The Bungalow on Park

[ChriswUfGator]

We went there for brunch last Sunday. Man, what a disappointment!

Though we were promptly seated when we walked in, it took the waiter the better part of 20 minutes to show up at the table. I brushed it off, since they were busy, and figured they were new and still learning the ropes.

So, it being brunch, I ordered a split of the Kenwood Yulupa sparkling wine. The waiter came back with a glass of sparking wine, which was totally flat. Again, I decided to brush it off since they're new and all, and figured I'd live with it. But then I took a sip and it was just nasty, like a flat bottle of Asti Spumante that had sat open for 3 days. There was no way I was going to drink it, and there was no way it was what I had ordered. So I managed to snag the waiter and told him that it wasn't what I ordered, it must be something else. He argued with me for a minute, before finally admitting that, yes, they had run out of the Kenwood Yulupa, and had substituted a bottom-of-the-barrel freixenet cava split instead.

Now this was irritating, for a few reasons. First, they were deceptive about it, and tried to pawn off something that costs $0.79 at Costco in lieu of the significantly more expensive item I'd ordered, and then gambled on me not knowing the difference while fully intending to charge me the full price. Cava is such nasty stuff that no restaurant actually serves it, and I'm guessing they only had it around because it's the cheapest thing they could find to use in the mimosas. They get an "F -" for this one. That's just shady, and they clearly tried to rip me off. They had several other sparkling wines in stock, and should have substituted one that was equally as good or better than what I'd ordered, rather than trying to pass off cheap rot-gut that isn't even on the menu, while still charging me full price.

Then secondly, when I brought it to their attention (and there's no way you wouldn't notice the difference, trust me, it wasn't just me being picky), they tried to argue with me rather than taking responsibility for it. The guy finally agreed to take it off the bill, and I ordered a different glass of wine which actually turned out ok. But they get another "F -" on this one, for trying to argue about it when they got busted. If you get caught with your pants down, just make it right and move on.

So after getting off to kind of a rocky start, we placed our orders and hoped things would get better from there. I chose the "Steak Benedict" for the not-so-bargain-price of $18.99. Now, it's worth noting that we got there around noon, and by the time the waiter took our orders it was around 1pm. It had already been a full hour just to get to that point.

The food finally showed up at around 1:40pm, 40 minutes after we ordered. For $18.99, what I received was a single small plate containing one Publix english muffin sliced into two halves, with one single strip of thin sliced deli ham (not canadian bacon as stated on the menu) laid on top, and with a single overcooked egg sitting on top of that. Sprinkled around the plate were at most 6 or 7 small cubes of chopped up thin steak that would make shoe-leather look tender. The whole thing was cold and dried-out, and there was no hollandaise as stated on the menu. Strikingly for a $19 breakfast item, my dish came with no sides. No potatoes, no grits, no toast, no bacon. Nothing.

So I asked for some hollandaise, and the server again starts arguing with me telling me "it comes with hollandaise already on it". I said "Exactly. Why don't you show me where it is?". After looking at the plate and seeing no hollandaise, he disappeared for ten minutes and came back with a single ramekin containing 1/4" of cold and congealed sauce at the bottom of it.

Now at this point, I'd had it. My friends' meals were equally as crappy as mine, and nobody wanted to eat the overpriced terrible food. So I asked for the check, paid the $60+ bill (for WHAT??), and I even left the waiter a tip he most certainly didn't deserve. Then we walked a block down the street to Cool Moose and had some real food. While we were sitting just inside the door, the group of 3 from the table that had been seated next to us at Bungalow walked by and the girl recognized me from there, stuck her head in the door and smiled, and said "Oh I see you guys are finally getting some real breakfast, huh? That place sucked, we're going to swing by McDonalds on the way home."

This was a terrible experience, and is 2 hours of my life that I really want back. And the thing is, even if it weren't for the crappy service, I still would have felt ripped off by the horribly low value that you get for the high prices they charge. And the food's awful on top of it. I definitely won't be back, and wouldn't recommend this place at all. It's overpriced, slow, and the food sucks.

[BridgeTroll]

Welcome Chris... Thanks for the review.  I havent gone yet but did have every intention of going.  having real reservations now...

[The Compound]

Wow, Im definately not going to waste my time trying it. My parents had went a few weeks ago and said the service was horrible and they waited forever for some cold food that was horrible and overpriced.

[ChriswUfGator]

Yeah, this is a neat forum, it's nice to have something like this here locally. I'm glad I found it, but can't believe I never ran across it earlier!

As to Bungalow, yeah, if you are considering going there you might wanaa give it a couple months to let them work the bugs out. They really don't have their act together at all, and only time will tell if that will change or not.

[alta]

I checked out the menu when it opened.  Seems very overpriced. 

[ChriswUfGator]

I checked out the menu when it opened.  Seems very overpriced. 

Oh it's definitely overpriced.

There are one or two things on the menu that aren't as overpriced as other things, like the omelettes which are only $7.99 or so, but 90% of the menu is just way too expensive for what it is. And you know that without even seeing the food, it's obvious just from reading the menu. It would be like seeing a burger on the menu at TGI Fridays for $37, your eyes immediately land on it as a typo. Most of Bungalow's menu is that way, except sadly it's not a typo.

And when you do get the food, you realize it's just the same frozen Sysco-supplied crapola that you could get at anywhere for 1/2 the price, and it will make you almost angry. The place is a total rip.

