Living in Ann Arbor means there are a ton of really great places to eat. However, a lot of those places can be really expensive. So when this new house of pancakes opened up near our apartment, we were pretty excited because not only did it look like a hoppin’ place, but the prices weren’t as expensive as some breakfast or brunch places located downtown.
Nick’s Original House of Pancakes replaced the Big Boy on Ann Arbor-Saline Rd., and every time I drove by this place, it was PACKED. I mean, we’re talking, no place to park, waits up to 45 minutes or an hour. They’re also only open for about 6-7 hours. When you have a place that closes at 3 p.m. every day, the immediate thought is, “Wow. They might be really great for breakfast if that’s all they serve.”
I’m sad to say, that I won’t ever go back to this place. I’ve been there three times (twice with REB and once with my coworkers), but no more.
Now, I understand that although they’re open until 3 p.m. every day (or most days of the week), they’re always busy in there. I wasn’t lying when I said that the wait can sometimes be up to 45 minutes or an hour, but what comes with crowded places is sometimes bad service.
And this third time I was there, proved that point. Our wait was only 20 minutes, which was cool, but then when we got sat, it took about 10 minutes or so for our server to bring us our waters and then get our drink order. Once the drink order was in, though, we didn’t see our drinks until about another 10-15 minutes later. Now again, I can understand that this place is busy as hell, but she had our table…and two others, so really, she should have been able to handle it.
I ordered an omelet with cheese and salsa on it (their “salsa fresco” omelet). It took about 30 minutes for our food to come out. I’m not joking. Tables that were seated after us had their food before we had ours. Our party only had 4 people, not 6 like some others.
Did I mention the waitress, with her THREE tables, apparently was SO frazzled that she couldn’t refill our drinks..? We had to flag down a bus girl to have her do it for us.
When our food finally did come, everyone’s food was warm, except for mine. Now, I get that I ordered Egg Beaters so they don’t take as long to cook and I didn’t order any meat or anything called a “skillet”, so maybe mine was made first since it’s the easiest. But, just like any one else, I would appreciate it if my food was served warm, not cold.
On top of that, I never saw my serer to let her know that my food was cold, so we had to flag down another bus girl and tell her we had a problem with our food and needed our server.
After about 15 minutes, our server showed up and apologized for “being so busy” and asked what was wrong. At that point, my appetite was pretty much shot and I complained and was rather rude to her (not going to lie) that my food was cold, our waters weren’t refilled once and my friend didn’t get half her meal because the server forgot about it. Well, she actually probably didn’t know that, because she was “so busy” that she had another server run her food to our table. Awesome.
Another 20 minutes go by and then finally a manager comes by and tries to apologize over and over again. I had already made it clear that we’d never be coming back and I certainly wasn’t going to be paying for my food. So he said he’d take care of our bill for us (which meant, he was going to take off my meal from the bill even though the rest of the orders were kind of done badly), but apparently, he got caught up talking to two other tables about problems they had with THEIR food, so it took him about 10-15 minutes to finally give us our bill.
I don’t complain at restaurants ever. I used to be a server, I know what it’s like. I get you’re busy. But if you’re honestly SO busy with THREE tables, maybe you should ask someone for help, or offer your table to another server so they don’t get awful service and so you aren’t stiffed on the tip.
The food problems weren’t her fault. I do know the line cooks and other people in the kitchen got a talking to. The table next to us had a vegetarian who ordered a veggie omelet, and when it was delivered to the table, it had meat all in it. How do you mess up something like that…? The problems with service is all on the server though. The first rule of serving is: KEEP THE DRINKS REFILLED. If you can’t do that, you’re not doing a good job, let alone DOING your job.
It’s weird, though. The one time I went there during lunch time on a week day, it was just fine. Maybe they need to figure out how to handle their weekend traffic better, because that’s when the place is the busiest! If you can’t handle that, then extend your hours or hire more people. …Or teach your line cooks how to read.
It’s obvious we aren’t going back there. I’d rather save my $8 and go to a place like Leo’s for some quality breakfast or brunch.
The sides we were served first (with miso soup and also a side or rice for each diner). Clockwise from the top left: Kim chi (fermented cabbage – believe me, it’s good though), a mashed potato that was savory and sweet (delicious), seaweed, swet and sour pork, and some kind of root vegetable with bell peppers. It was all good mix of sweet and sour and salty.
Vegetarian bibimbap! As you can see, it’s a pretty decent-sized portion
Wreckage. All this food and we each paid between $9-10. Not bad at all!
