*Before you read* There've clearly been management changes which have been ongoing for years that affect these reviews. The most recent changes seem to be fairly drastic; e.g. the restaurant no longer serves any bagel sandwiches, no egg, etc., so previous reviews are, IMHO, fairly unrepresentative. I address the most recent changes & those over the past 5 years.
I write this review, sadly, as a Maple Leaf resident of 7 years. We've watched the slow and steady decline of this restaurant over the years in rather painstaking agony (a bit melodramatic, but it really has been quite sad). When we first moved in to the Maple Leaf neighborhood, this was our go-to spot for tea, coffee, and most important breakfast sandwiches. The bagels were amazing, and the bagel sandwiches that much more, with fresh ingredients (avocado, tomato) and incredibly tasty sauces (mayonnaises and pestos) to complement. Toasted to perfection.
And then the management changes. I have no idea how many such changes there were, but they seemed plenty from casual conversations. Suddenly I'd show up at 11am and sandwiches were crossed off the list as unavailable. 'Why?' I'd ask, only to be told that one or two ingredients were missing. They were out of avocados or tomatoes, for example. Seemed like an easy enough problem to fix, and I'd stressed how important it was to the manager that they provide the proper amount of ingredients (which the workers at the shop completely agreed with and sympathized with, often saying things like 'you don't understand how bad it feels to turn away a customer just b/c our management didn't buy enough avocados'). But a year went by, and I'd run into the same issue over and over again.
Perhaps even two years. And during this time, compared to when we first moved into the neighborhood, there were inane time restrictions placed on sandwiches. One was available from 7am to 12pm and another one from 7am to 3pm and another one from 12pm to 3pm and another one from... these aren't exact figures, but you get the idea. It was impossible for any customer to keep track of what was available when, begging the question: what business owner in their right mind would set up a business in this manner? To what end? It's impossible not only for customers to keep track of this, but also confusing for employees to keep track -- indeed, employees mentioned to me how difficult it was to keep these things straight in their own heads and how, worse still, it was when compounded on top of the issue of missing ingredients! Employees would ask me to call the owners to complain! I work in the tech industry and have a Ph.D in biophysics, and I don't blame them.
The last straw, though, was today, when I learned that this restaurant no longer serves any bagel sandwiches - literally the best thing this place ever made, with the most fresh bagels we'd ever tasted since the east coast (we're transplants) - and no longer serves any egg. It gets worse - I ordered a *hot* turkey, bacon, avocado sandwich, and they only really serve sandwiches on croissants these days. I got it for take-out. I go to pick it up & it's just a saran-wrapped croissant with, yes, some sad left over bits of turkey and bacon (not any nice continuous slices), some sparse pieces of old brown avocado, and some lettuce. That's it. Not heated up, no cheese, no sauces, no mayo, just a dry bunch of a few turkey scraps, bacon scraps, old avocado slices, and some lettuce tossed in between some not-so-buttery crossaint halves. For $11. Your mouth went dry with the first bite.
I had to toast it myself and add cheese, tomato, mayonnaise, home-made pesto, banana peppers, and some other ingredients to make it edible. And even then... the croissant itself was dry and not-buttery or fluffy or anything.
I thought back to the incredibly juicy bagel sandwiches I'd had here I think maybe just 2 or fewer years ago, with that incredible pesto mayo and the perfectly toasted, not too bready bagels, while biting into one of the worst croissants I've ever had and recollecting the commentary from the current manager about 'no egg and no bagel' and, well, I was prompted to write this review in case it helps others who have similar expectations to what we have of what this place used to be. And in hopes that perhaps this could one day be restored to even an iota of the place it once used to be.
As it is, if I wanted cold stale sandwiches wrapped in plastic, I'd get them for half the price at a grocery store. I've been meaning to write reviews documenting the steady decline every year since 2016, but today's 'canned sandwich in saran wrap' that was actually worse than any such sandwich I've ever bought (save for perhaps when I was in grad school?) really prompted me to write a very honest review. I don't wish to be rude, but this place is truly unacceptable not just next to what it was, but next to any restaurant held to any sort of culinary standard other than 'gas station grab-and-go'. read more