I enjoyed the Pantry when I first moved here 20 years ago, however in visits the last few years (I won a Pantry gift card as part of the town's restaurant week), I seem to hit disappointment after disappointment. (See attached photos and descriptions for some other recent misses.) Today I ordered a cold matcha latte with lavender. The counter server (I believe it was owner Zoe) was quick and friendly, however the drink had a hard to detect flavor of matcha, and was without "mouth feel" of matcha -- more like a clear plastic tumbler of iced milk. The lavender syrup was never blended, and only detected after being able to see it at the bottom of the clear plastic tumbler. (The latte appeared to have been blended -- same pale green color.) All this for around $6. Two stars for the availability of nice kitchen accessories, but I will never order a beverage nor sandwich again. I have come to conclusion that customers return here because it's a nice setting to sit and privately chat with a friend. read more

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The lunch here was out of this world. The freshly baked rye sourdough bread was so tasty. And I had never before had apricot chicken salad. Beyond the food the ambiance inside was adorable, rustic and full of fun houseware. read more

The Pantry - Bakeries Near Me - Washington, Connecticut

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Cute little bakery with delicious items!! Friendly service and timely food arrival. I had the egg cheese on croissant which was very buttery and flakey!! read more

You will be so happy with your choice to eat here! The food was hands-down amazing! It was some of the best food we had on our entire trip. Everyone working there was so kind and friendly to talk to. They even helped us identify some ingredients in what we were eating so we could try to make it at home. The place is quaint and fun to look around after you eat. We ordered a very eclectic plate of food to share. Eggplant parmesan that was made like lasagna, potatoes au gratin, and savory slaw. The eggplant was cooked perfectly, it was the best coleslaw I've ever had, and those potatoes were easily one of my favorite foods of our whole trip! read more

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Been frequenting this spot for 20 years. The food is always great, atmosphere is charming, and it's a fun place to visit.

Zoe and crew are superb. Zoe is a wonderful person, and this is only one of her many strengths as owner/manager. Go for the smoked salmon sandwich, the celeriac remoulade, the baked goods, the cheese selection, the prepared foods and more. There are also well-chosen kitchen wares for sale throughout the store. As some have noted, it can take a while for an order to be filled: the wait is more than worth it and only to be expected for a popular, small shop that makes everything from scratch. read more

Service has a tendency to be a little slow but I promise the wait is worth it! If you're looking for fast and cheap then go to Subway. If you're looking for great flavors and freshness then come here! read more

Wondering staff! Delicious food! Cozy environment! Can't go wrong if you're in the area!

An explosion of taste and A++ food. Love the fresh bread--the best tuna and chicken salads and knockout cookies like the midnight snack.

This place is one of the classiest, best run, most delicious restaurants I've ever been to. When you step in to order, the decor cozy just pulls you in. I browse and find great artisanal olive oils, snacks, and other delights my whole family likes inside. The staff are incredibly kind and warm. They will recommend all sorts of lovely specials and customize your orders. If you call ahead, they've always got you covered. Could not recommend it more. I have them cater all of our holiday meals. 10/10 read more

Zoe of The Pantry is amazing. She knows what she is doing. We asked her to cater a rehearsal dinner for us with her colleague Susan doing the service. Although a small rehearsal dinner - the food hit it out of the ballpark. I gave Zoe the likes and dislikes of the guests and she nailed the menu - We have been eating Pantry food for ages so I knew exactly who I wanted to have cater our dinner. Zoe's crab cakes were out of this world - As we have always said, The Pantry Crab Cakes are the best. Chicken with Tomatillo sauce for others along with farm fresh corn cakes, tomatoes and so much more. Wow! The trio of Sorbet was amazing. read more

The Pantry - a woman preparing food on a table - Bakeries Near Me - Washington, Connecticut

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Really great sandwiches & the iced mocha latte was the best I've had anywhere in Northwest CT. Staff was super friendly & service was great. A cute little shop with a pleasant place to stay & eat. read more

Delicious food, charming staff, astoundingly slow service. Minimum wait is 15min, sometimes considerably longer.

Great quality food; love the soups, fresh breads and pastries and daily specials. Warm, friendly staff makes it feel like home.

Incredible good! Flavor combinations and overall freshness were outstanding! The service was so considerate and inviting. They willing offered other options to items that they were out of for the day. They know their menu well. It takes a little bit for food to come out, but you can wander around in their kitchen store to pass the time. Overall 11/10, love this place! read more

Fantastic food but terrible service. This place has been in business for very long time but just changed ownership and they totally do not know what are doing. What keeps them still in business is the menu which have kept from previous owners. The staff behind the counter jiggle between take out, catering orders, and everything in between. I'll not be surprised if they close soon... while trying to get some food I've witnessed 22people walking away bcs of the malfunctioning. Very sad to see... read more

Zoe and group are doing a great job delivering consistently delicious food. It is my go to place for amazing gluten free sandwiches and soups! A great spot for indoor or outdoor eating. read more

It was a really cute restaurant in a very small town. It's popular amongst all the townspeople. You can get take out (cheaper prices) or a sit down meal. The sandwiches are really really delicious and special...I say this because: + It's all made with homemade bread....really really delicious homemade bread. + the roasted turkey is not "deli meat," they are big chunks of turkey + they give you nice thick portions of the sandwich. I also highly recommend the chicken salad. It was a really quaint place... the small seating area is surrounded by shelves of goods for sale, from olive oil to pasta to local chocolates to kitchen utensils, etc. Cute little aprons are around the store as well. At the counter, you can buy all sorts of homemade desserts as well. Everything looks really cute and delicious. It's a must stop place for lunch if you're in town! read more

