Butter + Milk Biscuit Bar — Restaurant in Visalia

SHORT VERSION: Breakfast diner specializing in biscuits and gravy. If you like those, you'll love it.

LONG VERSION: I am in a quest for the best biscuits I can find at a restaurant, so naturally a place that bills itself as a biscuit bar got my attention.

I love a good breakfast diner, but this place is a little more storefront than dine in, even though they have a number of tables inside and a pergola-covered set of tables on the sidewalk outside. It was clean and neat and decorated in storefront diner style but they keep their cooler for cans of Pepsi products on the inside of the counter instead of being grab-n-go.

The menu board outside apparently needs to be updated, as a dymo label stuck to the top announces that prices have changed. Inside, the menu (with current pricing) is on LED screens hung above the register station.

I ordered a basic biscuit with the choice of homemade strawberry jam or honey butter. And I also ordered their French toast platter, called "Sweet Cheeks ," to get a feel for their non-biscuit menu. Biscuits and gravy are the heavy hitters here, but my onion allergy tends to keep me away from gravies and sausage crumbles. I can say the b&g option was very popular among the steady stream of customers here in the eight-o-clock hour. There were also quite a few folks ordering the breakfast burritos and they all looked happy.

The biscuit was an excellent size! And it was done right - not too dry and not that pasty, underdone gumminess you get. If I was rating on the biscuit alone, I'd give a 4.5. It's pretty near perfect. It was also absolutely affordable at $3.50. When I come back this way (and I will!) I will definitely get biscuits again.

The French toast was French toast. It had a heavy coat of powdered sugar, but nothing else stood out. It was good, it was reasonably priced. It didn't really stand out and it came as three slices of French toast by themselves - not even a garnish. So, no complaints. I might order it again. But the biscuit really is the draw. It's a very good biscuit!

There were two problems, neither of which is a complaint about the very good food.

The first was the jam. I'll try the honey butter when I come back. The menu says the jam is homemade, but it tasted a lot like that strawberry glaze which gets poured onto strawberry pies. Overly sweet, very pink, no seeds and, at least in my serving, no strawberries either. I'm not sure how a homemade jam would end up without any fragments of the berries from which it is made. I regretted putting it on the really quite good biscuit! I had syrup left over from my French toast which would have been a better biscuit topping, even though it was ordinary Smuckers pancake syrup out of a little sealed portion cup. This is a common complaint of mine. Restaurants that have an excellent specialty item often do themselves a great injustice by using prepackaged or other add-ons that let you know they haven't put as much thought or care into that as they did the main dish.

Which is my other problem: total lack of presentation. Those of us dining in got the same plastic (compostable!) take-out shells as everyone taking their to-go meals. Pop them open and the food was just lying there. Not ordered or layered or set in any way. Sure, there's not much you can do with a biscuit in a box by itself, but French toast is usually placed in angled stacks, not laid out flat. It was fine, just looked... flat.

The jam was in a little solo cup and when I took the lid off the words on it were imprinted in the jelly and stayed that way until I stirred them away. This doesn't detract from the fine food, but it does remind me of the importance of presentation. We really do eat with our eyes first.

I give a solid 4 stars here, and the biscuits are really close to perfection! The prices were fantastic. I WILL come back, which says a lot. This place is a long way out of my way (about 25 miles), but I'll come here over many places closer in.

THE BOTTOM LINE: If you like biscuits, make a point of visiting if you're within 30 miles at...

Let me start by saying I had really high hopes for this place. I’m not usually the type to leave bad reviews—honestly, I rarely leave reviews at all, even when an experience is hit or miss. But after what happened today, I felt I had to speak up due to how disappointed we were.

My family and I, including our three very young children, arrived this morning and placed our order at exactly 10:45 AM. As we sat down, we noticed other parties arriving well after us—some quite large—and yet they were being served promptly. Over the course of the next hour, at least three large groups who came in much later received their food before us.

We checked in at the counter three separate times, each time being told our food would be out in "just a few minutes." Each time, 15 more minutes would pass with no food. After a full hour of waiting, I went up again and was told—yet again—it would be three more minutes. The food finally arrived about five minutes later.

It was incredibly frustrating, especially with hungry young kids who were watching others eat while we sat with nothing on our table. To make matters worse, we had placed our order a good 25–30 minutes before the other groups who were served ahead of us.

To be fair, the food itself had some high points—the burritos were flavorful—but the kids' plates were noticeably small portioned and the sausage was overcooked and tasteless, which is surprising considering how simple that item should be to get right.

If the service had been even somewhat attentive or timely, I could’ve rated this experience 3 or 4 stars based on food alone. But the service was honestly terrible, and that completely ruined the visit for us. We won’t be returning.

I truly hope the owner reads this and considers improving the service—especially for families. Waiting an hour for five meals while larger groups are served first is just not acceptable. A real disappointment. You’re better off heading to Tacos Ensenada or...

We were stopping by Visalia before heading to SoCal.  I was looking for breakfast burrito places... imagine my surprise when I saw a menu that was similar to a place that I know and love...  Their website doesn't show a sister location but my curiosity was piqued. We pulled up to the location and my question was answered.  It had the logo on the window Butter+Milk and on the other side Beachin' Biscuits.  For some who may not know, they have a sister location in Pismo Beach that opened prior to this. This location is a little bigger and had plenty of indoor and outdoor seating.  The location surrounding it was nice and not too busy when we visited. Since, I was familiar with Beachin' Biscuits I already knew what I wanted.   I was super excited, the lady that took my order Giselle was less excited. She was low key rude and lacked customer skills.  While I was waiting for my order,  I noticed she was like that with everyone except people she knew.  I didn't let her mood bring me down. My order was out in about 10-15 minutes and the lady who gave me my order was super nice.  She even gave me syrup for my boardwalk bites. I ordered:

Pablo burrito:  This is one of my go-to's.  Surprisingly, this wasn't greasy like the other location.  It was filling with the gravy,  I was stuffed with just one mini burrito.

Boardwalk bites:  No shortage of cinnamon here.  Each bite was covered all the way around.   To be honest it didn't even need syrup.

Southern comfort with sausage patty: Sadly, the biscuit was hard which left everything to be dry.  Sausage was lost in the biscuit.

Side of potatoes: Lightly crispy and didn't need ketchup.

Cold brew:  I got the last cup, it was tasty but mostly all ice.

A nice new alternative when I can't make it to pismo beach or if we...