Northside Cafe

I've been twice and neither was a good experience. Even though the place was mostly empty, NONE of the tables were clean, so I had to use a bunch of napkins to wipe one down myself. The baked potato wasn't fresh -- it tasted like it had been sitting under a heat lamp all day. The chicken on the house salad has a weird texture and also didn't taste fresh.

Average. Yeah just Average. The first American breakfast since I came to USA. I ordered the house special. There wasn't anything special about it. Scrambled egg (without salt), toast (I got half of them toasted the other half not, why?), potatoes (the taste was good but they were cold). I was pretty excited but after the meal I was sad.

Would give zero or negative stars if that is even possible. My first time visiting this cafe was a really great experience that I went back for my second visit within a week. However, the subsequent visit was really bad. There was no option of substituting the toast for something else (I'm gluten intolerant and they have no gluten-free toast). More home potatoes then? Nope, no as well. I wasn't happy with paying the same price for a substantially smaller portion because of their (or more like the cashier's) refusal to substitute something I absolutely cannot eat with something else. So, the cashier got his manager to help with the 'customer problem' as the cashier put it. The manager said I could take a banana as substitution. I put up with it because I was really starving and I really had no time to argue even further. But, in retrospect, a banana to substitute a toast is ridiculous. More home potatoes or something worth $2 (the toast is listed as $2 on the menu on the wall) would have been more acceptable. I told myself I will never come back again to such a place - it has no pro other than its proximity to the campus. Then, I got a reward from SquareUp that I could use at Northside Cafe. I told myself, since I get some discount, why not give it a try again? I went right on the day the reward was supposed to expire. The same cashier who previously dealt with me was the one who served me. However, the reward code was not accepted on the grounds that it had expire a day ago. After several tries with the code, we got the same outcome. He said he could not give me the discount since the system said that it has already expired. However, the same system that sent the email to me said it hasn't expired. He won't budge. I left without getting anything except a firm determination that I will never ever go back to this crappy place anymore, especially when the employees make you feel like you're the one serving them instead of the opposite.