While visiting the Marietta Square Farmer's Market on Saturday, my wife and I noticed that the space formerly occupied by the (late lamented) Three Bears Café was now open again, under the name North Park Bistro. The similarities between Three Bears Café and North Park Bistro end with the address, unfortunately. When we arrived, we were told to take whatever seat we'd like, and we chose one of the tables outside in the sidewalk seating area. And there we sat for what had to be at least ten minutes, without a menu or being asked for a drink order. Finally, one of the waitresses noticed that we were sitting there without drinks or a menu, and brought some over, and also took our drink order. About 30 seconds later, she was back with our coffees, and was ready to take our food order. We had to send her away since we hadn't had time to actually look at the menu. After a couple more minutes, we flagged her down again and made our food order, and I couldn't help but notice that she didn't write the orders down.
While we were waiting for our food, I noticed the couple sitting next to us had paid and left, with three quarters of their food still on their plates, which was a rather disconcerting sign.
Finally, after watching three other tables that were seated after us get their food, our breakfasts arrived. I mentioned above that the waitress didn't write our orders down, and my concerns about that fact were realized when my order showed up wrong, with sunnyside eggs instead of the scrambled eggs that I had requested. My wife's order of the Bistro Special French Toast, advertised on the menu as "Four pieces of Homemade artisan wheat bread stuffed with vanilla Mascarpone cheese and topped with fresh peach compote served with fresh fruit ", showed up without the peach compote - which we didn't realize until afterward. Also, the vanilla Mascarpone cheese tasted more like bland, under-sweetened Cool Whip, without even a trace of the richness that Mascarpone is known for.
Finally my order arrived with the correct eggs. I had ordered the Corned Beef Hash, and I have to admit, it did at least look good, with nice chunks of corned beef as opposed to the Alpo-like meat paste that sometimes passes for corned beef hash. Unfortunately, the corned beef chunks were extremely tough - they really should have been cooked longer before being made into hash. It was also somewhat underseasoned, as well , and when I asked if they had Tabasco or some other kind of hot sauce (a common request in Georgia), they didn't have any. The waitress, to her credit, did give it the old college try, though - I could see her behind the counter looking for some for me, and she was genuinely apologetic when she had to tell me that there was none to be had.
One interesting thing I noticed when we paid the bill: the credit card receipt had the name Kybele, which is the name of the Turkish restaurant two doors down. I don't know if the two places just share a credit card terminal or if they're operated by the same people, but you may want to keep that in mind if you're in the mood for Turkish food .
All in all, this was a rather disappointing experience. If you, like us, are hoping that maybe some of the high standards and quality that Three Bears Café was known for has rubbed off on the new occupants of that space, you can forget it. And, in the unlikely event that you actually LIKED North Park Bistro, better get there soon, because if Three Bears failed, I can't imagine that this place will succeed. read more