Cherries Breakfast Bistro

Excellent! I had eggs benedict with smoked salmon and Brie. To die for! The service was very good and the owner even came out to make sure that everything was fine. Very nice lady! My friend sent back is on it because it was too well done and they let him keep the first one so he could nibble on the potatoes and toast while he waited. He loved his omelet as well. Tomatoes, spinach, feta. Everything including the coffee was delicious.

The food is decent but… in what world do you set up a restaurant as a half bistro/​café style in a restaurant sized room? You have «servers» that come bring the food and clear plates. That’s it. You order at the counter, then go get your own coffee, water, cutlery and napkins. Not too bad in a café sized room but when you are walking from the back of the restaurant to the front, through the line up twice, all while carrying hot coffee and water. If they can improver their service model and therefore up the tips, it would attract better servers and not just glorified «busboys». Also, the prices need work. $ 21 for a coffee and a «big boy» breakfast is way too much. $ 13 – 15 at most places in Victoria.

TERRIBLE SERVICE, first of all for the price of the entrées there should be a tableservice offered. When you lineup when you first come in the door and you make your order you are expected to leave a tip at that point. This is before knowing what your service or your food is going to be like. The self-​serve format is not working here. I think if cherries wants to succeed totally they need to get it together and get some servers. Secondly I believe they need to work on the cleanliness and Hygiene of the restaurant. I make this review after having visited this restaurant five times. Each time and each visit there has been a problem. Either there are no tables available to sit at. Or there are no supplies in the self-​serve area. Or the self-​serve area needs some attention in some manner. Showing up ordering food not having a place to sit and then your food becoming available, is the worst format I’ve ever seen for a restaurant. I have actually spoken to Cherry about a lot of the problems that I think she is experiencing. Like for instance in the early days not opening on Sundays is completely ridiculous for a breakfast restaurant. I’m glad to see that it is now open on Sunday mornings. I hope things improve but it looks like they’re sticking with their formula. And that’s really too bad

Waiting in line and ordering at the counter before you sit down seems a little silly, not to mention you have to wait in line again to get coffee.
After sitting down we were told that we were not allowed to sit at the table we had chosen, with no explanation. Food took forever to arrive, as did the condiments I requested from a staff member who seemed quite lost. When the condiments did arrive I was confused as to why they were in packets like at a fast food restaurant.
Bottom line, if I want to order sub-​par breakfast at a counter from staff who don’t care about their job and have my condiments in packets, I’ll save my money and go to McDonalds.

Get it together, bite the bullet and hire servers. Ordering your food before you even have a table is asinine. Getting a coffee was a mess as well literally as there was no cream, open bowls of sugar that had dirty spoons strewn about, the food is fine but it’s maddening that you can’t just sit order and enjoy.

Food was really good. You have to basically serve your self though. Only the food is brought out to your table.

This used to be one of the best spots but sadly it’s a victim of it’s own success…
Service is not friendly and wait times are too long — on to the next place for me…

Misses the mark repeatedly.
I’ve been to Cherries 3 times now and every single time, they just dont quite measure up. Every dish has something stopping it from being great. From lack of fresh or dried herbs anywhere that i could see, to over the top reese flavour on the french toast (and i LOVE peanut butter and chocolate) to flavour combos that just dont quite work: duck and blueberry compote, every experience has fallen short of their potential.
These guys are extremely lucky to be located where they are, they would not survive in down town.
While i recognize that it’s a bit of a café style set up for service, the service has been lacking, dirty plates and eye contact ignored repeatedly. The last time I visited, the air vent over our head was so filthy that it rained down dust bunnies (yes plural) onto our table and nearly into my coffee. When I mentioned this, the server just said «oh ya, ok, we should take care of that» not much of an apology, no signs of embarrassment that their establishment was that dirty, no offer to move us to another table, nothing comp’d, nothing. The time before that, their AC was leaking and dripping onto us and our table and all they did was slide us over a few feet so the drips were just barely missing us. Again, not much concern and not very apologetic for such an unappetizing experience getting dirty water dripped on us while eating.
They need a serious chef and GM to come in and boost them up that 20% more attention and care that they need to go from «missed the mark» to «nailed it».
I don’t think I’ll be back after 3 disappointing visits.

