Suzie's Kitchen, Rosemount, MN

I really wanted to like this place, and honestly I'm a bit conflicted over the experience.

We arrived near the end of the morning rush, waited short of 10 minutes for a table. As it turns out the people at that table were waiting on the waitress to bring their credit receipt to sign. So they sat and looked impatient while we stood at the door waiting on them waiting on her.

After being seated, we started looking at reviews a bit closer. The reviews out the gross and nasty placemat menus are correct. Sticky, dirty, coming apart at the snipped-off corners, stained. The chairs were a bit sticky too. The menus and the wait set the tone for the rest of our meal.

A number of minutes after being seated, the waitress came over with water, took drink and food orders and left.

20 minutes later we got our food. We asked about our drinks, which she ran off to get and returned with right away.

While we were sitting there with water, the rush had about ended and there were now a few open tables. An older couple came in and sat at the table next to us. They were greeted within just a couple minutes, had water right away, and actually got there food before we did. Odd that.

Her egg meal was actually tasty, the Taco Omelet. I had the mighty number 2 (three eggs, hashbrowns, sausage, bacon, toast) and we ordered a single pancake for our little boy.

I had requested basted eggs. Turns out they were lightly fried and steamed, not basted. I say steamed do to the unmistakable taste of water on the eggs. Hashbrowns were also apparently steamed on the grill, or they went ont he grill straight from frozen.

The only butter we had was the little bits on the almost-toast (more like soft, browned bread) and the pancake. The bacon was not remotely close to crispy, in fact I'm not even sure it was actually completely cooked through. One sausage link was barely warmed, the other was black and crispy on one side.

Lots of salt and pepper masked most of the taste (more than I would normally use), and it was certainly edible as I did eat everything and so far have suffered no ill effects (been a day or more).

Since moving down to this end of the Cities, I'd been looking for a local diner to replace my need for Mickey's. So far I haven't found anything remotely close.

I should point out that a number of other tables that we observed had similar service issues to ours. One table never got their water, even after the waitress approached them and commented on that fact. Other diners had the napkin-wrapped silverware bundle like mine: soaking wet napkin with ditry forks or knives inside.

We spent a lot of time waiting on our waitress to come around to ask for things, but after the rush had apparently ended, she was suddenly all around us all the time. Not sure why that is, and I can only guess that during the rush period she was helping in the kitchen or something.

Like I said, I wanted to like this place. But between the average or lower food quality, the poor service and forgetfullness, and the place just generally being dirty I doubt we'll go back. I say dirty with a note: anything between the floor and about 6feet in height was clean, everything above appeared grimy with dust clumps and stuff hanging off it. Even the plug-in air freshener I saw in a high-up wall outlet was apparently having a tough time. Speaking of air, they need to fix the HVAC in the place. It was warm and a bit damp/muggy in there the whole time, and we could feel the air coming out the of the vents moving around the room, but it just wasn't cool at all.

I highly doubt we'll be back again, even with the better than average prices.