The Local — Restaurant in Yelm

This is my second time coming in for dinner. I am extremely upset and again my second time waiting for them to remake my burger. Both times I said no tomatoes and no onions and got tomatoes. Last time I ordered the BBQ burger and also asked for no onion strings and got those. When they remade the burger they didn't give me lettuce. This time I ordered the local and got tomatoes. Also the menu said fried egg not egg over easy. The yolk was all over the place plus the fact that again I got tomatoes.

To top this off, both times we waited over 45 minutes for a burger and a simple ham and cheese sandwich. This time the remake took literally less than 3 minutes which makes me believe they pulled stuff off the last burger to remake this one. I have worked in restaurants and food service for years.

I may not be coming back and may be telling my neighbors about these experiences as they were the ones that suggested I come here.

Edit:

After I got my burger I cut into it to find it was not pink as I ordered. It was over well done, the outside of the burger was black and crunchy. The egg was rubbery in the middle.

The waitress/bar tender did give me half off the burger. I only ate half of it because I needed to eat something and brought the rest to my dogs.

My mom and I may not return. If we do, I will not be ordering a burger. There did not appear to be an owner on site and all of the staff while nice seemed unaware of their surroundings. No attention to details, no quality of service, no checking to ensure the order was correct. My mom was almost finished with her dinner by the time the person that took our order came to ask what was wrong after I reported the issue to another staff member.

The staff here is in serious need of training in quality control, food preperation, and timing of food order to delivery. There was a table behind us that was there before we were. They received their salads shortly after we got there. They didn't get their entrees until after we received our dinner.

There is also no consistency in how the food is cooked. I have seen others review this establishment with good and bad reviews. The bad ones in some cases were similar to our experience, but the owner responds at random to good and bad reviews, not all reviews. As a business owner, we respond to all of the reviews and do our best to correct the issues when possible in the hopes to get return business. Our concern is that there is not enough of an owner presence to make the changes needed to make this place into what is has the potential to become.

If we do come back, I will edit the review to add any additional comments good or bad...

Updated: I have returned and I will say it was a better experience. Nothing impressive you go here cause your a local and you just like the place. I still stand by my original observations.

I don't go out much and really wanted to try this place. Unfortunately, this place reminded me of every "kitchen nightmare" episode I've ever watched. Slow service and serving staff seemed to be wondering in circles with no clear management. Our server seemed to spend more time talking about her personal life to other patrons than serving dark hair fake lashes. Her coworker in glasses spent half her time at the POS system digging something out of her navel. Patrons were bringing their own dishes up to the bar to clear their own tables. Arrived at 545, got drinks ordered in about 10, and an appetizer. Beer arrived almost 10 minutes later. Appetizers took about 30 min. 100$ and almost 90 min later, we got mediocre food and almost missed our movie. Tri tip queso was ok. Chips were stale tasting. Brisket grilled cheese had onions after asked to be on the side for son. Brisket tasted microwaved and undercooked. My pepper burger thing was odd and had the aftertaste of the smell of raw hamburger meat and blood...it was cooked from what I could see. However, patty was paper thin. Bread was caked with scraping of a dirty overused pan or griddle. The last plate was fine enough, and there were no major complaints on it.

For 100$ for 3 people... keep in mind that's only one beer at 4$ on that ticket. I can honestly say this has been the biggest letdown. Our whole party of 7 agreed that this is a one and done visit. One guest is a manager for a very large restaurant bar in the area. Only thing missing was seeing a camera crew filming a kitchen nightmare episode. Yes I did wake up sick this morning...

My husband and I were looking forward to lunch here today, but unfortunately, we never even made it to ordering.

Everything seemed fine at first as we waited to be seated. A waitress approached and told us she would clear a table for us at the front of the restaurant. Since we preferred to sit in the bar, where there was also an available table that needed clearing, I asked if we could take that one instead. Her response? A sharp “Sure, but it’s going to take a minute because I have to clear it.”

At first, I didn’t think much of it, because the original table she planned to seat us at also needed to be cleared. But that’s when things took a bizarre turn.

Instead of simply clearing the bar table, she deliberately stalled for another ten minutes, making multiple passes through the bar to stop and chat with the bartender—each time glancing in our direction with a smirk. It felt undeniably spiteful, as if she was going out of her way to punish us for requesting a different table.

By the time we were finally seated, the tension was high and extremely uncomfortable. I turned to my husband and said, I don’t want to stay. The waitress’s blatant rudeness and disrespect made it clear—this wasn’t a place worth spending our money.

So, we left and headed a few blocks down to Masonry Cafe, where we had an excellent lunch with friendly, welcoming service. The contrast was night and day.

If you’re looking for a meal where you’re treated with basic respect, I’d recommend skipping this place and going somewhere that actually values...