Old Mountain Inn Cafe

The service was incredibly slow, my daughters salad was brown, my wife’s eggs Benedict was awful no taste had to ask for salad dressing and I had to ask for mayonnaise for my dry chicken sandwich it was overpriced. And our server complained how it was so busy. But there was only one other table besides us. And 1 person at the counter. I always like to support local businesses but will never go there again!!!

Thank you for staying open a bit later than you intended and making us milkshakes! It’s too early in the season for a lot of places to serve milkshakes; we were in Pescadero… nothing. Alice’s…nothing…but you came through. Delicious thick Turkish Coffee with chocolate syrup in cute Mason jars, yum!

So Janine from Old Mountain Inn commented stating that the panini was ¼ pound of steak strip but I really really doubt that. I know what ¼ pound of steak strip looks like and what I got was not that. Maybe ¼ of ¼ of ¼ of a pound sounds more like it. They said the were going to take it off the menu and they should because they know why. Anyways, i took off another point for them trying to justify their lies.

No air conditioning. Flies everywhere. Pretty dirty, and the food is gross AND overpriced. They burnt my friends eggs, and my potatoes had a weird flavor to them. I couldn’t even finish half my plate. Would not recommend.

Ok so the owner responds to my review by accusing me of getting physical with another patron with is absolutely false. I noticed that I am not the only one he has done that with. Look down to Karyn C’s review of this dump. The owner did the same thing to her. I also noticed several other responses from the owner claiming that the person did not eat at his restaurant or was «mistaken» and had probably eaten somewhere else. So the lesson here, you better give this place a positive review on Unilocal or they will never let your eat there again and will slander you on Unilocal.LMAO, read my review. Does it look like I’m ever going to eat at your restaurant again? I could find a better meal in a dumpster behind a Jack-​in-​the-​box (No offense to Jack-​in-​the-​box).

Found a hair on the food. Food wasn’t cooked professionally. It didn’t taste good either. Never coming back

Horrible experience… was about 40 degrees and the server said i dont want to put on the heater… cant eat when it is freezing… asked for a high chair and brought out a chair with no straps… there is a lawsuit waiting to happen… had high expectations and they were dashed the moment we walked in before the food even came out… when the food came out it was the least amout of food i have ever seen for the price and both the pancakes and toast were cold… also i dont know how but they managed to burn the pancakes… do not go here!!!

I have been coming to this business for a while. I do not know the story of the «grand opening» as the staff has now changed, which I believe could of been a change of owners or an inheritance.
First the good: The service was nice and personable. I personally believe that the new owners are trying to make an honest go of it. The coffee which is a local roaster was nice.
The food came pretty quickly, which I also like. It definitely is a local establishment.
What they need to work on: The food is just OK. I would compare the food to your typical 24 hour commercial café. The prices were a bit steep considering the local economy. There was water on the floor near my table. A definite potential liability. There were many flies which was a definite distraction and could be a «deal breakers» for others.
I am going to give them a few months to work out the kinks of the business. I will return again and give an update on my review. The owners are really nice people and I really want to see them succeed. So two stars today, but room for improvement and a potentially better review in the near future.

Went here with my wife and her father; you can see that we weren’t impressed. I usually just drive through Boulder Creek, but we stopped here, partially enticed by the Grand Opening sign. Once we were inside, I found the place on Unilocal — to check in, of course — and it had obviously been around for awhile. So what’s the deal with the Grand Opening sign? Already I felt a little deceived.
My test for a restaurant is often: can you poach an egg? They offered eggs benedict, so that’s what I ordered. Maybe it was just a bad day in the kitchen, but they failed to get it right. One yolk was cooked through, the other was on the wrong side of soft-​boiled. Overall, it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t worth going out of your way for. I can’t seem to bring myself to say that it was «good». It was basically what you’d expect from a greasy spoon.
And the flies. Oh god, the flies.

Ok… someone (Janine K) who I believe to be the owner of this establishment the old mountain Inn, sent me a very hostile nasty letter disguised as a compliment for my review after I rated her business. Here it is: Compliments
Janine K. Boulder Creek, CA0 friends1 review
Great Photo10/​10/​2015
For your review of: Old Mountain Inn Café
I hope you get your karma back you ungrateful, selfish idiot! Pete bought you breakfast & you didn’t pay a penny for it! WHAT A LIAR
She even accused me again in the comments section of cussing and making a scene! OMG! What??? I am NOT a cussing scene making person! All I can say is this is the most unprofessional behavior I have ever encountered. So, to all you potential posters out there, beware! This lady may send you a scathing reply if you dare to rate her business lower than she thinks it should be. My review has nothing to do with the nice man who bought us the meal as she lamely tried to insinuate in her comment. I expressed extreme and sincere thanks to him. It is the height of unprofessionalism to attack a customer and accuse him or her of lying in a Unilocal rating situation. To say I am shocked and outraged is an understatement. Also, the waitress did not tell me it would only be a dollar to switch, she said exactly, that she had just talked to the owner and the owner said she would have to charge me full price for another fruit cup. Why would I lie about this stuff? This is the first time I have been there and I was hoping for a wonderful experience.

