Lot's of different things to critique so I'll try to categorize…read more
Pro's: Friendly Staff, Accommodating (Depending upon the staff) and some decent offerings. Some of the pound cakes and brownies are tasty, pies, some cake and cupcakes.
Cons: Not consistent with lunch menu items and what sides are supposed to come with meals - all depends upon the staff or if they are running low on sides. Breads are sometimes under-cooked and just plain doughy. "Fresh baked" cookies are too heavy on the sugar and sadly not made with butter. Andover location is in serious need of paint, a new window sill outside and a cleaning! No clue if they use preservatives or fillers.
To start with, Café Pierrot has a lunch menu which states what sides, toppings, or ingredients are included on a salad, sandwich, soup or wrap. Depending upon whom is making your lunch it will vary each time and many times NOT include what it is supposed to on their menu. All wraps are supposed to have potato salad, pasta salad and greens. Sometimes you may get an average portion of these sides, sometimes just a heaping spoonful, other times you may only be given one or two of the sides. One of the wraps states "with EXTRA potato salad". Uh, no. Never happens - why have a menu then? If you order one of their salads, good luck getting what is supposed to be part of that dish. And they are very skimpy on the greens. I've stopped ordering salads, because its just not worth it when you DON'T get everything that you are supposed to! Some days you order soup to go and they will include several slices of their bread, with another young lady you get nothing. Or, if they are running low on the sides, someone may skimp, but to be quite honest, why cheat the customer? Mind you, you are still paying FULL price for these dishes.
Maybe the staff needs a refresher on what it states on their menus and to stay consistent!
Walnut Coconut Bars - twice now we've tried these, which COULD be delicious - first time the walnuts in this bar were stale. I thought, well, maybe it's just this one time and I questioned to myself whether any of the staff tastes the walnuts to insure freshness or are there expiration dates on these things? We tried again almost 2 months later - yep - same thing. Entire bar is riddled with stale walnuts. WHY??? That's unacceptable.
Moving on to the condition of this establishment. Not trying to be mean, but you walk up to the little building where they have the Café (they own several buildings on this property) and you cannot miss the completely rotted window sills in front - why would you let this go for so long? And you just celebrated your 30th Anniversary? Also, there is some sort of antique mill sitting in front - rusted to high Heaven - again, it can't be there for any kind of décor because at this point its an eyesore. On the latest visit - since we were waiting for so long for an order to be done (which we called ahead and gave it MORE than ample time to finish) I happened to look towards the corner that leads into back area where they prep and bake and maybe 20 large bags of flour were stacked against the wall - next to them some lawn and leaf type trash bag dangling over something and I looked above and there were dark cobwebs dangling from the ceiling over the bags of flour and trash bag. Not appealing at all. Not to mention, the walls looked dirty and all around it's in need of cleaning and fresh paint. Just makes me wonder what else is lurking in the back where they prepare the food when the entrance to the place is rotting and the place needs to be painted and cleaned? Does the owner ever take a look or care?
They offer so called fresh baked cookies if you call at least 30 minutes ahead (their policy, not mine). OK, we tried this and when I called I was told it will be about 30-45 minutes. Fine, no problem. We arrived an hour later, figuring it gave them plenty of time to prepare the cookies. When we got there I was told, oh, they are just going in the oven, so it should be about 5 minutes. NO. Try 30-40 minutes later of waiting. Gee, thanks. To top this all off, after waiting so long for something that should have been ready - they dumped all these large (warm) cookies on top of each other with NO wax paper in between! If you even attempted to dislodge one, it would crumble. Geeze, after all that and you end it with sloppy packaging? And it's not like they were all the same cookie type. Lastly, I'm not adverse to sugar, but when the flavor is overpowered by just sugar, it's no good. And we tasted no butter, which homemade cookies should be made with real butter and these had none that could be detected. HUGE disappointment and would never order these cookies again.
We keep going back, hoping for better quality and service, but it's hit or miss.
