From my experience this weekend, there was some good and bad to the Big Bean in Newmarket.
The Good: good food with wide variety of selection. Friendly people with an exception of one person, which can be found below.
The Bad: The host was horribly rude. If a guy is hosting, who is in his mid to late twenties with a short beard, average height, tattoos on his arm, and a Red Sox hat... RUN! I know that description might identify a few people that work there, but after a couple minutes around this guy, you'll know who I'm talking about.
So this weekend it was a nice fall day, and a friend of mine were meeting three others at the Big Bean. The two of us got there early and waited in line, which stretched outside. The host (rude guy) walked through the line asking how many people were in each party, and we told him five. Before he went back inside he asked if anyone wanted to eat outside instead of waiting in line, and the two of us immediately volunteered.
There was three empty small tables, and he brought us to one by the road with three seats at it. There was food crumbs etc. on the table and so he said he'd get a rag to wipe it down. Meanwhile, I grabbed an empty seat from unused table next to us and brought it to our table. He came back and wiped off our table, but wiped it off all onto my friend's lap! No apology.
Eventually, our other three friends showed up, and we decided we probably needed more room. So we put our table together with one of the other small tables, and added a fifth chair. Again, there was nobody sitting at any one of the tables outside. The host came out and noticed we put them together and started yelling at us for doing this without permission, saying it violated their fire code. He was adamant that we said that we were a party of two from the start, which was completely false. He might just be a control freak because we never had to split the tables back up. He just decided to make a scene and walked back inside.
Due to this confrontation, we all felt very awkward as we continued with our meals. None of us even felt comfortable asking for anything when we needed it. We thought our troubles with him were over, but they were not.
When we went to pay for our meals, we tried to split it up five-ways on our debit cards. Big Bean doesn't do this for parties of five or more (which is fine), but this guy had to be rude about it. He said "You know how you guys said you were a party of two originally, and then switched to a party of five? Yeah, well we can't do that for you." Again, we were clear from the beginning that we were a party of five. We didn't think that comment from him was necessary at all.
Again, the people at the Big Bean were all very nice except him, and so I hope this account doesn't scare people away. read more