Floyd's Diner


866 Yates St, Victoria, BC 381-5114
Not my first visit to Floyd's Diner, this unfortunately was my worst.

With my dearest friend Danielle visiting from New York, Patty and I selected Floyd's Diner for a Thursday, mid-morning breakfast (i.e. not an especially busy time). On previous visits we'd enjoyed a hearty breakfast in pleasant surroundings, but everything took a turn for the worst on this grim day.

To begin on a positive note - my huevos rancheros were good. While, the serving was too large for my taste, I enjoyed the addition of avocado and I thought the accompanying green chilli sauce was great.

Not so much can be said for Danielle's puddle of French toast. Entitled the Mt. Kilimanjaro, the French toast was drenched in yogurt and fruit compote. Basically there was waaaaay too much yogurt. Besides being wet, it also made the meal cold. Danielle complained that with so much yogurt it was difficult for the toast to absorb any syrup - a tragedy for syrup lovers. Also, the fruit compote was of the preserved variety, which I thought was a bit weak for summertime, when fresh fruit is widely available and inexpensive. 

But it got worse....the service...

Patty ordered an omelette, he said it was "fine" and "what I ordered." The problem was we basically had to perform a caesarean to get it out of the kitchen. We waited a long time for our food. People who sat down after us, ate before us. We were getting very hungry. Finally, a runner arrived with our food...I should some of our food. Two of our three meals arrived, Patty was left hungry. We assumed that the third dish would follow in short order - but no. We waited and waited, trying to get the attention of our server, to no avail. After about 10 minutes and me basically having to get out of my seat and shout at the server, we got his attention. He seemed dumbfounded by our problem. He left for the kitchen and shortly returned with Patty's meal - shrivelled from 10 minutes under the heat lamp. What happened? Well, seemingly the runner brought two of the meals, not thinking anything awry when she arrived at a table of three. The server, apparently with such confidence in his runner, never glanced over to our table to make sure everything had arrived ok, and to make matters worse, the kitchen just left the order sitting there without bringing it to the floor staff's attention. In my opinion, this is a pretty big flub.

So, when the bill came, I expected a comp of some sort, preferably for the cost of the Patty's crappy breakfast. Instead, the server puts down the bill, with a stupid expression on his face and a condescending tone said, "this is for you guys, thanks a lot." No, apology and no comp. I couldn't believe it. Only to add insult to injury, he then made a lengthy disappearance without offering us any change, only to return as we were putting our jackets on.

I'm pretty turned off Floyd's right now. Odds are, I'll get over it and return after the sting of my experience has passed. I liked my food and that's enough to give it another chance, but it'll be awhile.

 Reviewed: August 31, 2005