"Just a lousy, start the day off with a bad experience kind of place.I'm not sure why this is considered a D.C. institution and a hot tourist stop. The real reason I wanted to stop in is because I'm a fan of Parks and Recreation (Leslie has a bite to eat here with Madeline Albright in one scene), but I really wish I had taken a picture of the exterior and left. Long lines outside would suggest the food is really worth waiting for, but I suspect it has more to do with its proximity to Ford's Theatre and other touristy spots in the neighborhood.After a long wait, our party of 3 gets seated at the tiniest table in the middle of the room, even though there were bigger tables in the back that were empty. Even if they still needed to clean them, logic would suggest that 3 full grown men would need a tad more space to eat, especially since the waffles come on a separate plate. They definitely don't care, and just want to get people out of the doorway as fast as they can. The waiter/owner seemed annoyed that we were even there to begin with, and barely registered us as humans while rushing through our orders. Forget asking any kind of follow-up questions, like getting cream or sugar for your coffee.The food was incredibly mediocre. Maybe one step above edible. This place is renowned for their waffles, but they're gross. They were really too crunchy, have a burned after taste, and need to be drowned in syrup from a bottle that looks like it's been reused hundreds of times. The grilled cheese that one of us ordered was the saddest, most pathetic grilled cheese sandwiches in the entire universe, probably. Coffee tastes like it's been filtered through the original filter when they first opened.I can't say much about the ambience either. The place feels extremely dingy/dirty, and hopefully I didn't walk away with herpes from the unclean silverware. The less said about the bathroom, the better.Finally, I'm not entirely sure we didn't get screwed over on the bill. What they do is give you the slip they wrote everything down on initially, but you can't read a word of it. For what we ordered, it should have come to $45.00, but the bill was $59.00. I think they may have added an automatic tip? And if they do add automatic tips, they really need to let customers know that beforehand. We sure weren't told, or saw any signage mentioning it. I felt so bad about suggesting this place to my family members, that I paid the bill myself."