Have I told you that this is my favourite restaurant?
I bought a house about a year ago and my realtor knew I was going to be tighter with my money, so as a thank you gift for him being my realtor, he gave me a card with a bunch of gift certificates in it and 2 $ 25 ones to Cherries. I had never heard of it before and was a bit skeptical.
I tried it out and have been a regular customer ever since. The food is amazing and it’s always packed. It’s order and pay at the till and find your own seat. But, if you make a reservation they serve you like a regular restaurant. Reservations are a good idea as it can be super busy, especially on the weekend.
I always tend to order the eggs Benedict as they are amazing… but so is the Reese’s stuffed french toast with peanut butter and Nutella and the Breaky poutine. Yumm!

This was hands down the worst restaurant experience I have ever had. And I’ve been to a lot of restaurants. I don’t even know where to start with this review. First off, it took an hour and a half to get our food. Everything was wrong even though our server had written all of our orders down. We had a party of 6 (which they took a reservation for when they apparently weren’t supposed to) 2 of us finished our meals before any more food came out. When the other meals did come out they were not correct and had to be sent back, my boyfriends eggs were undercooked. We weren’t told until the end that they don’t do table service. Our server was friendly, but clearly had no idea what she was doing. When we finally got all our food and were clearly dissatisfied, they offered us 10% off. 10%! That doesn’t even cover the tax. Eventually they ended up covering our bill after we expressed that 10% was a pathetic compensation for what we had just gone through. I will never and I mean NEVER return here. The staff are friendly and were very apologetic but that is the only nice thing I have to say about this place.

Amazing breakfast menu. Best breakfast I have ever had. Quality fresh ingredients make the flavors pop.

A true gem. I have been there twice and had an enjoyable experience each time. It is busy. But the service and food are top notch. We went for breakfast on Aug 9 and the food was flavourful, plentiful and hot. The coffee is also great. The atmosphere is casual and eclectic. A great place for a meal, a coffee and muffin or just coffee with friends!

This is a relatively small restaurant in a strip mall, but the food was great and so was the service. We’d definitely go there again.

Really enjoyed the coffee and breakfast. My partner had the breakfast burrito and I had the peanut butter and chocolate French toast. I may have like his a bit more but maybe I was just feeling more savoury than sweet that morning.
Servers were pleasant — the food arrived quickly and all and al everything was great! I might have likes more vegetarian options, but they seemed willing to accommodate me by taking bacon out of certain dishes.

I tried Cherries over the weekend after reading the reviews on Unilocal.The place was mostly empty on a Saturday morning around 9am. The format was as described in the reviews. Grab a menu, order, find a table and wait. I tried the duck hash, a side of Mennonite sausage and a latte. I spoke to the cook as I walked to the back to sit down. She was friendly and engaged.
The food came very quickly. The sweet potato hash was topped with a duck sausage patty that was sweetened with raisins and a poached egg. All of this was covered with a layer of slightly warm hollandaise sauce.
The sausage was sweet, the hollandaise bland and sweet potato hash mediocre. The Mennonite sausage was sliced down the side and fried to warm it up. Overall the presentation was good but the taste only okay. The latte was wonderful: properly steamed and frothy.
The service model was awkward and definitely subtracted from the experience. Since it was not crowded it worked but I could see a problem arising when busy.
The staff were very friendly and helpful so I will probably return to give it another try with other choices.

With the promising reviews of Cherries’ food, and tired of long waits to get in for brunch in Victoria, we decided to give Cherries a try. In hindsight, we should have visited one of our regular spots…
Cherries does offer an inviting atmosphere, with tasteful décor, up beat music, and friendly staff that makes you feel welcome. Then, they take your order and that’s where the welcome feeling stops.
Generally, I’m a fan of the «café (ie. Cafeteria) approach,» having frequented such places in my hometown of Seattle. Where Cherries differs is that water, beverage refills, cutlery service are self-​service, and you have to wait in line with other customers for your refill of coffee. You can make reservations for full table service a day in advance, where those services are provided for free. Would it be that much of a hindrance and an increase to fiscal overhead to have someone circulate with a pot of coffee?
I ordered the bacon pancakes with ruhrei (Mennonite scrambled eggs), and my partner ordered the Breakfast poutine (pulled pork, poached egg, on a bed of pan fried potatoes with poutine).
It took just a little over 50 minutes for our dishes to make their way out of the kitchen… and only after we noticed that customers who had arrived after us were being served their food, before us.
The bacon pancakes were sadly very disappointing. They were very heavy, almost the consistency of a biscuit, soggy bacon, and no flavor. The ruhrei were not the typical Mennonite scrambled eggs that I’m familiar with. Instead, they were normally fluffy scrambled eggs with butter and maple syrup… somewhat tasty, but not what I had expected.
My partners breakfast poutine also had similar results. While the pulled pork had a good taste and the potatoes were seasoned well, some of the potatoes were burned and the poutine had a slightly burned flavor, which overpowered the rest of his dish. The hollandaise on the poached egg was cold.
No one checked in after our meals were brought to us to see how we enjoyed the food. Rather, instead of risking further delays by complaining, we ate and left. Back to our regular spots for brunch…

