LeRoy's Waffles & Chicken

Last Sunday, my friends and I went to visit the church of some other friends in Alameda, CA, Chosen Vessels Christian Church. It's definitely a wonderful church and I'd recommend anybody living in the East Bay to stop by and visit. After listening to Pastor Dion, you just may make it your church home.

Anyway, after church we wanted to have our usual post-church, 'itis-inducing meal, so we rolled over to Jack London Square in Oakland. Our usual spot is A Good Morning in Mountain View after service at Abundant Life. We were actually planning to go to Everett & Jones (crazy good BBQ joint), but when we were turning the corner, I spotted this place called Home of Chicken and Waffles. We pretty much immediately came to a consensus that we were eating there. We had to try out chicken & waffles. I think we had all been to Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles at least once before, so we were hoping this place would be on par with that.

I don't know if I'm just speaking for myself, but I thought the place was pretty good. I got the #15, which comes with 2 southern-style pieces of chicken and two waffles. I also got an extra side of eggs. The place reminded me a lot of Roscoe's from what I remember. They even had the Sunrise drink like Roscoe's. It was so similar that I'm now calling it LeRoy's Waffles & Chicken.

Had I written this review a week ago, I would've just stopped there and recommended the place to everyone. But during this past week, I talked to my homegirl Tiffany who had a rather unique experience when she and her girls ate there. Now granted I don't know when this unfortunate incident happened, and it's entirely possible that the problem has since been remedied, but it has made me hesitant to make another visit.

According to Tiffany, the spot had (has?) a roach problem. As the story goes, they were all sitting in one of those semi-circle booths and enjoying their meal, when a roach scurried across Samantha's lap. Dawn, who was actually on the inside of Tiffany, saw the roach and in 0.23 seconds was 30 feet away from the table on a chair in the fetal position. She somehow managed to get out of the booth before Tiffany did. So they are yellin' and screamin' about roaches and the workers are nowhere to be found. They were probably all hiding in the kitchen. After about 5 or 10 minutes, they finally come out and the manager wasn't even really apologetic. Typically a manager would try to appease the customers and offer to pay for the meal, but he didn't even do that! It wasn't until Tiffany demanded that there meal should be comped that he said "oh... I guess you're right." Such great service.

So yeah, I don't know how to review the restaurant any more. My experience was great. The wait staff was pleasant & helpful and the food was delicious. Ask Carlton -- he had four pieces of chicken, 2 waffles, and 2 eggs and undoubtedly some of Shayla's food as well. He was so done that he had to pull over onto the shoulder of the 880 and get some fresh air so that he wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel. Okay... maybe that didn't happen, but it should have! I found out later that he had been nodding off at the wheel. I just thought dude couldn't drive.

In the end, I think I'll still give it a positive review. If you're ever in Downtown Oakland, you gotta check it out: 444 Embarcadero W, Oakland, CA 94607.