Court Cafe

Critic's Review

I wanted to try a new place;; something less crusty than the old time diners. This place offers a "southern" menu with some Cajun elements; worth a try at 3pm on a Thursday for a late breakfast.

Pre review research found an un-maintained web site that still said "Opening Fall 2022" with no menu and misinformation; citing "Night events and a Full Bar"; they close at 4pm and don't have a liquor license yet.

Of course the "Order Online" button does nothing. It also doesn't work for the LA location, so don't expect it to be an option for this restaurant.

With mostly shills online, I went in without knowing much about the place; the way it used to be in the 1980s.

The journey started with a sandwich board which offered no specials. You can't see this from the street and there's no foot traffic in this corner of the strip mall, so what's the point? At least I knew they were open.

They open at 9, so not really going for the real breakfast crowd; people with 9-5 jobs can eat elsewhere.

I walked into a completely empty restaurant at 3pm. And I do mean completely empty; just a hostess and 1 server. Why they had a hostess is a mystery.

A nice bar with TVs; Maybe a decent hangout if they had alcohol.

The dining room is fairly large with lots of far-away TVs; a game show playing on the center TV. Channels seemed random; TV watching isn't the theme here.

The music was the big problem; horrific stuff to a middle-aged white guy: Ashanti, Blackstreet, Alicia Keys. D'Angelo. Music that will drive away the white people.

There are no printed menus here; another venue that assumes everyone is equipped with a modern cell phone. I personally hate reading menus on my phone; and the menu here was smallish and hard to read.

I ordered coffee, because lemonade doesnt go with breakfast. It was delivered without a spoon. No rollups on any of the table.

I saw "Court Cafe" come up on my wifi so I asked for the password. "Sorry, we don't have Public Wifi". Fantastic.

The hostess has a pretty easy job. Not one call or customer in the 45 minutes I was here.

Sausage and eggs is $23; $10 for sausage is more than the biggest ripoff hotels on the strip charge. Just ridiculous.

The shrimp came out in 9 minutes.

4 Shrimp and 90% grits for $22. No bread. They claim this is an étouffée, but in reality it's just an insubstantial spicy drizzle. étouffée literally means "smothered"; hard to see a sauce with nothing in it fitting that criteria.

You can order the shrimp deep fried or pan fried. Shrimps come with the tail on.

With such a messy dish they should remove the tails; picking up the shrimp by the tail is messy business here; when I make I remove the tails.

The grits were decent (although I'd prefer cheddar or a more salty cheese than gouda), but aside from the 4 shrimp (about 75 calories) there was no substance to this dish. Usually, the whole shrimp are a garnish; with a shrimp sauce with trinity and sometimes andouille sausage. This dish is basically some garnish on a bowl of cheese grits. For $22.

At no time did my server come over to the table or ask if I had everything I needed, nor was I offered a refill on my $4 cup of coffee. Even when she brought the check to the table, she didn't offer a refill when she could see that the cup was empty.

They have one of these annoying tableside pinpads for checkout where you awkwardly have to select a tip with your finger (22% is the first option) and then sign with your finger. Very sanitary in these Covid times.

Conclusion

They made a point of pointing out that this is a "Black Owned Business"; as if we're supposed to view it differently than any other business. With all black employees and playing music by all black artists with prices targeted to the rich; you wonder if they're really trying to appeal to the general public. But with absurdly high prices, you wonder if they thought all of Las Vegas is the strip; this neighborhood has a median income of $41K with 16% of people living in poverty. Their store in Los Angeles has a neighborhood median income of 115K, which seems a bit different.

If the portions were monstrous or the food outstanding the prices would still be too high; with Blueberry Hill 2 blocks away who exactly is going to come here from this neighborhood?

Add to all of this the fact that they can't even maintain a web site; you have to use your phone to see a menu and they have no wifi, and the service is completely incompetent; you have to think they just got lucky with their first location because this one makes no sense at all.