I absolutely hate writing a poor review for one of the few spots to eat in Boulder…
Like the other reviewers my experience with the waitstaff was awesome, the flies were not. Waitress was attentive and helpful and to be honest really freaken cute, but that’s where the romance ends.
Came in for lunch and ordered a burger medium-​rare came well done. Chef tip: do not EVER smash a burger patty while its grilling! Had a side salad which was fine. I had a seat at the bar area so i could see the cooking station and the meat itself looked alright from afar, but the burger tasted a bit old, and believe me I know THAT taste since my father is notorious for NEVER throwing away «good» food.
Here is where they lost my business: I asked for ketchup. They gave a huge bottle which seemed ‘new’ since it was sealed, HOWEVER, as i pop the seal and go to pour, the ketchup comes out fast and in liquid form. I take a look at the expiration date and get this, 2008! YES, two thousand freaken 8. That is just not paying attention nor caring about your customers.
Thanks for the slap-​in-​the-​face meal… here is your slap-​in-​the-​face review.

So I read a review that referred to the flies… True and very gross… the food was okay I didn’t think it was the greatest thing I’ve ever had but it was better then making it myself… the thing that bugged me was the server let some homeless lady come in and use the bathroom. if the place wasn’t so small and there wasn’t a hugh announcement about how she had to use the restroom I would of never noticed or cared… Then on her way out she yelled across the dinning room to the server «your all out of TP now!!» Between the flies and the homeless people making announcements about the status of the restroom and there need to use it, it was hard to have a nice brunch with my wife…

Where to start. I was sad when I thought this place was closing down forever. But happy when the new owners took over. Boulder Creek doesn’t have a lot of breakfast options. You really need to drive to Scotts Valley to get a good breakfast (sorry spankys and Rockys).
So I was happy to try the place with the new owners.
The reason they get three stars is because of the server we had. She was awesome. Quick to take our order and bring our drinks. Also funny and nice.
Now about the food… ugh. Where to start. I got a bananas foster waffle. It was pretty small and a little chewy. The bananas were not plentiful and the nuts tasted a bit stale. I was disappointed because for the same price you can get a huge breakfast anywhere else. But this waffle was only a little bit bigger than an eggo.
I don’t know if the owner (s) have previous experience in this industry but the lack of quality and the prices lead me to believe they might not.
They have an advantage of being the one breakfast place downtown Boulder Creek. So I would hope they would use that to their advantage. Instead they are serving mediocre food at high prices.
I won’t be going back. I don’t mind driving to Auntie Mames or Heavenly. At least that way I know I’ll get good food.

Greg H. was so right !!! Flies flying all around you as you try and eat. I had a Groupon for $ 5 !! It’s the first time i felt i got screwed over on that deal. People are nice just the place is very dirty. I ordered a coke and you could see a oil film floating on the top of my drink !!! Dirty glass !!! Don’t use the bathroom because it’s dirty also. NOT going back !! Sorry i tried

I was almost ready to walk out as soon as we say down for lunch as the place was swarming with flies. That would have been the right choice. Although the waitress was super friendly, the kids in the kitchen have no clue to what they are doing, food is less than amateur and overpriced for what you get. I had a Reuben with two small gristle chunks and a piece, a tiny piece of corned beef. My wife and niece had panini sandwiches that resembled two slices of Wonder bread with grill marks with nothing between. Actually, this wasn’t the case, but they each had less than 1oz filling. It looked like the grill cheese you give a preschooler! All for $ 8.50 -$ 9.50 for just the sandwich.
We waited 40 minutes and we were the only customers. Our waitress left before we got our bill and we ended up arguing about the price as it seems they have 2 menues, one on the wall that we ordered from and a printed one with higher prices that we never saw!
This place isn’t even home cooking and with the flies everywhere, I surprised the health department doesn’t shut them down. Do yourself a favor and avoid this disaster!