Like I said, maybe they will turn it around with time, but that remains to be seen. As it sits right now, I wouldn't recommend the place to anyone. Especially not with the Moose a block down the street.

[winthropf]

My wife and I ate there last Sunday as well...
And I don't want to hammer on them too much.

But, we didn't have a very good experience either.  We can stick to the Metro and be much happier and eat for much cheaper.

The atmosphere was nice, but the first thing that happened...  we walked in and there were multiple empty seats, but the girl sat us by the door....  not just by the door, I thought I was going to have to move my chair to let someone in.... and as last Sunday was a little bit cooler than normal, every time the door opened I was getting a chill. Of course we asked to move, but it was kind of handled weird and I don't like to have to ask that....  they should have asked us if it was ok to sit us there....

Things didn't get better from there....

[alta]

Overpriced - bad service, lousy food   not a good formula for long term success

[David]

As a carnivore I had a hard time finding anything on the menu. The marinated steak tips weren't bad, but 12 dollars for an app? Meh.

My vegan & veggie only friends seemed to have enjoyed it though. Plus the veggie pizza was pretty tasty, so maybe this place is geared  towards that crowd. They probably should expand their menu a little bit to cater to a wider variety ......the location is great though, about halfway through my friend's birthday party I was able to sneak out and walk down park ave to European St for some bold city brew and beer cheese soup!

The atmosphere is very cozy, similar to Row but with way more art decking the halls. The service I had was great, very helpful so no complaints there. I say give them a few months to get everything up to speed and try it again.

[alta]

As a carnivore I had a hard time finding anything on the menu. The marinated steak tips weren't bad, but 12 dollars for an app? Meh.

My vegan & veggie only friends seemed to have enjoyed it though. Plus the veggie pizza was pretty tasty, so maybe this place is geared  towards that crowd. They probably should expand their menu a little bit to cater to a wider variety ......the location is great though, about halfway through my friend's birthday party I was able to sneak out and walk down park ave to European St for some bold city brew and beer cheese soup!

The atmosphere is very cozy, similar to Row but with way more art decking the halls. The service I had was great, very helpful so no complaints there. I say give them a few months to get everything up to speed and try it again.

I'll give them a few months to lower the prices.

[ChriswUfGator]

As a carnivore I had a hard time finding anything on the menu. The marinated steak tips weren't bad, but 12 dollars for an app? Meh.

My vegan & veggie only friends seemed to have enjoyed it though. Plus the veggie pizza was pretty tasty, so maybe this place is geared  towards that crowd. They probably should expand their menu a little bit to cater to a wider variety ......the location is great though, about halfway through my friend's birthday party I was able to sneak out and walk down park ave to European St for some bold city brew and beer cheese soup!

The atmosphere is very cozy, similar to Row but with way more art decking the halls. The service I had was great, very helpful so no complaints there. I say give them a few months to get everything up to speed and try it again.

Your vegan friends probably liked it because, in this city of somewhere around a million people, you can count the number of restaurants that cater to them on one hand and still have a couple fingers to spare. When it comes to being vegan in Jacksonville, I think it's pretty much a case of "anything's better than nothing".

And I relate with the part of your post about it being in walking distance to other restaurants, since that's about the only good thing I could think to say about it. At least we didn't have to try to find another parking spot when we finally walked out after wasting two hours waiting for bad food and crappy service, since the Moose is right down the block.

I also relate with the other poster, who was seated at a terrible table even though the place was wide open. I had forgotten about this part of our 'experience' until the other poster mentioned the same thing, but now his post reminded me of it. I was there that same Sunday, and he's right, it wasn't busy. Yet for whatever reason they walked us past a slew of empty tables and sat us in a tiny back room next to a very loud table of 6 or 8 women who had just got out of church, and were having a mimosa-fueled debate over why Proposition 2 is important and how the liberal court system needs to be shut down.

Then as if that wasn't annoying enough, they managed to squeeze another group of 3 people into the table on the other side of us (this was the group we later saw at the Moose). Now, this room is maybe (and I mean MAYBE) 8' X 8 or 8' X 10'. And that's probably being generous. Meanwhile, the whole front two rooms that we had to walk through to get back there had almost every table open.

Just like the other guy, I hate complaining about the table in restaurants, so I kept my mouth shut. I had an ex who would pull that silly routine, where every time we went out to eat we would wind up moving tables at least once, and every time we checked into a hotel we'd move rooms because there was always something 'wrong' with the first one. I hated that, and now I don't say anything even when I probably should.

In any event, Bungalow really did seem to go out of their way to seat people at the worst tables in the place, even when it's wide open. Made no sense.

[jacksonvilleconfidential]

Your point about vegans and vegetarians is totally valid.

[fsu813]

I went to eat with a group of 20 about 3 weeks ago. The service was good. The food is prolly a little overpriced for what you get, but they deem themselves an artsy, chef-owned restauatnt....so that's kinda what i expect at the "food = art" places. the food was good, just not enough of it.

[jaxlore]

we had went there for brunch and had an omelet and some tofu,veggie dish and it was pretty good, but did dinner there as well and my wife really loved it but i was on the fence the food and presentation didn't match the price we were paying but i would go back for brunch but then again i have simple tastes when it comes to breakfast.

[jacksonvilleconfidential]

Rumor has it that this place isnt gonna be around for much longer.