Mesa Cafe & Bar

Mediocre food at best, which isn’t my problem with this place. Staff was quite friendly with the exception of the owner. My boyfriend was served water that had floating things in it (dirt and other debris) which I didn’t really mind as I just asked for another glass of water. The one and really biggest issue I had during my experience was when my boyfriend found a half-broken toothpick in his burger. Clearly someone had realized it had broken and didn’t care enough to remove it before sticking another into the burger. I talked to the owner about this and only received the most uncaring response. I was told that someone had the exact same issue only the week before (which shouldn’t something have changed since then??) and that he needs to change the toothpicks to another method. However, it’s clear to me that the issue lies not with the toothpicks but the person whose job it is to put them in the burgers. Something as trivial as that shouldn’t be left to someone who ignores that the toothpick broke. Although it was quite busy and I understand that certain aspects can’t be held up to their usual standard, there is a certain amount of care that someone should receive after finding a toothpick shard in their burger from the owner no less.

Sometimes it happens in any sort of service establishment that the human factor outweighs, negates, outshines the actual product being offered. By this i mean that the shining service outweighs food that might not always be exceptional. This was the situation today at Mesa Cafe. Today is my sister's bd and we went here for a bd celebratory breakfast. Maria helped us and did a personal, super good, attentive job. I have been here in the past and both the service and the food has been good. Today the service from Maria, the bus dude, the bartender was exemplary. Bare in mind that my Santa Barbara family has been here many, many times. Therefore they are well known. We ordered: Salmon, fries and salad French Toast Bacon Omelet The Salmon was good, not great and though fresh was overcooked, a little dry. The accompanying salad was blah as it came with blue cheese dressing on the side not tossed with. The dressing was excellent though: bursting with savory, yeasty blue cheese flavor. The problem for me is that I do not like "spring mix" greens and find them better suited for rabbits. On the other hand the fries were crisp, hot and tasty. The bacon omelet was primo: smooth, eggy and not tough from over mixing which often happens in restaurants . The accompanying home Fries were very tender, not over salted and tasted fresh. The bd girls French Toast was also pretty terrific: crispy, sweet but not too and tender on the inside. This was a fun celebration for all of us: excellent food, cool suroundings, a free cup of well balanced bd flan and excellent service to boot.