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Categories: Bakeries, Breakfast & Brunch [Edit]
13647 Arnold DrBreakfast: 2 pc. French Toast, 2 pc. Bacon & 2 Eggs - $6.50
Lunch: Buffalo Sliders on homemade rolls - $6.95
Menus Change Weekly
Mon., Wed-Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Sat. 7:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
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We try to get to this place every year as our family lives half a mile away and we come to visit every Thanksgiving. And every year we go on Tuesday and they are, for some god forsaken reason, closed on Tuesdays.
We considered boycotting them on principle but got hungry the morn after TxGiving and took our hosts there.
So glad we did. From the porchside complimentary coffee to the corner video player showing Disney movies for recalcitrant toddlers the atmosphere is perfect.
More importantly, the food is spot on. They are known for the Eggs Bennies and they didn't disappoint among the Bennifiles. The grits were perfect but the real star was my scramble. The Wild Italian with homemade spicy chorizo and cheese and jalapenos, complemented by country potatoes and wheat toast soaked in butter, was remarkable.
If you are in Glen Ellen or Sonoma or on your way to Napa, I suggest you stop by the Garden Court for Breakfast.
But not on Tuesdays.
I wish I could give this place 4.5 to 5 stars.. but I just can't. I LOVE the garden court. The breakfast food, is delicious. The Eggs Benedict are amazing. Pancakes never disappoint. French Toast....? Don't get me started!!
I live within a few blocks of this place and whenever we have people from out of town, we always go here. Everyone I've ever taken has absolutely LOVED the food, and we usually end up going every morning they're in town. It's fantastic - well done breakfast is hard to find.
The drink selection? eh.. the ice tea is overly floral and the coffee is ok. The champagne breakfast beverages taste like they were made with cheap sparkling white wine(think box status)... If they would step up their beverage selection I feel I could certainly give them a 5 star review.
The service is ok. Nothing to complain about, nothing to rave about. Mostly it's erred on the good side of OK, but a few times I've found myself annoyed with our particular server. If you want good breakfast food - go here. Just don't expect an amazing drink selection!
Food is always great here... and the service has stepped up. I think it has to do with my good looking BF though.... He got his soda refilled (without his asking) twice and my water glass sat empty...
Will continue to recommend the place.
I'm in the hospitality business here in Sonoma county so I will be totally PC but the service here… Read more »
The Garden Court Cafe use to be our all-time fav place to brunch while visiting the Sonoma area. However after our last three recent breakfast experiences during different trips to the area, I have to say, we won't be going back to the "Court" for a while. The service was not what it use to be. Plus, one of the members to our party found a hair in their food. Perhaps we were at the restaurant on off days. But based on the consistency of poor service during each of our visits, we will not expect it to be different in the future. Customer service is the lifeblood of a business. I hope they figure this out and make some adjustments.
I spent the weekend in Santa Rosa, and per my brother's suggestion, my friends and I decided to check out the Garden Court Cafe. I was excited for their selection of eggs benedict, since that's my favorite brunch dish.
After reading some of the Yelp reviews, I was a tad apprehensive about my visit, mainly about the service and crowdedness. We went at 12pm on a Saturday, and it wasn't crowded at all. We sat outside, which could have been a fatal error because oftentimes servers forget about people sitting outside. Anyway, the service was much better than I expected--it was good! They came back to check on us several times and refilled our coffee promptly. Perhaps on busier days it's worse, but we had a great experience.
The smoked salmon eggs benedict was one of the best eggs benedict I have ever eaten. The salmon itself was delicious, the eggs were poached perfectly, the hollandaise was amazing, and the english muffin was crispy and tender at the same time. I will dream of this eggs benedict.
I like how you can choose how many eggs you want (1, 2, or 3). I got 3 total, and my friend took one, and they didn't charge us the extra plate fee. Awesome! The coffee wasn't great, but not terrible. I had a bite of my friends eggs benedict chicken cordon bleu (a special for the day) and it was really good. The pastries looked good, too, but I didn't have any.
Overall, I enjoyed my meal immensely and would definitely return there!
Although I'm only giving this a two star rating, it's not to say that I wouldn't go back to the Garden Court.
I've visited this place since it was at it's old, much smaller location on Arnold Drive. I think the reason the food used to be so good is because the cook wasn't preparing as many meals at one time. I mean, it was seriously like your grandma or your dad or somebody was in there making the food. Now that they're in the "downtown" Glen Ellen location, the food has gone down the toilet in most senses. The service remains good and the woman of the husband/wife couple who own this place always seems very friendly to her regulars... of which I'm not one.
Now, in the much larger, not as quaint and attentive location, there are still some meals worth trying. The tuna melt here is pretty good and the country potatoes are the bomb. DO NOT order the hot chocolate, it's disgusting. All of the eggs benedict-style combos are scrumptious!
