mary's gourmet diner

terrible service; horrible manager. my family visited breakfast of course as part of a mothers' day celebration. after waiting for someone to take our order for 30 minutes, my husband finally had to ask who our waiter was. we were among the first group seated. we ordered and after 45 minutes when we still had not received our food, my husband asked to speak to the manager. the woman who came over, who we gathered is mary's daughter and who we noticed had been yelling at the servers, was belligerent, loud and obnoxious. she shouted at us that the restaurant was not a fast food joint and that everything was cooked to order. she continued saying that today was their first day serving brunch. i found that excuse interesting since the place does, after all, purport to be a breakfast restaurant and has been in business for quite a while. what is the difference between serving breakfast and brunch? after all that commotion, when other diners were staring at her and having the same kind of wait, the food we got wasn't good. we could have lived with the poor food. we could even have lived with the interminable wait. what we can't live with is a manager who is unspeakably rude. we will never gobackagain and will tell others about our horrible experience.

my family and i visited mary's to celebrate my nephew's graduation and i was completely takenbackby the appalling behavior of a waitress who wasn't even serving my table. when my nephew kindly said "excuse me" so he could get by as well as to let the waitress know he was about to pass by her, she turns around and loudly yells "i'm working! there's plenty of space for you to go!" i'm working right now!". i explained to her that he was simply saying "excuse me" and that she was very rude. she replied "some people have to talk to other people like that". shocked, i repeated her statement "other people?!" so she could explain what she meant but she simply said she was working and walked away. my family owns a series of restaurants in winston-salem so i think i know what good service is and what its not. i am disgusted by this grown woman's lack of professionalism and poor choice of words. i will absolutely no be returning to this establishment. mary is a good friend of my sister who owns la botana on hanes mall boulevard, so i'm sorry that this waitress (whom i am told is mary's daughter) has caused such a revolting experience on what should have been a happy day.

food is ok. prices are high. we order gazpacho, they served beet soup with too much cumin. we sent it back. as we were finishing our breakfast mary, the owner, delivered the "gazpacho" in a brown to-go bag telling us to take it home or give it to friends, despite our dislike for it. the beet soup was on the bill and when we questioned it mary appeared pointing to the bag on the table. we reminder her that we didn't care for it and wouldn't be leaving with it. she shrugged her shoulders and retreated to the kitchen. we paid our bill ($43.00 for a half of the food we ate). after 20 years in winston salem and can only say this about mary's.
i will never, and i mean never, gobackthere again.

all politics and news aside. the food is fantastic. everything is fresh and gourmet. my waiter was extremely friendly, and the restaurant was able to run smoothly, despite the camera crews and other news outlets coming in and out of the establishment because of the ongoing story. (funny aside: i was aware of the situation, but didn't realize that this was the restaurant offering the discounts when i showed up. was completely oblivious to the 3-5 news crews set up nearby, thinking they were at a neighboring building or some big story was taking place downtown.)

anyway, i had a cherry cola to drink (they don't have pepsi or coke products), and it was given in a plastic cup but you receive the whole bottle at a very reasonable price. for my meal i had the breakfast nachos, which at first seeing they cost $10 made me a little concerned. the portion though, was more than ample. the nachos consisted of eggs, cheese, olives, avacado, tomato, peppers, sour cream and artisan chips. there was definitely more there, and not only did i eat quite a bit, i took about half of my portion home for later.

the establishment is extremely clean and patrons have a choice of indoor or outdoor seating. it did take some time to bring out my food, but the business they were doing (and everything else going on) it was still done at a time that wasn't unreasonable. i'll definitely be comingbackthere again once all of the media has died down.

this was literally the worst restaurant experience i have ever had. the wait staff was so rude that i left the building in tears. later i discovered that the waitress who had been so rude, was the owner's daughter, so i doubt taking it to management would have done much good.

here's my, hopefully succinct, list of complaints:

1. obviously the rude wait staff was #1. i can overlook a lot if the waiters are clearly trying to make my meal pleasant.

