Ok, we were in the middle of Reseda for a morning appointment, hadn't eaten breakfast yet, and needed to drive to North Hollywood. I was in a car with 5 hangry people, including 3 kids, and I was one of them. So we were driving and looking for someplace that served breakfast and would be quick to eat. It was about 1130am, so we knew the regular places would be closed for breakfast already. We drove by this Panera and I totally thought we could get breakfast food there so we parked around the corner and walked back. I couldn't tell which driveway was the right one for the "parking in the back." No matter. We all walked up to the counter and I was salivating over all the different breakfast options displayed on the overhead menu. There was a staff member standing there waiting to take our order. She was super friendly and patient, even after we told her we might take a while to be ready, since we've never been there before and had 5 different people trying to figure it out. She smiled and said, "It's ok. I'll be here if you have any questions." Awesome. So we started discussing the breakfast options and then she informed us they were no longer serving breakfast. I'm not gonna lie, it took the wind out of my sails. Bummer. So we had to convince the kids it would be ok and we ordered several lunch options. Nobody in our party was happy about this, but the girl at the counter kept her smile and continued to provide great service to us. We ordered a Flatbread pizza, grilled cheese sandwich, Mac n cheese, bagel with cream cheese, 2 coffees for the adults and some fountain drinks for the kids. As I turned around to serve our coffee, I stood back and waited for the homeless guy to warm up his Hot Pockets in the microwave. When he left I tried to serve some hazelnut flavored coffee but only got 1 cupful and the dispenser was empty. I notified the girl at the cashier and she got to changing it right away. But as I didn't want to wait, I chose to serve some other light blend for myself. I prepared both cups with cream and sugar, and when I went to taste my light blend, it was cold. Deflated again, I didn't have to heart to wait for the new hazelnut, so I just went to sit down with my family and my cold coffee. Obviously I gave the warm cup to my wife because, well, I'm a good husband....but I digress.
So we got buzzed when our order was ready, picked it up at the counter and sat back down to eat. The food was....well, meh. The grilled cheese sandwich had that super thick bread and the cheese was not melted thoroughly. The mac n cheese had that white cheddar cheese and shell pasta. Nobody really liked that one. The pizza was good but how can you mess that up? Also the artisan bread was amazing as well. A bagel is a bagel.
When we were done, and we were walking back to our car, I felt like I had just eaten a bunch of bread and my stomach was stuffed. But not, like, in a good way. It was more of a way that felt like I was so hungry, I'll just eat a ton of bread to fill my stomach and basically, that's what we did. It did not leave the best impression. But I will say the service was great. I'm willing to give them another shot sometime but I'll be back earlier so I can enjoy the breakfast menu next time. read more