Village Inn

Ok. it’s not a linen napkin kind of place but for eggs it’s fabulous. Last night my boyfriend and I had the best service we’ve ever had in Lincoln. We made the mistake of going on free pie day so it was packed and service was slow, but our server Amy was amazing. Sweet, funny and made certain to stop by and chat and give us updates on our food. Food arrived and it was good. The server in the next area was hilarious and we watched him interact with his customers and had a good laugh over it. We tipped our amazing server quite well, then walked over to the other server and tipped him. it was a nice evening for eggs.

Holy cow. First thing when we walk in we sit around for a while waiting for one of the workers who could have been mistaken for internment camp victims as this place was an abyss devoid of all joy. Every employee had the same pale expression usually only seen in the «feed African children for 10 cents a day» commercials. Which, by the way, they most likely get their 10 cent meals from the premium cuts of wherever Village Inn gets their food and the customers of the actual restaurant are stuck with whatever is left. We get sat down at a table which I assume was last cleaned back before the building’s foundation was set. It was sticky with the residue of past childrens’ syrup accidents and age old cleaning agents which, either due to the age of the products or the inaptitude of the employees, had no effect on the mess on the table. After taking our drink order, which was four waters, we got to read the menu in its entirety, even down to a mistype in «panckaes». The only plausible explanation for why it took 10 minutes to get some water is that they had to go out back and drill a well into the Ogallala aquifer to get us them. When he came back with the waters, we didn’t yet get to order our food, as we were immediately shown his drawings in his notebook. I would say that this paralleled a fine art gallery in Europe, but it was no where close. When we didn’t comment on his pictures, he quickly changed his disposition towards us. He acted like we were sitting outside a liquor store asking him for change for food when clearly we were going to go inside and buy alcohol as soon as we had enough money for some 40s. We got our orders in through his glares and unnecessary repetition of how I would like my eggs cooked. Just like our drink order, there was an extremely long wait for our food. They must have had to go to the grocery store to pick up another box of Best Choice brand pancake mix and bacon. We watched a few disappointing things happen during our wait. First and foremost our waiter, who doubled as our chef was huffing on an e-​cigarette while preparing food. That’s not how you make hickory smoked bacon. Disgusting. Second, the top notch night manager was chatting with a table while a man was patiently waiting for an experience he will surely never forget. Third, one of the girls in the back was jamming out to some dirty lyric rap music on her phone full blast. You could hear from everywhere, even the bathroom where I went hoping it would give me some asylum from the mayhem going on in this place. We got our food, which wasn’t worth the money, wait, or emotional and mental anguish of this restaurant. We waited for what seemed like four lifetimes and ended up having to go into the kitchen where the probably drugged up kitchen staff were laying on tables avoiding their jobs of ensuring the customers aren’t suffering from dehydration, which us possible due to the fact that I never got my water refilled. The manager was the one ringing up tickets, so we voiced our concerns with everything going on here. But to no avail. She merely discredited our reports of e-​cigarettes in the kitchen. A very immature thing to do as a manager. Poor service, poor food, poor management, poor experience.

Well it’s not a mistake that there were no stars added. This was down right one of the most awful dinning experiences I possible ever had. Where to begin, maybe with the apathetic manager that sat us at our table that was still sticky and more likely than not still dirty since the waiter probably did a once over wipe not even bothering to actually clean. It seemed to me that it was that my group was seen as a hassle just because we came in to eat at this village inn. No enthusiasm in anybody that was there, not even pretend joy was seen. It’s like someone just stole their Christmas gifts, which could be true but highly unlikely because it’s March. It’s like I stepped into a prison camp just to eat a pancake. On to my server, well he was not very good because he would rather show me his artwork than actually taking my order. When he actually got around to taking our order it was a good 20 mins since we sat down. The place was not even busy. When he finally deemed it worthy to take our order, he seemed like angry at us for putting in our order. I’m sorry I thought you were here to work and make money, I guess you don’t want my money… Now waiting for our food, since we were next to the kitchen we got to hear some eventual conversation that was laced with so much profanity that Eminem would be disgusted. Since they didn’t think it was busy they decided to start playing some very, very questionable music that the entire restaurant to hear and quite frankly it was very rude, not to mention the amount of families that were in the restaurant as well. I’m glad when to food finally came out, cold of course and undercooked. I don’t know how since I ordered a french toast meal and it was probably pretty cooked 700 miles away. But the best part was seeing my server on the line smoking a e-​cigarette. Now I’m pretty sure that’s breaking some sort of health code, but I do love a smoke-​laced french toast. It was so hard for me to eat after that, I kinda just wanted the «experience» to end so bad. After what seemed like an hr of sitting listening to some A.T.40 artist on the server’s phone about «how much ass in the club he gets» one of my cohorts had to go back into the kitchen to get our checks and was treated to blank stares of probably stoned employees sprawled out on the counter tops. Now we go to pay our checks and here is the incompetent Manger again probably learning how to use the register still. When I tell her about our experience with the music, she doesn’t even look at me and just says «well sorry about that» and as my other friends go to pay, they go to talk about the insanity we saw and she decides to argue with what we said, no real apology, no real caring attitude. I’m pretty sure they didn’t even want our money. She was a down right bitch that clearly didn’t want to be there. Just because you failed at life doesn’t mean you have to project the patheticness on others that just wanted a quick meal. I’m pretty sure a school full of blind and deaf kids could run a better establishment than this place they call village inn. Piss poor effort, bad experience. Where is the negative star button because they deserve it.

The food is about average; you’d get the same at a similar eatery in town (Perkins, et al). They must have had their servers go through training, or hired new ones, because I haven’t experienced what the previous review has. At this particular location there’s a server named Cornelius that is great. I highly recommend requesting him for great, friendly service.

Blech. Below average food and TERRIBLE service. I have experienced nothing but horrible service at the Village Inns in town. The last time I was there, I had an omelet that had american cheese STILL in the plastic wrapper. When I pointed it out to the waitress, she seemed pretty apathetic. No apology, and I had to ask to get a new omelet. There was no offer to discount my meal or give me anything for free. No one seemed to care.

french silk pie!