Lido, Newport Beach, CA
Rye Goods bakery was on my to visit list for quite some time. I was intrigued with the use of Rye flour in the baked goods and visited Christmas Eve. to pick up a few items for Christmas morning breakfast and dinner with family. Food wise, we completely broke tradition this year with our normal routine for Christmas breakfast and dinner.
I wanted to make breakfast sandwiches for Christmas breakfast and wanted a home made tasting English muffin, with no interest or time in baking them myself. I was elated when I found out Rye goods had them, but bummed out to hear they were frozen not fresh.
We arrived to the bakery, and grabbed a pack of frozen muffins out of the freezer, $14. That was my Christmas Morning breakfast splurge.
My husband looked around the small bread shelf and picked up a box of eight Parker Rolls. Nothing was priced.
We went to pay at the register and my husband eyed the savory seasonal hand pies, made with winter squash and ordered one of those.
We had a bit of sticker shock when we got the final price at the register...$48!
As we were paying my husband noticed a 12% employee benefit pop up on the screen, there is no signage anywhere we could see explaining this charge. He initially thought the guy was being cool and giving us an employee discount? maybe for first visit? The man at the register told us thank you for your gratuity. At that point my husband questioned him and found out about the employee benefit charge. He asked if it was optional and we were told, no.
Who knows how much really goes to the employees versus the business owner?! At minimum, a customer should know up front about the mandatory charge versus during the payment process. Signage should be placed in the store and on the website.
About a week later we were walking on Forest Ave in Laguna Beach and saw a sign on a storefront for Rye Goods opening soon. My husband joked and said we invested in that future opening.
So with tip and tax, thats roughly an extra 25% on top of already high prices!
So on to the review for the items we purchased:
3 stars The English muffins were slightly shrunken and I could tell they suffered from being frozen at purchase. They were good not great, very heavy and dense. I just made some dough and baked off some Rye English muffins yesterday that blew these out of the water, in taste and texture.
3 stars seasonal hand pie: My husband said the hand pie was ok to good.
5 stars: The impulse buy of the purchase, the parker dinner rolls, proved to be the best choice, even with the 25% tax/tip surcharge (almost $3 per roll) they were dense, buttery and soft, warmed up with Christmas dinner, everyone loved them.
At these prices I won't be a regular and I am not a fan of the surcharge! read more