Eek.
I just joined Yelp, just to share this.
Don't eat at Chap's. Save half of your money and walk across the street to Dunkin'. It'll be more satisfying.
I've lived in New Haven since August, and I walk by Chap's on my way to school every day. Thought about trying it a while ago, but after some unfortunate other Yelp reviews, I decided not to.
Until I got desperate today. I wish I'd stuck with it.
I woke up with a serious hankering for eggs benedict. I tried all of my usual favorite places, but they were either closed or the item had been removed or never existed. After walking around, hungry and slightly hungover, for about 20 minutes, trying to use my phone to find somewhere open with benedict or florentine in my general vicinity, I caved and decided to check Chap's. Sure enough, they had eggs benedict on the menu.
When I walked in, the restaurant was empty, even though it was 10am and had been open since 7. That should have tipped me off. I looked at the two people in the front, a brother-sister duo (?), and they looked at me confused.
"What would you like?"
"Umm... can I sit down?" I asked as I gestured vaguely at the empty restaurant.
"Just one?" (*see note)
He seated me at the table I'd vaguely waved my hand at and left me with a menu. I already knew what I wanted, but I checked for a drink I might be interested in. Negative, apparently it's all bottled beverages and convenience store coffee. So, when he came back, I placed my order for eggs florentine (the veggie-lovers benedict) and asked for some water to drink.
A few minutes later the waitress came over and told me they didn't have english muffins and asked if I'd like another kind of bread. I was seriously considering just leaving at this point, but I still really wanted eggs benedict, and I didn't want to have to try again to track down somewhere else that would serve it. So after a moment, I asked her what my other options were.
"Umm, any kind of bread..."
Really? Cause you just said you don't have english muffins, so CLEARLY not "any." Let's try this again. "What kinds of bread do you have?"
"Uhh... wheat, white, rye..." (Yup, so many options)
"Okay. Wheat, I guess."
At some point during this time, a group of four came in and sat on the other side of the small restaurant. They decided to order drinks, and a carafe of water and glasses were brought to their table. And I continued to wait. Then they got their other drinks and ordered food. And I was still parched. Finally I waved down the waitress (not easy, because checking on their customers is apparently not something they do) and asked again for some water.
Water should not be something that needs to be ordered. I understand that some places prefer to save energy by only giving water on request. I can accept that. But I should never have to ask twice, especially when I was the first one there, the other table already got water, and the wait staff was just standing idly around anyway. Drink a cup of your generic coffee and wake up!
As I waited for my food, several other groups of people walked in. I wanted to yell at them and tell them to turn and leave before it was too late. But I didn't want to make a scene, and I thought that even though the service was crap, maybe the food would be good.
Oh, optimism. You always lead to disappointment.
When my food came out, my mistake was really hammered home. The wheat toast had for some reason been flattened and cut into a circle shape, perhaps to make me forget it wasn't an english muffin? I don't know. The spinach appeared to be defrosted frozen spinach, and the "hollandaise" was definitely not right. I suspect store bought and packed with preservatives for long term storage. It may not even have had egg in it. The consistency was definitely off - it looked like colored water thickened with flour or cornstarch. Yech. The homefries on the side (not mentioned on the menu) were horribly bland, and everything had an overpowering black pepper taste, like frozen meals trying to distract from the taste of their preservatives. The one upside of the whole meal was that the eggs were poached well.
I quickly finished what I wanted of the meal (two bites of the fries was enough) because by that point I was starving, and tried to flag someone down for a bill. Unconvinced that that would ever be successful, I finally just walked up to the register and got out as quickly as possible. And stopped across the street at Dunkin' Donuts for a bagel.
*Side note. At some point, perhaps as a child going to a favorite California mini-chain, or perhaps during my waitressing days, I was taught to never, ever ask that question. The alternatives I was taught didn't really seem that much better, to be honest, but "just one?" sounds so judgmental. I don't really care about this, but it was something else I noticed. read more