Why us?

My family & I were returning from a trip to the in-laws last night when we stopped for dinner at a place called, Ellen's Dutch Pancake something-or-other in Buellton, CA. It was about 8:30 (they were open until 9) in the evening and it looked like the local hangout. We went in, were seated, and given drinks. After that the service went downhill. The food was okay. My wife had the dutch pancakes, my son, the cheese burger, and I had the chicken fried steak. It was unfortunate they smothered the broccoli in a cheese sauce and left the whole thing to drown in 1/2 inch of water, but otherwise it was okay. The waitress, Joy, never checked up on us for drink refills, except to drop off the bill. "Here you go." Both my wife and I have combined experience of 20 years in the restaurant business and this is by far the worst we've experienced so far. To put insult to injury, Joy was quite nice to the locals that were in there, so it was either (I'm speculating here) since we weren't local we weren't worth the spit in our food, or she wasn't in the mood to clean up after a family had eaten.