 cpls standing there said, what list? She took our name down. It took another 10 mins to be sat, which isn't unusual for any restaurant that's busy on a Saturday morning. As we are standing there we hear the older short lady with spiky hair SCREAM out names from the list. Not a big deal to us considering we were by the front door. Whole 'nuther ballgame when she's doing it right in your ear as she's walking up and down the aisle right beside you. 🤬 She came over after about 5 mins and took our drink order. I told her tea with no lemon and she said "I never put lemon in it anyway. I don't have time for all that mess." We laughed it off and then proceeded to wait 10 mins for her to return to our table asking, "oh yeah what drinks did y'all have? They stuck me at the register." We told her and off she went to get our drinks finally. She came back making the excuse that she has told them she can't run food, check on her tables and run the register at the same time. Not one single time did she apologize for the wait nor the forgetting our order. She takes our order and after 30 mins of waiting and still no food, (my glass empty by this time) I track her down and ask her if she could please check and see when our food would be done. She jokes and says 2 years and some odd days. I almost threw a $5 on the table and walked out right then. I told her my hubby needed to hurry up and get back to work and she pretends to call his employer and make an excuse for him to be late. At this point we realize, empathy is NOT in the cards at this point...just excuses. 15 mins after that our food finally came out, if you can even call it that. I FINALLY got my drink filled and thank God I did bc I needed it to help choke down the food. The toast was good and so were the 2 side eggs I got. The all meat omelet was awful. The ham was the only thing not burnt in it. The bacon was so hard it was inedible and the sausage was dried out and extra fried. The omelet was NOT 3 eggs that's for sure and you can see from the pics, it was also burnt. The hashbrowns were bland and undercooked. ALL OF THE FOOD WAS COLD. Don't get me started on my husband's breakfast but I'm sure you can find his review on here of the sad chicken and waffle he got. After doing the math on our check we should have been charged $32.50 with tax. We were charged $37. Not sure how their math computes but we made up for it by not tipping. With rude waitstaff, lengthy kitchen times and then putting out less than mediocre food, I don't see this place lasting as long as it did in McKinney. Maybe Bill needs to think seriously about all the 1 star reviews he has gotten, especially about his waitresses and cooks, and make some changes. Until then, we...

This is the worst establishment I've visited in Texas. Blows my mind that this establishment is dead center of McKinney. I've been to holes in the wall and mom and pop restaurants in towns with population of less that 500 with better quality, service, and location than this restaurant.

When I entered Bill's cafe, I didn't think anything of it. Yes, it is a little run down, dirty here and there, holes in the ceiling in some parts, but from my experience in rural towns, that's not enough to judge the food which is usually good. I sat down with a coworker in a small, and worn but comfortable booth and happily waited for our menus and waitress. A few minutes passed and the waitress came, so we ordered our drinks and food. The waitress, although quite nice, had a terrible cold and she would cough into the air or her hands which she would use to bring our food to us later. When the bread arrived at the table, that's when things started to go south.

The cornbread was fine, but the bread had a stale smell to it and would crumble like cake when touched. I assumed this was normal, so I didn't think much of it. My coworker and I ordered simple dishes as we usually do, in this case it was a grilled chicken breast and a pork chop.

The grilled chicken breast tasted like boiled chicken gone bad. Our assumption was that the chicken breast was frozen, and the cook had boiled it in order to thaw it quickly. In any case, it was the worst chicken breast we ever tasted. My coworker pushed it aside, as the nausea started creeping in. My pork chop was smothered in what appeared to be canned sauce and melted cheese. The pork chop itself didn't taste off but with everything else going on, my appetite was near dead. So there we were, two hungry people sitting at a table, not touching our food. The waitress came and asked what was wrong while coughing into the air, then we explained the food's taste was off. She asked if we wanted something else but we made it pretty obvious that we wouldn't put anything else into our mouth from this establishment.

As we walked up to the cashier, we noticed the waitress talking to who I assume is either the manager or the owner with our plates in her hands about our food, to which the owner/manager shrugged her shoulders and proceeded to continue doing whatever she was doing. After waiting a few minutes standing by the register she acknowledges us, and as I hand her my credit card she coldly mentions that only cash is accepted (not displayed visibly prior to entering establishment or mentioned by waitress), and an that an ATM is conveniently available in the back to withdrawn money. So not only was the food bad, there was absolutely no recourse for uneaten food. I paid the balance with a $20 bill and left the store.

So here I find myself, with a cold virus, and nauseated by my experience. I hope this can help you avoid the same problem. I've added inspection reports that I found post-experience. This should be enough to drive you away from this place if you care for your safety and not getting...

We went on a Saturday close to noon. So after we got seated it too like 20 minutes to get a waitress to take our drink and food order. We had to get the bus boy 2 summon our waitress twice. They had 7 so plenty of them. My granddaughter ordered a corn dog and fries off the kids menu. Wife ordered shrimp and asked before she ordered if they had cocktail sauce. If they didn’t she would have gotten something else. They assured her they did. I ordered the Bill Smith special. So after like another 30 minutes they start to trickle out our food. Mine first. Part of it scrambled eggs hash browns and sausage. No pancake yet. And Zoey’s “corn dog” and fries. Then a few minutes more they brought out hot syrup. About 5 minutes later they bring my wife’s shrimp and fries no cocktail sauce. Zoey was very hungry we all were we had skipped breakfast so we were looking forward to brunch at Bill Smiths. So she took a couple bites of her “corn dog” and made a face. It was a cold pancake on a stick almost ice cold to touch the outside. I told her don’t eat another bite. So when waitress returns to tell us they are out of cocktail sauce and they are having to make it we asked what the heck they brought Zoey. She tells us well we are out of corn dogs so it is pancake on a stick. I made her touch it told her its okay because she is not going to eat it. So she goes back and gets her manager. Oh and when I got my eggs I had asked for a cup of coffee. She told me they were out. She would see if they would make more. It is a cafe how are you out of coffee and it you are it takes 3 minutes to make a pot. So the manager finds out what all is wrong. She goes and we wait another 10 minutes or so and she brings back a burnt pancake on a stick. Literally black and cuts it open because it is to hot. We didn’t ask for another burnt one. Oh and a fruit cup we didn’t want. I get my pancakes right after like half cooked. Wife never got her cocktail sauce and her fried shrimp batter was still gooey on the inside. So I nicely ask her why another pancake on a stick and she informs me to her that is a corn dog. Well our experience and the new Bill Smith’s Cafe was free. I had asked are you short on cooks. She said yes! Bill Smith is cooking himself (like that mattered or means something special) they had 1 volunteer and one other they were short a fry cook. So my thoughts on this trip are not positive. If they were that short handed shut it down before they make someone sick! I wish them no ill will. I hope they get their act together and live up to Bill Smith’s standard they established...