My main recommendation is to come early or come late. You'll get better service and your food will be prepared with more love.
Who runs out of sticky buns at 10am on a Sunday? Apparently, Garden Court Cafe does. So sad.
Good, solid breakfast food and spotty service. Apparently a new gal behind the counter meant she didn't know how to make a latte correctly. So instead of telling my gal pal who ordered it that there was a new gal who might not be up to speed, they just deliver a strangely pale gray watering looking 'latte' to our table and act surprised when my pal says...Umm this tastes AND looks odd. Then they still charge us...oops. We made sure to remove it.
Two young gals helping out on a busy Sunday, maybe someone's kids out of school...but definitely not quite well versed in customer service. Overall though, the food mostly redeems the service as my whole wheat pancakes were amazing even without butter, except I can't vouch for the supposedly good sticky buns because THEY WERE OUT. So sad.
If you do go, try the apricot french toast... I didn't have it, but a nearby table did and it was all I could do to not make a table snatch and run for it! Bonus perk..they have low-calorie syrup if you ask for it.
This is Glen Ellen's own diner style café with breakfast favorites done the way you like it.
I tried the Sonoma benedict with avocado and chicken nestled under the egg and their own version of the hollandaise. The eggs were poached perfectly and the potatoes and veggies weren't drenched in oil. I shared an order of mother fluggers banana pancake (no that was not a typo) with the other half. The cakes were fluffy and every bite had a taste of banana in it.
More of a family place and this is definitely where all the locals come for down home breakfasts. Prices are cheap and the service was efficient. There's a parking lot off to the side.
So i will start by saying their food is the BOMB. but their service is ass tastic. Which i guess makes sence since we all keep eating there. why would you work on service if you are always busy. This weekend I had no coat and was waiting inside and was told to wait outside in the wind and just put a chair in the sun. this was after a TON of people prior to me were waiting inside. just about runined my sunday. so we left. I feel angry enough to not go back. the crap part is there are so few good places for breakfast.
The food is great, well just the benedict actually.. the holendaise suace is great but Don't ask for extra because they are so rude about it! The service sucks, the girls are all really rude and act like they always have some place better to be (It's not our fault you got trashed the night before and desperately do not want to be serving your peers as they enjoy their mornings or afternoons off with the boys you so desperately want to date).. There is an older woman there that is the worst, I swear I always have my plate dropped down in front of me.. I am waiting to get some spilled on me.
The only place around to get great eggs bene so we go and it's a local hang out.. it takes forever to get a table and it's not the cleanest, the coffee sucks and good luck getting a refil but even with all these complaints I guess it's worth the 4 times per summer we go after a night out with the gals.. it does make for good conversation afterward.
Bottom line, if you're not in a hurry and you're craving benedict, and you can handle rude servers.. go!!
I want so much to like this place. Locally owned, popular, convenient, clean. But they won't let me! Two visits in the last month have cured me. This AM we were made to wait outside (in cooler temps than we had dressed for) for a table that had been empty when we arrived. Again, the service was surly. Why not offer us beverages (a warm cup of coffee would have been welcome) while we selected our meals? The food is good, not spectacular. Not cheap. I realize they can turn tables faster if they don't refill coffee cups but I had to plead for ONE refill, and half our party (4) was finished. Unpleasant attitude toward customers.
After the very pretty ride to Glen Ellen we were famished, so we ate a late breakfast at the Garden Court. It is a quaint place with a few locals and a smattering of people like us, up for the day.
We had no trouble getting seated, there were a few tables so we could choose. There were three waitresses and all of them stopped by our table to see if we were ready to order. It was a bit comical as we had only been seated for one minute when the first one came by. The second at 2 minutes and the third was there before our coffee had arrived from the first one. Anyway the food...
I could not decide what I wanted they had such a good menu and I didn't want to have the usual Biscuits and Gravy I love. I chose the Egg sandwich with cheese and Canadian Bacon, it came with potatoes so i knew it would be filling. Hubby ordered a BLT and a salad, it was later in the morning.
We waited about 5 minutes and our food arrived, large amounts of food arrived. Mine looked terrific, the toast was English Muffin toast, I have never been able to find in in California so I was stoked. The potatoes were hot and crispy with lots of flavor. My sandwich was a bit greasy, but it was a fried egg sandwich with cheese so it was fine. I did use two napkins and only ate half of it though. Hubby's sandwich was great, the bacon was a bit overdone for my liking, but he was happy with it.
Over all this is a good place for breakfast, more like a local place which is nice. They have a counter for takeaway foods and good coffee!
This place rocks!!!
I especially love the Eggs Kenwood (benedict with smoked salmon instead of Canadian bacon). YUM!!! I asked them to add sliced tomatoes and grilled onions.
