See Us Eat: Brunch at Linda's Seabreeze Cafe, Santa Cruz, CA

Monday, May 28, 2007

Brunch at Linda's Seabreeze Cafe, Santa Cruz, CA

We decided to go to Linda's Seabreeze Cafe for brunch, a place we'd read about and seemed to have a bit of hype surounding it. We arrived with high hopes at around 12:30pm on a Memorial Day to a very large waiting list, abour 45 minutes long, and dozens of people milling about outside, waiting for a table and drinking coffee. When we finally sat down to eat, however, we were sorely disappointed. The food was mediocre at best, certainly not worth the wait. Quite frankly, we can't see why this place has regulars at all.

Tomato and Basil Soup (substituted for breakfast potatos and toast with our breakfasts)
Sorely lacking salt.

Habenero Chicken Sausage Scramble with Mushrooms and Scallions $7.50
Bland. Alexis had to slather it in salsa to get it down.

Steak and Eggs $10.25
Chewy, poor quality steak. Decent eggs, but really, how can you screw that up?

Ratings:
Food: 0
Decor: 0
Service: 1

Website
Can't Find Health Code Violations

Labels: Decor: 0, Food: 0, regional American, restaurant, review, Service: 1

# posted by Giao and Alexis @ 12:20 PM

Comments:

Ouch! You left your SUE card on the table and just for kicks I logged on today. I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience at my restaurant on Memorial Day. What a busy day that was! I would invite you back next time you are in town, and give us another try. I mean how many places would sub a cup of soup for potatoes and toast,(without charge), and you didn't even mention if you at least liked the salsa that you had to "slather" your $7.50 scramble to "get it down" with. The steak and eggs, btw are $10.25, and our meat is always superior quality. All of this means a great deal to my husband and I, especially when anyone can say whatever they want on the net. We have many, many, regulars who we would like to think of as extended family. Our decor may be simple, but we try to support our local artists by having a different local artist show their artwork every month. All these things would be nice to know about before a review is written. So, now that I have had my say, I wish you a nice day, and I hope you think about giving us another try someday.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:19 PM

Who are you? Why must all comments be 'approved' by the blog author? Are you restaurant owners or have you ever worked in a restaurant?Sounds like you had a bad weekend in Santa Cruz. I have worked my butt off to make this restaurant a success. We have been in business for over 17 years and have received many awards. We also have a huge regular clientele that would beg to differ with you.Also, my crew works really hard to produce a good product in a nice atmosphere,and to be trashed anonymously on some blog is just plain rude. If you don't like something at a restaurant the proper way of dealing with that is in person at that moment so the restaurant has a chance to make you happy.I'm not sure if anybody really reads your blog, but if they do you should have the decency to post a comment responding to your "review". I think my wife already covered all the individual things you got wrong. Sincerely, Benjamin Hintze.

# posted by

Unknown : 5:13 PM

Thanks for commenting. We'd like to respond to your many points:
1) We approve all non-spam comments. The only reason comments must be approved is so that commercial spam doesn't end up all over our blog.

2) We are not anonymous. And we aren't restauranteurs or professionals in the food industry. We are serious foodies, that's it. We like to eat, and we have a blog that covers everything we eat, every day.

3) Thanks for correcting us on the pricing. It was written from memory, which apparently was wrong and has been corrected in the original post.

4) Perhaps our comment about not understanding the regulars was a bit harsh. Every place has bad days, bad hours, and we do too. Also, please note that we are not professional reviewers in the sense that we do not get paid to review restaurants for a living. This means that unlike professional reviewers, we publish reviews after eating someplace only once, not 3 times. We don't do extensive research about every place we eat. We just eat there, as a normal person would. Also, the nature of our blog is to write about everything we eat. Thus, our review is not an overall critique of your business, it is merely our reaction to a single experience.

# posted by

Giao and Alexis : 10:56 PM

Also, I forgot to mention that yes, as low-carbers, we did appreciate the substitution of soup for bread and potatos very much, and it seems we did neglect to mention that in our post. So, thanks for reminding us. I tried to search for your email address on your website so that we could respond directly, but couldn't find it, so if you'd like to contact us, please feel free to email us at seeuseat at gmail dot com

# posted by

Giao and Alexis : 11:01 PM

A bit harsh? I really am not interested in who you are or what you think about anything, let alone our restaurant. Perhaps you could tone down your negative writing a bit, though. I'll try to keep a sense of humor about things if you do. Let's just leave it at this quote from Frank Zappa when commenting on a quite negative review-"Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read."
Thanks for at least eating in our restaurant once. Sincerely, Benjamin

# posted by

Unknown : 12:02 PM

Thanks again for responding. You write: "I really am not interested in who you are or what you think about anything, let alone our restaurant.". However, I'd like to point out that I was merely responding to your previous comment, in which you said "Who are you? Why must all comments be 'approved' by the blog author? Are you restaurant owners or have you ever worked in a restaurant?". Again, sorry you are unhappy with our opinions.

# posted by

Giao and Alexis : 12:18 PM

Monday, May 28, 2007

Brunch at Linda's Seabreeze Cafe, Santa Cruz, CA

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