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 therestaurantwas 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 breakfastrestaurantand 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 go back again and will tell others about our horrible experience.

whenever i'm in nc, i travel "all the way" to winston from greensboro just to visit mary's. it's such a treat getting to enjoy such traditional southern breakfasts as a vegetarian. the cornmeal cakes are my favourite, but everything is good. expect a long wait on the weekends though, as therestaurantfills up (for good reason).

after learning about thisrestaurantfrom the national news when the diner had to stop giving a 15% discount to praying customers due to a lawsuit threat, i put this diner on my must tryrestaurantlist. being new to the area, we are always on the hunt for appetizing restaurants to try. months later, we finally got around to visiting last saturday. they are only open from 8 am to 2 pm everyday but saturday when they are open until 3 pm. they offer breakfast and brunch and are located in downtown winston salem on trade street. free parking is available in their parking lot located behind their building or parallel parking is available on the street. read the rest on my blog, link below

all politics and news aside. the food is fantastic. everything is fresh and gourmet. my waiter was extremely friendly, and therestaurantwas 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 therestaurantoffering 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 coming back there again once all of the media has died down.

this was literally the worstrestaurantexperience 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 food back to 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 getting back to 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....

check out mary's specials!. winston-salem just wouldn't be the same without marys. she uses the best fresh, local and organic ingredients humanly possible, and you can absolutely taste it in all of her dishes. the menu is a fantastic mix of brunch staples, but don't forget to try the specials, because they are inevitably creative, tasty and inspired by cuisine from all over the world. some reviewers complain about the prices and service, to which i would respond that a) the prices reflect the quality of the ingredients. if you want a cheap breakfast sandwich, go to mcds.; and b) i've had great service on every trip here - and there have been many. don't miss mary's; there's a reason thisrestaurantis ranked in the top 5 brunch spots in nc!

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 therestaurantand 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 come back to 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.