We also shared a plate of silver dollar pancakes. Great texture, not too dry, not too goopy - perfect and fluffy. They also have a great veggie omlet and home made wheat bread!
This week we got there a bit late (noon) and there was a half hour wait. We actually tried to avoid a wait by going to go down the street to the Fig Cafe. We sat down and were dissatisfied with their menu, but were going to tough it out, ... and then they sat another couple not even a foot from our table! We were all basically at the same table. With a completely otherwise empty restaurant! We were cranky from food dep. and decided to abandon this no-so-great-idea to go back to our favorite Sonoma/Glen Ellen restaurant.
The wait was so well worth it. We left happy and full. We will never made the mistake of trying to replace the Garden Court Cafe again.
So good I had to eat there twice and I was only in town for two days!
Day one - the day before the Napa Marathon, so I had to be careful with what I took in so as not to see it come out the next day. I had terrific fresh orange juice and plain yogurt which was really p l a i n so I livened it up with my boyfriend's side of fruit that came with his Santa Fe scramble (turkey chorizo and mild green chile - looked really enticing if only I didn't have to run 26.2 miles in in 24 hours). I saw a nearby table receive an order of blueberry pancakes and I just KNEW that I would be back after the race.
Day Two - after jostling my internal organs for 3 and a half hours while running the Napa Marathon, I was not really hungry. But I knew I would be once the blueberry pancake (that had haunted me for the past day) showed up and it did not disappoint. I could only eat half of it because it was as big as me, but delicious and fluffy and FULL of blueberries. And by the way, the turkey apple sausage actually had chunks of apples in it. Super good, just don't gross out on the green apple skin.
Both days, the service was quite good even though the place was busy (Saturday mid morning & Sunday early afternoon). They did lock the front door just before 2pm on Sunday and I felt bad for the sorry saps that would not get to feast upon such good home-cooked grub at a reasonable price.
And like the t-shirts worn by the staff say: If you leave hungry, it's your own fault!
We got there at 9:00 am for breakfast and the place was already filling up on a Sunday! Casual cafe style place. The menu was huge with tons of different options; scrambles, omelets, pancakes, french toast, etc. Everything folks were ordering was huge! The girl who waited on us looked like she was 10 years old and got our drinks. My friend gets her latte and it looks watery and weird. She sips it and its not right! She orders a regular coffee instead since afraid at this point to have them make it again. We order our meals and I get a Greek scramble. It has Olives, feta, artichokes and red bell pepper in it. YUM!! I also comes with a side of country potatoes, and choice of breads but I go for the home made biscuits! They give me two and they are AMAZING!! So doughy and homemade!!! We all enjoy our breakfasts and then we get our bill and it has the Latte on it after they said they would remove it! So we subtract if off and they apologize saying the gal is new. Overall great food just need to work on customer service. Oh friend wanted to get some sticky buns by 10:00 am they were all gone! Get your baked goods to go before you
order your meal!!
Once again, this is one of two spots in Sonoma proper that are THE spots for breakfast american-style for the locals. Bear in mind there can be a long wait, especially on weekends and for brunch. Without a doubt, their speciality is eggs benedict with more choices for this dish than anywhere else in or out of town. Ask for your mimosa in a pint glass and you will get it with a wink and some old fashioned, fast service.
A bit of a wait on a Saturday morning, but the food was well worth it. The (free) coffee in the small outside pattio enveloped by gorgeous grape vines was better than the coffee served inside. By the way, if you ask for a "large coffee", you'll actually get a larger coffee cup. I had the "Eggy Weggy", a sandwichy type thing with thick slices of buttery grilled toast with cheddar cheese, tomato and bacon with fried eggs. As far as breakfast food goes, that's about as solid as you can get. Great dish. Good place to have breakfast/lunch when you're in Glen Ellen.
wonderful selection of yummy treats. the grilled cheese is made on thick sliced homemade bread.
I had the eggs wild! wow it was turkey chirizo , jack cheese, green chilies a perfectly poached eggs and hollandaise sauce (just the right amount) on really toastie english muffins. YUM and good morning to me!
Let me just say that if you come here on a Saturday or Sunday morning (especially a holiday morning) expect to wait. BUT, the wait is truly worth it! Everything here makes my mouth water. The restaurant it's self is nothing too much to brag about, but the food is to die for. In fact if I were to choose my last meal I would want this guy (the owner) to cook it for me. He is the only one who cooks here and he takes great pride in his job. Everything here is home made right in this restaurant. EVEN the SAUSAGE people! The only thing I am not sure about is the catchup. I never think to ask when I am there if they make it or not.
They are not open for dinner, but I think once a month they may host a dinner night with a five course meal. (I will ask next time I am here.)
