John O’Groats

Been here twice as my fiancé this place is awesome great little family restaurant great prices to go with your excellent service and everything you order is gone making it our breakfast spot.

I bought their John O’Groats Biscuits with John O’Groats pancakes and John O’Groats Club Salad for take out. John O’Groats burger with carrots juice is for my dine in. I used to go here for dining and take out. I always find it here awesome to hang out and be with friends sometimes to dine or take out. Great vibe, creative menu, such a simple dish done proper

Another place I went with a friend. It was highly recommended to me. It was raved about. Maybe it was these high expectations that made me give it such a low rating, and be so disappointed.
What can I say, in the restaurant business you have 3 basic pillars that you have to meet to get a good rating. Wait time (service), food quality (taste), and hygiene (cleanliness). It failed all three!
Wait time: We waited for what seemed like ah hour. We even saw people get seated who came AFTER us. In addition there was very little space, it felt like you were a sardine in here packed tight.
Service: When we FINALLY got a table it was pretty dirty. It took about another hour for the staff to notice us. I remember we ordered just WATER we were so dehydrated from waiting just to be seated! THAT took about forever as well. ON TOP OF THAT there was a HUGE moth/​bug/​grasshopper in my water when we finally got our drinks!!! I mean it was not like a little black speck of a fly. It was a HUGE INSECT in my water. It was so OBVIOUS that the waiter noticed and was like ‘oops I’ll get you another’ OOPS? Violating HEALTH CODES gets an oops?! How oblivious are you that a HUGE insect gets in my drink and you don’t notice!!!
Food quality: After another eternity and everyone being served that got there after us before us (not sure if they are racist or what) we finally got our food. I ordered a salad I think. I remember it looked like vomit. Very messy. And my friend’s food looked badly presented as well.
Taste: WHY did they put apples in a salad? HUH? WTF, they don’t know what a salad is. You don’t put sweet things in a salad, call me old fashioned, or just plain sane. It’s like putting barbecue sauce on a cupcake. You COULD do that, but WHY? Mixing the wrong flavors. My friend raved about the food, not sure why? My salad tasted very poor. I even tasted their food a bit and that was bad as well. No clue why this place was so packed, the food was not even worth it. Is it a place to be seen? Is it just trendy? I have no idea since it’s clearly not the food…
Hygiene/​cleanliness: As I stated before there was a huge bug in my water, dirty tables. But also the plates and silverware were not properly clean. The waiter had to come back a couple times to give us CLEAN things to eat with. Really this place is gross. An embarrassment. I have seen cleaner McDonald’s in the ghetto! With better service too!!!
Avoid this place, don’t buy into the hype, have a backbone and stand up to whoever recommends this place to you.

The perfect diner-​food experience in LA. The owner himself walks around greeting people and making sure drinks are filled to the brim. My wife and I cannot eat gluten – so this place was awesome! Where else can you find old-​fashioned diner-​style gluten-​free pancakes, waffles, and biscuits?! Their coffee is really great, as is their service. Don’t pass this place up!

We’ve seen the crowds outside and really wanted to find a good biscuit near our home. We were disappointed.
Service at 11:30 on a Wednesday was slow. No drink refills, no check on our order once the food came.
The famed biscuits were dry! Very brown on the outside, texture closer to a scone on the inside. You get a pair with breakfast, and they were hard to finish. I saw other patrons leaving them behind — not a great sign for a signature item.
The omelettes we had were fine. The hash browns were both burnt and cold. They ended up taking them off our bill.
This place reminded me of Roll and Rye (pricewise, especially). But, based on my one visit, even S&W offers a better breakfast.

I rarely rate any place 5 stars but this small place offers the most delicious mouth watering home style breakfast plates available. The staff was so attentive andbas busy as it was we were seated down in less then 5 minutes. I had the Taho Omelet, absolutely amazing!

I’ve lived in the area for many years now and had never tried this neighborhood staple. I wanted to like it, I really did. But I just couldn’t.
We ordered pancakes and the Cilantro Potato Pancakes and Eggs. The regular pancakes were just that: regular pancakes. The Cilantro Potato Pancakes and Eggs were super bland.
Service was good and the décor was cute. But, ultimately, you go to restaurants for the food and theirs was flavorless and definitely overpriced. I would’ve given John O’Groats 3 stars if it hadn’t been for their unfair prices. I left feeling like I’d paid way too much for what I’d gotten. It’s not a good feeling. Thus the 2 stars.