We were headed out to Butchart Gardens and wanted to find a place to eat on the way, and found this place. Loved it.
The owner is Mennonite, and so are a lot of the items on the menu. We’ve never had this before. My daughter ordered a plain hot dog (she’s nearly five, so not really going to eat much more). The staff forgot about her order, but quickly made it right. And added potatoes that the child didn’t like (she rarely likes potatoes).
I ordered a pulled pork sandwich, and my husband ordered eggs benedict with the Mennonite sausage. I initially thought the bbq sauce on my sandwich was a bit too sweet, but then I decided I really liked it. It was just different, and I had to keep going. I polished it off before I ever made it to my potatoes, which I enjoyed very much, thank you. My husband was not a fan of the sausage, but he did enjoy getting to try something he’d never had before, and likely would not have much chance to get again. So thank you for being different!
The place itself was really cool inside, decorated very well. We were a bit thrown by the help-​yourself water stand, but that works for us too. Just different. We usually like different, and this place would definitely be a place we’d come back to.

We tried CBB today, as the first time we’d heard of it was this morning. We were going to watch our nephew’s hockey game out in Saanich and wanted to try something nearby. What a treat! The food was delicious, from the freshly baked cinnamon buns to the house made sausage patty (really, really flavourful) for a decent price.
If I had any complaints, it would be the service model. You get a menu when you walk in, you stand around choosing what you want, you order and pay for it and then you go find a table. It was very awkward, as I didn’t know how/​who to tip: so I didn’t tip at all. I got my own cutlery, got my coffee from the counter as it was called and fetched my own condiments. I see that I made the correct decision not to tip, as in my books, tipping is for service: aside from someone running my food to me, there was none.
Personally, I think that you either have to be a sit-​down place OR cafeteria style: not an odd hybrid of both. I was trying to observe and I think that they want their staff to be able to make lattes/​espressos and not get behind on those. Having been in the food service industry myself for many years, I understand how difficult it is to staff, especially for brunch. But do yourself a favour, Cherry: go to a traditional sit-​down style, have one person dedicated to drinks and have a few proper servers. Other restaurants have figured it out: so can you.
Notwithstanding my feedback about the service, I did really enjoy my experience there — so much so that I give four stars without hesitation.

This place is close to where I live, it’s convenient for me to come here for brunch. The way the restaurant operates is kind of awkward, you come in, grab a menu, figure out what you want and find a table. Then when you know what you want, you get up and go to the till and order your food and drinks, and hope no one has accidentally stolen your table… I feel a little bit weird about the way they operate but I guess some people might not…
The food has always been delicious! My favourite, something you may want to share with someone else because the portion is HUGE, is the Nutella stuffed french toast, MMM!!! You must try it!
The drinks are good, no complaints, better than Starbucks if you ask me… and they have options for those of us who don’t want to drink a gallon of cow’s boob liquids. This place is kind of like a café as well, one where you just walk in and grab a coffee to go, and perhaps a fresh made muffin.

We were visiting from Seattle and stopped in a few minutes after 4, the owner was there and waved us in to order some coffee and pastries. The coffee was excellent, she is a total coffee snob which is an awesome thing for a coffee shop owner to be! The pastries were baked in house and were very tasty. The owner was very personable, we chatted with her for quite a while, and it was very nice of her to invite us in even though they had closed already!
We will definitely return the next time we are in Victoria!