I can't imagine how great the dinner would be.
The service is usually good, but when you are finished and want your check, the best thing to do is to go straight up to the counter and just pay there. I think they don't like to bother you with the check. They want you to be cozy and leave at your own pace.
My favorite thing to get is the Eggs Benedict. OH MY (Insert your god here. God, Buddha, Rah...) it is good! I almost never get anything else because it is so good. The one I like is called Eggs Sonoma, it has two large puffy better than English muffin like muffins, grilled chicken, avocado, the soft boiled eggs and then the absolute best Hollandaise sauce you could ever imagine. I never liked Hollandaise sauce before until I tried it here. It is rich and smooth, light, and creamy, not too much lemon, just enough to keep you wanting more.
If you have children my favorite thing to get them is not the kiddy menu pancakes, but the giant fruit covered pancake on the big people menu. I tell ya it is a great way to save money and feed 3-4 little ones at a time. If you have older kids maybe 6 and up you might be able to feed 2-3 of them. The fruit is not your run of the mill either. (You know, cantaloupe, honeydew, etc.) It has blueberries, pineapple, strawberries, and other stuff. (I think it might change depending on the season too.)
As for the desserts/baked goods. I have never tried them, because I am waaaaay too full when I leave, but my Mother-in-law says she stops in from time to time and everything she has gotten is sooooo good. If it wasn't anything to write home about, believe me she wouldn't say anything about it.
Please stop in to this place I never want to see it leave.
Oh by the way, the reason they are not open after 2:00 PM and they are not open on Mondays(?) is because they are making all those home made goods for the times they are open.
This is your tiny town cafe & bakery - beautiful little drive to a squaky door, creaky old floor, great service, even better food. You can't leave here unhappy. Great biscuits, fluffy eggs, crunchy home potatoes, fresh local veggies and eggs benedict to write to Mamma about. Never greasy, totally tasty - a surefire homecooked meal every time. Get yosef a cuppa and marinate fer a while, you won't be sorry.
I love breakfast and brunch and every area has that breakfast place that all of the locals swear by. At the north end of Sonoma Valley in Glen Ellen, Garden Court Cafe is it. Open for breakfast and lunch the menu boasts local variations of popular dishes. Eggs Benedict comes in colorful variations such as the Eggs Valley of the Moon (Portobello mushroom, gruyere cheese and shredded ham) and the Eggs Glen Ellen (spinach, bacon, grilled onions) in one, two or three egg options. I couldn't decide between the two and had spinach added to my Eggs Glen Ellen. Lunch menu offerings include a local Reuben and regular sandwiches served on focaccia. The warm staff is more than happy to accommodate any dietary preferences or restrictions. A sweet country cottage as you step in, everyone is quick to make sure you are welcomed.
This must be where the Glen Ellenites come to eat. It is reasonably priced (a surprise in this town) and quite good without being over the top. I had a perfectly fine burger and my partner had very agreeable Eggs Benedict - I am looking forward to trying some of their more creative takes on that recipe. Also, they have a bakery that makes delicious sweets - when we got there at noon, they were all just about gone.
Note: This 2 star review is only based on 1 non-food experience. I will update it if I can get back at a more reasonable time.
I have a tiny little puppy, and I wanted to take him with us to Sonoma. He needs to get out more, and I called ahead to every winery that I had a pup, and did they have outdoor accommodations.
Not only does GCC have outdoor accommodations, but they will actually COOK EGGS for your pup! It's so adorable! (see their website for details).
So. We get there, we're starving. It's late - they close at 2 and it's 1:20pm (can someone explain this whole closing at 2 thing when all the tables are filled??). Both tables at the outdoor area are taken (there are only 2) so in the interest of food we decide that I'll sit outside with the little man, and my folks will bring it out to me.
Well, they sit down and 10 minutes go by - nobody pays attention to them, and everyone seems pretty harried.
Finally, they get up and leave, figuring they are so close to closing it might not be a good idea to try to order food.
Instead, we go to a supermarket down the road a bunch that has a deli (delicious, if I could only remember the name) and eat in the car. Then we take the little guy for a run at the terrific dog park they have up there.
Fun day, but not good experience at the GCC! To be fair, it looks like the Health Department is hassling them a bit - there was a notice on the front window.
But I say, if you advertise as a dog-friendly business, please be one! So my review is basically - it sounds delicious! The latest you should plan to get there is 1pm, and if you have a pup with you and need to sit outside, arrive before you are hungry.
Sonoma, CA
Category: Breakfast & Brunch
Glen Ellen, CA
Category: Brasseries
Glen Ellen, CA
Category: Restaurants
Glen Ellen, CA
Category: Restaurants
Glen Ellen, CA
Category: Indian
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