The pros:
1. Spiced Pumpkin Pancakes
2. Latino Heat Breakfast Burrito w/​Home Fries
3. Buttermilk Biscuits
The cons:
1. The wait (1 hour)
2. The service which was slow and inattentive.

What a great hide away to get great coffee and awesome pancakes. I visit mostly for breakfast and this place has great comfort food and great servers. You feel like they want you business and that is very refreshing. I prefer to sit at the counter for a old time feel.

The food was a little above average. The restaurant has a home style feeling. But the service was terrible! I felt like we had to negotiate for every little thing. Asking for water or asking for our missing food… we were such a huge burden to the staff.
There is a bit of a wait on weekends for brunch. Not as bad as it used to be. At least they offer free coffee and water while you wait.
Great place to bring kids because it’s loud and gives a lot of room.
I’d come back but honestly they have to do something about their service.

I feel like breakfast places tend to have menus with either 5 things, or 500 things. John O’Groats is the latter.
I was back and forth between the Tahoe scramble and the Huevos O’Groats but I settled on the Tahoe scramble. It’s got chicken breast, tomato, avocado, provolone cheese and grilled jalapeños scrambled with egg whites. The dish had a nice little kick to it which I definitely appreciated.
The food took awhile to come out, was a little surprising since I was by myself and there weren’t too many people there, but that scramble was pretty dope so I guess it was worth the wait!

If you can get past the owners mother glaring at you. Then go.
Jealous woman. Food is tasty

Not sure why everyone is so excited about this place. It must be the biscuits (which I couldn’t eat since I’m gluten free.) They DID have GF pancakes which I totally appreciated and they were very good. Their coffee was also good. My friend had huevos rancheros though and said it was terrible – very bland, no rancheros sauce, soggy tortillas. The service was extremely weird as well – the hostess who seated us, basically ignored us and tried to seat two other parties that came in after us. She had refused to take my name when we entered. The other two parties were awesome and pointed out her mistake and so she went ahead and seated us first. Then she seated the other two parties and went to those 2 other tables to take their orders before ours. Again the person, corrected her. It was extremely strange.
Also very overpriced. Two pancakes with NO SIDES were $ 10, plus a dollar extra for GF. I had to buy a side of bacon separately. It was $ 40+tip for 2 pancakes, 2 pieces of bacon and an order of tasteless heuvos rancheros and 2 cups of coffee – which by the way, they never came back to refill. I only gave them 2 stars because my pancakes were tasty, other wise I would have given them none.

Love this neighborhood spot!
I come here all the time for brunch. The staff is really friendly and the food is great.
I love their pancakes, egg dishes and the biscuits! My favorite dishes: the buckwheat pancakes with bananas and chocolate chips, the Winston and the Grandma’s or one of the combos. They have a large menu so you can find something for everyone.
It usually gets pretty busy on weekends so be prepared for a wait.
I will definitely be back!

Recently came here with my mom to have breakfast. My mom had the mushroom with feta cheese omelette and I had the buttermilk pancakes with chicken sausage. I also ordered two of the biscuits to go. Food was excellent and the price was reasonable. We even had leftovers to take home. They give you three large buttermilk pancakes for the order (which is more than enough). I also enjoyed the biscuits. They were tasty and light.
Only issue I had was parking. Even on a weekday it was hard to find parking.

Cute little mom and pop style café. Their breakfast chicken Apple sausage was so tasty! They have seating at the «bar» for singles and then a pretty decent sized dining room with plenty of tables. Wait staff was very friendly and down to earth. Reasonable prices and a huge selection. The biscuits are truly heavenly! Enjoy!

I ordered 1 pancake and an orange juice. It took them too long to bring my order and they gave me a coffee and a pancake with no syrup. My waitress was never around or too busy to notice that I was trying to talk to her.
The worst, in my opinion, was the way they were treating their Latino co-​workers. Too bad I had to see that, really hope it was something that doesn’t happen often

Great brunch place. Took the AAA mag recommendation and went there for brunch on a Sunday en route to SFO.
Had to wait 25min but it was worth it.
The Tahoe Scramble was great, cilantro pancakes were okay, double choc biscuit was a novel idea but I will pass.
Regular biscuits are good but I guess my biscuit palate has been ruined by eating McD’s, Popeye’s biscuits.
Will visit again for sure.

