Dined, Monday June 9th 2014

South Street Depot

605 Main St. Dennis Port, MA, 02639

Facebook Page: South Street Depot

Side note: We had originally planned for our outing to be at The Sailing Cow Café, however once we arrived we quickly discovered that although their website indicates they are open beginning memorial day, they in fact do not open until June 12th.

1. Initial impression of convenience, parking, and location.

• Conveniently located a ways down the street from our original choice. After driving for a bit and trying to decide where to eat, we happened upon this location.
• The parking lot had plenty of open spaces, and as I reminisce I now believe those cars in the lot belonged mostly to employees. Perhaps a trick to make unsuspecting people believe it is busy and popular.
• This location had previously been the Egg & I. The waitress was taken aback when we mentioned we had never eaten there before. Sorry miss but you are just one of an obviously large number of breakfast joints. We only came here because our first choice was closed.

2. Wait time to be greeted, seated, and first impressions of staff.

• This location has recently changed ownership, and was empty on the inside. We were greeted immediately by a gaggle of employees standing at the bar. The one that actually acknowledged our presence came out of the kitchen.
• We were provided the option of sitting in the room with the bar, or in the dining room. We chose the latter.

3. Type of seating, comfort, wait time for server introduction.

• The seating options were hard wood chairs in the dining room, or excessively tall, hard wooden chairs in the bar room. The chairs in the dining room were hard, and I have a sneaking suspicion they were equally hard in the bar.
• Our server greeted us within moments of being seated, and promptly provided us with coffee to sip on as we perused the menu.

4. Variety of menu options (too many/too little)

• There were two pages on the breakfast menu, with one of the options (breakfast buffet) being unavailable to select.
• The options were not so many that choosing was difficult, however there were not so few as to make you feel as though you did not have a choice.

5. Menu highlights of uncommon items.

• Breakfast Buffet (not available yet, although it is on the menu)
• Country Breakfast
• Breakfast Burrito
• Alcohol

6. Speed of food delivery, and first impressions of plating, initial aroma.

• The wait felt like an eternity, to the point where there was some consideration of searching for said breakfasts.
• The plating left something to be desired, food simply tossed about willy-nilly.
• There was oddly enough no aroma to speak of. Foreshadowing?

7. TASTE!

• Coffee. The coffee was good. It had a flavour that we couldn't put our fingers on.
• The gentleman's appetite had a hard time negotiating with his mind. The option of chicken and waffles appeared again, and again they were dismissed. Maybe I like the idea more than the option. To suit the testing fancy two breakfasts were selected. One, a breakfast sandwich with bacon on a croissant and the other dish, two slices of Texas French toast. The feeling overall was that the dishes lacked heat. The French toast was good but luke warm. The breakfast sandwich was hastily prepared. The egg was done slightly over medium, the bacon apparent, and the croissant sliced in half. All things that are necessary in making a breakfast sandwich. However(!), the cheese was pulled straight from a package and sprinkled within the sandwich lacking any heat to melt it. The meal was plated without care or interest in quality. The home fries were great.  Recommendation: Promote the sous-chef.

• The lady's (overpriced) two egg with meat plus home fries (linguica today as there was no kielbasa) looked exquisite as it arrived to the table. As I dug in however, I began to notice something was amiss. What should have been a mouthful of succulent linguica with warm gooey egg and toast, seemed oddly wrong. As I took more bites, it became more alarming. This mouth feel was bad. Poking around my plate, I confirmed my sneaking suspicion that the eggs were in fact under cooked. The yolk is the only part that should be runny on an over easy. The eggs I had been served were cold, and still had the clear snot of the white visible. As I played with my second egg on the plate (the yolk and white easily separated with my fork, the yolk being raw enough to remain in ball shape) the waitress noticed and my eggs were replaced. It was actually hot this time! Needless to say, raw, cold eggs are disgusting and should never have made it on my plate and out to the table. As I write this review, my gut is rumbling angrily. We shall see how this day plays out.

8. Value of product.

• The coffee at this location was not the most expensive we have seen. However, overall, South Street Depot was over priced.
• Coffee $2.00 per bottomless cup
• Side of bacon $4
• 2 eggs and choice of meat $8
• Muffins - none to speak of.

9. Payment options.

• Visa/MC/Amex
• Cash

Overall Rating: 4.5/10

Good: 

Pleasant wait staff. Plenty of room for large parties. Clean. Home fries.

Bad: 

This is the first time we have encountered cold and under-cooked food. This is alarming for an establishment that just opened a few weeks ago, and just started serving breakfast this week. If you want to make it, your food should be a 10/10 from the get go. The gentleman couldn't get past the poor signage and menu design. If we weren't looking for a place that specifically started with the letter "s" we would never have stopped here.

Overall: 
The new owners also own a popular seafood restaurant located nearby. This information lead to expectations that the prices would be high and the food decent. At least we were half right.