Garden Cafe — Restaurant in York

OWNER WAS AWFUL TO CHILDREN!

We have been to the Garden Cafe several times and found it to be a unique place with good food. My wife and I have a 1 year old. For my wife's birthday, we decided to invite our friends down from Charlotte to go to lunch with their 1 year old twins. I called a month in advance to book for 4 adults and 3 high chairs for the kids. Then the day before our reservation, I called and confirmed 4 adults with 3 high chairs.

Our friends drove over an hour to go to the Garden Cafe. We get there and tell them we are there for our 4 adult reservation with 3 high chairs and then the hostess and waitress start whispering. We stand around for a few minutes until they finally take us back. The waitress gets us back to our seats and said I'm sorry, we gave away your high chairs and we only have one left. I was pretty upset because we don't get to go out with our friends to eat with all of the kids so we had been looking forward to this. We told the waitress we have to have high chairs or we can't eat there. Then the manager/owner comes out and asks what the problem is. I told her they gave away our high chairs. She became very defensive telling us that she didn't give away the chairs. We told her we will have to go somewhere else, and she told us we could just use booster seats instead.

This will obviously will not work bc all 3 children need something to secure them in the seat which a high chair has but a booster seat does not. The owner then proceeds to tell us she will handle it and we ask how. She tells us that she'll make the people that were given our high chairs take their children out of the chairs to get them back...mid meal. We told the owner that's not fair to the other people and unbelievably rude. After going round and round like this for 5-10 minutes, we left and had to drive another half hour to a different restaurant.

This was a disaster. I understand mistakes happen like giving away the high chairs, but the way the owner handled the situation was beyond rude. She could have just apologized and offered like a free kids meal or appetizer but instead got defensive and then recommended unseating two other infants from the high chairs This really ruined the birthday lunch we had planned so long with our friends, and needless to say, we will never be coming back to the...

My wife and I first visited The Garden Cafe a couple weeks ago when some friends took us there. We enjoyed it so much that the following week we took my parents. The Garden Cafe is one of the most relaxing places we have been to in a while for dinner. Both times we arrived early and sat out on the patio talking and watching the turtles in the pond. Each evening was very comfortable outside. Our most recent visit, there was a wedding rehearsal taking place in their venue next to the Cafe.

When you enter the restaurant, you enter into a country store with a variety of items for your home, health and to eat. Entering the restaurant it is decorated with all kinds of old southern decor. We have been twice and still not seen anything. The menu contains a wide variety of food which can handle any appetite or palate. There were so many good sounding items I couldn’t decide on our first trip til I heard the orders brought out for the table beside us. Four out of six ordered the Back Porch Steak, so I went with that. My wife had the Filet Minion. Both steaks were cooked to perfection and were full of flavor! Our sides were fresh and everything was brought out in a timely manner. Our second trip, I got the Shrimp and Grits and my wife got the Salmon with an Ice Tea glaze. Just like the steaks from our first trip, everything was perfect, hot, fresh and full of flavor. For dessert, I had the praline cheesecake and my wife had the buttermilk pie. I was Ted to try a different dessert on our second trip, but they were sold out of it so I went with the praline cheesecake again.

The staff and waitress’s were very friendly and kept our drinks filled while continually checking on us even with the restaurant being very busy.

We will continue to visit the Garden Cafe and HIGHLY recommend them to anyone. We live almost an hour away and it is WELL WORTH the drive. They do require reservations for dinner, which we didn’t know on our first trip, but they were kind enough to work us in. Go early and enjoy the patio, or do like we did on of first trip, get a drink and your dessert to go and eat it...

This has been a favorite of ours for years and we always talk it up to other people, especially for dinners. We almost saw an end to that today if it were not for the graciousness of the manager and owner. We came in for a nice Saturday lunch and got a waitress from Mars, that almost destroyed our experience permanently. First, she messed up our beverage order and had to come back to retake it. She walked away mid order for our food and was distracted, then came back to finish taking it. Brought us our drinks, then appetizer, and that was the last time we interacted with her for literally over an hour! She walked by once and said our food should be right up in passing, as she brought meals to a party of six that arrived 20 minutes AFTER we had already finished our appetizer and drinks. As she was rushing past our table, she asked if we needed more drinks without ever stopping! My husband went up front to speak to someone and to request our check for appetizer and beverages. The hostess sent the manager/owner over who was very apologetic and stated that there was not even a food order in the kitchen for us! The waitress never turned in our order! The owner was gracious, kind, apologetic, and said she just wanted to make everything right. She offered to put our meal order in and get it out quickly, which she did! She offered us more beverages and said there was no charge for anything. We could not thank her enough for her professionalism and grace, and never once did she say anything negative about the waitress. In our view, this was kind and genuine service and concern for a customer's experience! I have to admit that at the end of it all, almost two hours later, I had no patience for the waitress and felt her two attempts at apologizing before we left were more about her feeling bad for herself...she was not inexperienced, just not a waitress in tune with her job. This is a wonderful local restaurant and we will continue to frequent it knowing that this was the first time we had bad service in over 15 years! Still...