Turtle Cafe — Restaurant in Westbrook

Seems like there has alway been a breakfast nook here since I was a small kid and grew up in Westbrook. I remember one of the owners use to give my family the day old donuts at the end of the day as we were poor and could never afford that luxury. Stopped in with a friend around 10 to avoid the crowd and still had to wait some. The menu just blew us away. Like finding the best breakfast nook on the shoreline. I had a lobster crepe. It had plenty of lobster pieces, but was a little dry over all. Still not bad. It came with a small mound of dry spinach leaves, but they didn't have any vinagar, a little dressing of some sort would have been nice. One of our waitresses was obviously sick and should not have been working around food. It wasn't very pleasant watching her taking care of her cold and serving. A few days later I came back to watch the food prep while sitting at the counter near the grill. I ordered the clam hash under poach eggs, sausage and toast. The clams in the hash were plentiful, but rather tough for my 69 year old gums/teeth and the eggs were tiny and a little too done. Sausage was really delicious. Toast would have been ok if I didn't watch the cook handle and butter it after touching raw meat. My greatest disappointment was seeing the cross contamination cooking techniques practiced by the cook. No gloves - ever. Dirty hands went from egg yokes to meat to vegtables and toast with sometimes only a quick wipe between on what can only be described as the dirtyest hand towel hanging off the unkempt grill. If you know anything about commecial food cooking this was about as gross as it gets. Frying pans were cleaned between orders with only a quick wipe of another disgusting towel. Some extensive training on food handing techniques to all and blowing out a wall to make some seating area (or a bigger building) would transform this place and it's menu to the best 5 star destination for breakfest/lunch on the shoreline. But it's no...

I put 1 star for food, but the truth is we never got our food despite waiting over an hour. We were seated outside quickly, but then it took 15 minutes for the first server to ask what we wanted to drink. He never returned. About 15 minutes later another server asked what we wanted to drink and said she would get it. 5 minutes later another different server saw we had nothing, asked what drink we wanted and said she would get it. The second server came back 5 minutes later to confirm our drink order before the third one finally came back with them. She then took our order. We waited, then waited some more, then waited some more. I walked in 25 minutes later and asked if our food was almost ready. The server said yes. Then we waited and waited again. I then walked in when it started to rain on us and asked if we could get our food in to go boxes. Then we waited again. My wife then walked in and asked again if the food was almost ready. They said my food was ready and her omelette was almost ready, so again we waited. While we waited one of the cooks walked out of the dining room right next to me, yelled for a server outside right in my ear and literally passed the food over my head to give him someone else's food. 10 minutes more and we still had no food and the waitress had the audacity to walk by without saying a word and drop the check for food we never got on the table. It was at this point we decided to leave. We walked in and told them we were leaving because we hadn't got our food after an hour and 15 minutes. We paid for our coffees and left. Worst customer service I ever experienced at...

I have been here a few times and service and food is always great. I am not blaming Covid since there were 3 waitresses working 6 tables. Our waitress was just plain awful. She barely looked up when we asked where to sit. We were given menus and when we decided to order they let us know they were only serving breakfast (10 min after we receive the menus). We then needed more time to change our choice from lunch (as it was 12:30 pm) We ordered crepes which were highlighted not only on the menu but as a special order n our table. She then said they were out of crepes. We placed our order and waited 30 minutes for our food. The 3 other tables around us (that ordered after us) revived their food. We asked where our food was and got a snippy answer that we just ordered. We did not we ordered 30 min before. Our food was overcooked and burnt. It was like they purposely left our food on the grill or under the heaters. We then asked for a box for one of our wraps to come home with us and she didn’t bring ii out. She sure brought the check quickly. Due to Covid we still left a 22% tip but I wanted to make sure people were aware to ask if they were serving breakfast and if there was something missing from the menu. Maybe the non smiling annoyed server will read this and smile a bit more and be attentive to their...