My friend and I decided to try this place out for lunch because we were starving after hiking in Big Basin. Bad idea.
We waited over an hour for our food to come. According to other reviews, this happens a lot. They should get more people if they’re always overwhelmed.
When the food did come, it was measly for what they were charging. We got 2 pancakes which were extremely thin, and one of them was smaller than my hand. This was $ 7.
My chicken panini was a tiny sandwich (normal sliced bread size) with almost nothing inside it. I had initially thought they might have accidentally given me a grilled cheese sandwich since the inside was so thin. They had been getting tables confused a lot, so I wouldn’t have been surprised. It was $ 8.50.
In addition, there were also flies everywhere. I know the town is pretty out of the way, but I’m sure there are fly traps around even there.
Next time, we’ll just drive back home to eat. We would have been home in the time we wasted waiting there.

I went there with my kids on Father’s Day. When we sat down the waitress warned us the kitchen was backed up and it would take about 20 minutes – it ended up being more like an hour and 20 minutes. When I asked what was going wrong, she said the cooks could only handle one ticket at a time, and if they did try to cook more than one ticket at a time they wouldn’t be able to get all the food out at once. As a former line cook, I know that the ability to handle multiple tickets at a time is a very basic skill. If you can’t clear several tickets at a time, you have no business in the kitchen.
To add insult to injury, we were charged for things we didn’t get. You would think that after making two little kids wait an hour and a half for their pancakes, you might comp part of the ticket, but they actually charged us more than what we got. What a fiasco!

Could be a really cool and classic breakfast spot on the main street of a mountain town but most of this place’s charm is lost because the food is just plain below average. Ill make this quick because I don’t like leaving negative reviews.
$ 3.95 for a MINI orange juice is way too expensive, even if it is fresh squeezed, although it didnt taste like it.
The breakfast potatoes were sour. Not cool.
The water had a strange taste. Thats always a major disappointment. Cmon folks, its so easy to thoroughly wash glasses, to run your tap water through a quality filter, and to make or buy clean ice (especially when there are only 5 people in your restaurant).
My knife was not clean.
Don’t get me wrong, Ive been to worse places and I dont normally mind foggy utensils or expensive OJ but I just didnt leave this place stoked, I actually walked out early because I was kind of bummed.
All I’m saying is they need to step up their cleanliness game and lower their prices. When I pay $ 13 for breakfast I expect more.
On another note, my server was super friendly and had a Canadian accent.

This place used to be a crown jewel of Boulder Creek and sadly its become a shadow of it’s former self. When you walk in it’s bare, cold and usually nobody else there, but I get that. When you order from it’s barely there menu they repeatedly tell you as you order that «We’re out of that» to almost everything, you wait at least a half hour or more listening to pop music that doesn’t hardly fit the venue off an IPAD playing Pandora, hardly creating an inviting environment and when you finally get your food (if you can call it that) it’s tasteless and runny (eggs) and dried out (toast and potatoes) and sauces so thin they just simply aren’t there. I ordered the Eggs Benedict and it literally made me sick. I got food poisoning from it. I gave this place a second chance giving it the benefit of the doubt, knowing its new so it will have tweaks to iron out, a month later I came back and had an even worse experience and noted that NOTHING had changed. Eggs still runny and barely cooked, slimy like a raw egg. Eggs Benedict is supposed to be a poached egg with a thick hollandaise sauce! It wasn’t even close!
Toast dry and potatoes dry and burnt. I was sick to my stomach all day with bowel issues. I will never eat there again, I do not recommend you do either. I enclosed pictures of whats supposed to be Eggs Benedict.

Under new owner. Everything was cold including the coffee. Pancakes were cold, soggy, thin, and lifeless topped with gray and soggy frozen strawberries. The Eggs Benedict was sub par. The fried potatoes tasted like it just came out of the fridge and was reheated but still cold and dry. Bacon was not nice and crispy… it was charred and cold. The egg scramble looked like a piled mess and just wasn’t good at all. I had higher hopes for this place but if the food isn’t fresh or hot then it’ll eventually just go out of business.
Reply to JK: Thanks for getting back to me, however, let’s clarify a few things. 1-​we were not sitting at the counter and certainly didn’t see anything off the griddle. Yes, we were probably one of the first customers in your establishment. If I saw food off the griddle, I might have a different review. 2-​I did say something about the coffee not being hot. When it was «corrected», it was still not hot… just warm. When the food came out, everything was poor that we just didn’t think it was worth the effort saying anything at this point to wait for more corrections. 3-​fresh strawberries are red, not gray and soggy. This was our experience and does not have me wanting to come back.