Came to O’Groats for brunch last weekend on a friend’s recommendation. We were fortunate to be seated promptly as the place was packed. The menu looked promising. Coffee was decent, and we devoured the biscuits (from heaven!) that were thankfully delivered ahead of my meal. When given the option of toast or biscuits, definitely order the latter. They are really excellent. I said to my husband that we should have just ordered biscuits and coffee and left full and happy. Little did I know how spot on that remark would be.
I ordered the Vegetarian Hash and Eggs (featured in Sunset magazine!) which was a plate piled high with bland, unseasoned vegetables and potatoes. Very disappointing. And $ 15.
My husband ordered the Huevos O’Groats (featured in LA Magazine’s Top 100 Dishes!). Why!!! This was so appallingly bad. Eggs and uncooked vegetables — seriously just raw onion and green peppers! — on a biscuit tortilla. It was disgusting. And also $ 15, which is equally disgusting. Who is ordering and recommending this dish? You can get amazing authentic huevos rancheros all over this city for half that price! I would have sent it back, but my husband didn’t want to make a scene so swallowed what he could of it before hitting the road.
Needless to say, we left feeling totally unsatisfied and ripped off.
Oh, and we were hungry again an hour later.

Always crowded for breakfast. That’s a good sign. «Biscuits from heaven» tag line is 100% accurate. There’s nowhere better in L.A. for biscuits. Pricing is a little steep and servers are often rushed and have a little bit of a hard-​ass shell on them, but they are probably really stressed because it’s so busy.
One weird quirk: never any spoons. Never. Not even when you order coffee. Not after multiple visits. No spoons. Ever. Have to stir my coffee with a knife or fork.

Total fan of this local breakfast/​brunch spot in my neighborhood. Was first introduced to it a couple of years ago by my best friend. This eatery is well known for their fresh from the oven– home baked biscuits. Nice crispy exterior… warm and fluffy on the inside just waiting to have some of the fresh preserves (table side) spread on them.
Like I said, my first time here was a couple of years ago and I pass by it all the time when I’m on a run at the local golf course down the street. This particular day, my fiancé and I were leaving his daughter’s soccer game… he was crunched for time and suggested we stop for a quick bite. Since we were heading down Pico– I quickly suggested this spot.
Because there’s always likely to be a small line outside, parking can be a bit tricky on the weekends. It’s close to a residential neighborhood check street signs carefully or maybe you’ll luck out with a metered spot.
On to the food– on this day, there was a small group of folks waiting outside and inside but because we were flexible and willing to sit at the counter, our wait was no more than fifteen minutes. There’s also a cart outside with fresh coffee and water for patrons who have to stand/​sit outside and wait. We were promptly greeted by the host (son of the owners I believe) and he introduced us to his brother Carl (who sits by the front door in his wheelchair) and all the locals know him. Carl loves sports and is a JOY to chat with!
We sat down and quickly received our drink orders. Service was a little on the slow side but the food makes up for it. My fiancé ordered the Applesauce Pancakes ($ 10.25) which he wouldn’t let me take a pic of… weirdo… along with chicken apple sausage ($ 5.25) The size of the cakes were really huge and he only ate ½ his order… which says a lot cause he can chow down! I ordered the Grandma’s scramble-​$ 14.25 (pictured-​bacon, cheese, grilled onions and tomatoes), came with a side of potatoes and biscuits fresh from the oven. Oh my!
Overall, the food was good ol’ comfort food, great portion sizes and great biscuits. And the service is great. The ONLY reason I didn’t give it five stars is our waitress was a little on the slow side but that was clearly due to it being super busy and not enough wait staff for the area. If she only tended to the counter (which at first she was and it took close to five minutes before she even acknowledged us), then she might have had a handle on it but she was also waiting on tables in another section. Took a minute to get the check as well but once she had our attention– she was super nice. I’d go back again to try some other menu items for sure!

We came here only for the biscuits and it was take out so I can’t say much about the place but the BISCUITS were delish!!!
Also, the guy who we dealt with on the phone and then in person was so nice and accommodating. I think his name was Phil or something like that. He offered us fresh whipped cream and jams to go with our biscuits, was super nice and made the experience wonderful. We will definitely be back for a formal breakfast.
We got the buttermilk biscuit, Smores and chocolate chip. OUr fave was honestly their regular biscuit. Also they don’t keep well overnight so I would just eat them all when you get them. YUM!