My boyfriend and I were very excited to see a new brunch place opening up in the neighborhood. We wanted to love this place, we really did. But we just couldn't.
First, the positives: as other reviewers have said, the decor looks nice, they serve Panther Coffee and Zak the Baker bread and they use local produce. Their food also tastes good too. But all that isn't enough to draw us back to Threefold Cafe any time soon. There are just too many kinks this place needs to work out.
The biggest issue is how expensive this place is for what can only be described as unusually small portions. I ordered the smashed avo and my boyfriend had the phenomenal fungi. Both dishes, which cost $12 and $14, are served with only ONE small slice of bread on the plate (with the ingredients served atop the slice). That's it. Neither dish comes with any sides. Not realizing how small their portions were, we ordered two $2 sides-- roasted rosemary tomatoes and sautéed spinach. Neither side dish was even large enough to share. The roasted rosemary tomatoes dish consisted of half of a tomato, not "tomatoes" as the menu description implies, and the spinach is basically just a few leaves of cooked spinach. I'd say both side dishes are enough for about 2-3 bites worth of food. They're clearly meant to be individual portions, which the waitress didn't tell us so that we could have doubled our order if we'd wanted to. We were shocked by how small the portions were, which isn't an issue you encounter that often outside of a tapas or really high end restaurant. I don't mind spending $15 or more per person on brunch, but when I do, I expect to get enough food to fill me up until my next meal. Instead, both of us were starving within 2 hours of eating at Threefold. The owners should really consider serving some sort of potatos, like roasted potatoes or hashbrowns, as a side on all their main dishes, since none of currently come with a side dish as far as I'm aware. Potatoes are a cheap enough ingredient and they fill people up! At the moment, there isn't even a potato option on the menu. I've never seen a brunch place that doesn't serve potatoes. And it's definitely not a health-conscious choice, since a lot of their dishes contain a good amount of butter. The bread on both our dishes was coated with butter.
To highlight the portion size point further, there was a party of two women sitting at the table next to us who must have gotten the portion size memo because we noticed that they ordered three main dishes plus a few sides to share among them. If you're going to try this place out, that's probably the appropriate amount of food that two people need to actually fill up here. All told, with coffee and a juice added in (and tip included), our bill came to over $45. There no reason we should still have been hungry after a brunch that costs so much.
There are some other issues they need to work out as well. There was only one waitress working when we went along with two of the co-owners. The two co-owners weren't exclusively waitressing, so at times, this girl was the only one working the tables. She appeared to be completely overwhelmed, despite the restaurant only being about half full and seemed to have an inefficient way of working multiple tables at once, so there was a lot of running around going on. Also, the water glasses are miniature-sized, so we kept needing refills. At times it took her a long time to come by. Then when she did come by, she kept asking if we'd like more. After a while, it got annoying, and we finally told her politely she could just keep bringing it--no need to ask every single time. Obviously, the size of the water glasses wasn't all that well thought out (they'd be better off going to the dollar store and loading up on normal size water glasses). Nor were the unfinished wood tabletops well thought out. It may seem like a trivial criticism, but the wood on their tables is so rough that we couldn't comfortably rest our forearms on the table without feeling like we were going to get splinters. Although there's a large ,10-person farmhouse style table in the center of the restaurant which is beautifully finished (and probably will rarely get used since most parties are smaller than that), none of the smaller tables appeared to be finished. They also don't serve any alcohol (at least at the moment), so don't expect to be able to order a mimosa or bloody mary with your brunch.
While I really wish I could have given this place 5 stars, it has a ways to go. It's a diamond in the rough at this point. I took the time to write this review, because the owners seemed like nice people and the place does have potential, so I'd like to see it survive. I'm really hoping they'll work out the kinks so we can come back. But for now, we'll stick to one of the other brunch spots in the area, like Angelique Euro Cafe or Eating House, where you get more bang for your buck. read more