2. i can't attest to the quality of the food as i never actually got to eat any. i did, however, pay $15 for a meal at which i consumed nothing but water.

3. at one point in ordering i asked the waitress the price of an al a carte item. on my bill, the price was not what was quoted and when i mentioned it, i was told, "i did tell you that; that's what the price used to be." they fully expected me to pay the new price, even though it was their mistake.

4. when i got my food, it was not what i expected at all and it was not something i was going to eat. there was no fault on the part of the waitress or the kitchen, the description on the menu simply gave me a very different idea of what i was getting. however, no one tried to make my meal better. no one offered to take the foodbackto the kitchen or to see if there was anything they could do to help me be more pleased with the situation. i was offered a chance to look at the menu again, but with the expectation that i would be buying two meals.

5. the food took a really long time to arrive. i was with a friend on his lunch break and it took so long that he had to shovel his food and was still late gettingbackto work. he left before anyone else had even made a dent in their dish.

6. as a side, i ordered the cajun chips. i was expecting some homemade hot chips with a spicy seasoning or something of the sort. what i got was lays bbq potato chips. for a $14 lunch item they should be able to do better than that.

i really could have handled #2-6 and still been pleased enough with the restaurant, but i've never been treated, in any establishment, in a manner that was so rude, disrespectful and openly hostile. if this is how the owner's family treats their patrons, i want nothing to do with this establishment. i was shocked and dismayed and offended.

obviously, i will not be returning to mary's and i highly discourage any other patrons from visiting. i can think of much better ways of spending $15 a person than being disrespected and abused by wait staff. i am disappointed because i had heard good things, but alas....

way underwhelmed.. i heard nothing but great things about breakfast of course, and i have never been more disappointed. i went in expecting an amazing breakfast, but it was terrible. the service was awful and the food was even more awful. i haven't beenbacksince. i wanted it to be a hangout spot, but it failed me. they have a great variety of food, but it's over priced and not prepared well.

locally owned, slow service, high prices. my wife and i are strong believers in supporting locally owned businesses. unfortunately, when locally owned businesses don't provide a certain level of customer service in a reasonable period of time, patrons will search elsewhere do spend their money.

last weekend my in-laws were visiting from out of town so we thought they'd enjoy something different and fresh and chose boc for dinner.

we arrived around 6pm on a friday evening.the hostess told us to sit wheverever so when we saw there were only 4 other couples in the restaurant and when we recognized our waitress as a member of the owner's family we were expecting a hassle free boc experience.

after our drinks arrived we waited over 20 minutes for the waitress to comebackto take our orders. at the 20 minute mark i found the hostess and asked if we could place our order. the waitress reappeared and took our orders.

the food took another 30 minutes so by the time it arrived, thought the food was good, we were ready to be done with this evening.

my wife and i both work in downtown w-s and when we mentioned this experience to our friends and co-workers they echoed their similar recent disappointments with boc.

at this point in my story i haven't even touched on boc's prices. we paid around $75 for 4 meals. not bad if you've had a 4-5 star experience......i don't care how fresh/organic/gluten free the menu is, i still can only rate my past 3 boc visits with 2-3 stars at best.

the way i see this ending....boc has a choice: they are going to have take a huge leap and improve the boc customer service and dining experience or drop the prices to those of a 2-3 star restaurant.

i like it, but i miss mary's.. i'll start with the food - it's awesome.

i usually go with a build-your-own-omelet. the jalapeño pimiento cheese is to die for, and worth the extra charge, but be wary - a lot of things you'd take for granted in another establishment do come with an added price. they'll nickel and dime you well out of the "under $10" range.

the service is not so great but, to be honest, it kind of adds to the charm of the place. i don't think i'd know what to do with professional, skilled waitstaff.

the new place is nice, but i miss the feel of the old place, mary's of course, which seemed to match with the staff. breakfast of course is larger, with high ceilings and a 'cleaner' feel to it. can't do anything about it, though - i doubt they'll movebackjust to please me.