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I live in New York and didn't know they were just doing curbside service. They had the menu outside for people to read and call from the parking lot if they had not called ahead. I wasn't getting a signal on my phone and when someone came outside (I think it was the owner?) I asked him if I could order at the outside table he was leaving pick up orders on. He was very nice and let me do that, taking down my credit card number. Very friendly and accommodating and the sandwich I ordered was very good. I took a piece of pumpkin cheesecake home with me and it was also very good. I was talking to another customer outside and he told me they had just recently re-opened after being closed since March. Apparently it's very small inside and they can't do social distancing. They were doing a brisk business while I was there so I assume the locals were happy when they re-opened! Menu looks interesting. They offer free delivery locally so check out the web site. read more

The sandwiches here (specifically the smoked salmon) might be the best I've ever had in my life! I love this place as it's local, the atmosphere is great and the food is fantastic! The staff are also lovely and help with all needs. read more

This place has a great menu from the simple sandwich up thru filet mignon and exotic salads. The homemade soups and baked goods are always fresh and delicious. The new owners have been real troupers as they cope with Covid-related staff shortage and safety rules in a space that's not made for social distancing. You will never be disappointed here. read more

We stopped in at The Pantry for lunch and we had incredible sandwiches and a quiche. Delicious. Then the best homemade cherry pie I've every tasted. I highly suggest this place!! And wonderful staff. So friendly. read more

Great food, very friendly service and charming setting. Absolutely love everything about The Pantry and look forward to having lunch and taking terrific food home. Keith, the chef, and Zoe, in charge of everything else, are delightful, very accommodating and a pleasure to deal with, as was Michael before them. We visit the area every year around Christmas and The Pantry is our absolutely favorite. We ordered our Christmas dinner from them and it was absolutely delicious! We are already looking forward to our stay in the area in December 2023! read more

Zoe and team are the best! the food is delicious, service is awesome, and environment is lovely. i recommend all the baked goods and soups!

This country cafe was quaint with lots to look at, and the menu had lots of wholesome homemade choices. Butternut squash soup definitely deserves 5 stars. It was great. The mile-high apple pie was beautiful and good - but I've had better. Cheddar apple spice muffin was dry and sent back, and it's replacement, blueberry lemon, was okay. What will keep me from returning, however, was the mandatory 20% gratuity added to the $20 check for 2 people. It's not posted anywhere and you don't find out until you pay, and it's too late to object because you've already eaten the food. Even though our waitress was not attentive throughout our meal (we had to ask someone else to replace our dry muffin because she was missing for a while) we probably still would have given her $4-$5 because it's holiday time. But what incentive did she have to provide extraordinary service if she was guaranteed 20% no matter what? read more

The Pantry - Absolutely delicious butternut squash apple soup and mile-high apple pie. - Bakeries Near Me - Washington, Connecticut

I ventured from NYC to buy something I found on Craigslist, so I decided to celebrate my survival of that potentially scary ordeal with this charming neighborhood restaurant. I read 'homemade bread sandwiches' when I skimmed Yelp, and that's all I needed to know. Got a plain ol' smoked turkey sandwich on my choice of bread: white, 7 grain or Newfoundland which is white bread with molasses. I thought he said Finland, which made it even more cool, but whatever it's called, white bread with molasses is SO good. Get it. Eat it. Put it on your face - it's so soft! The smoked turkey sandwich sounds plain, and it is, but sometimes the simplest things taste best - the turkey was flavorful, smokey, not too salty, and just so satisfying. The sandwich was $6, but I walked out with $18 of desserts - three salted caramel brownies which taste like squares of gooey fudge (perfect with a icy cold glass of milk), two pecan brownies (slightly more cakey but still fudgey and every bit amazing), and a slice of chocolate bundt cake because I'm an adult and can eat as many sweets as I want now. I ate the slice of bundt cake for breakfast this morning. I am going to eat the pecan brownie now before bed because I can, and you should too, if you live by The Pantry! read more

I'm not sure this place has there processes down yet. The ordering process is seriously flawed. The cooks and waitresses stand behind a six foot wall of plexiglass and do t seem in any hurry to recognize you or take your order. The prep is painfully slow. People are cued up to order. They need to get their ordering and transactions improved greatly. Food might be great, service is a big issue. read more

Great sandwiches and baked goods if you're looking to get some goods for take out or for a picnic lunch. This is quite a popular spot so it can be a bit busy around the lunch hour, but the food is worth the wait. They also offer a wide range of main course dishes and sides that can be used for dinners or holiday events. Whatever you do, don't skip the bakery items, cakes, and pies which are even offered by the slice! read more

I was planning to be in Washington Depot and I decided to try this place because it gets a lot recommendations over on the Chowhound boards. And now I ask myself, why do I listen to those people? Food 3, Atmosphere 1, Environmental Ethics 5. So. I got an above-average roast beef sandwich: nice pickled onions, spicy horseradish that wasn't too "saucy," lovely roast beef and tomato, outstanding bread. So far so good. My lunching companion got the chicken pot-pie. No comment - a bad sign, coming from this particular lunching companion. We also got a basic beet and apple salad. And the carrot cake, which is the kind I don't like: a spice cake with a few flecks of carrot and a cream cheese frosting that isn't tart and tangy enough. You got to hand it to The Pantry, though. They are serving tarragon chicken salad and a hundred kinds of slaw and root vegetables and roasted turkey platters and, I guess, keeping a certain New England, Martha Stewart, Kate and Allie Caterers spirit alive. And I guess they're doing a good job of it, foodwise. What was really a problem was that the staff were totally overwhelmed during the lunch hour and you felt it. Pretty plates were headed for the dining room and the lunch line was long, but I'm sure it gets that way a lot; it's a popular place. They prep things from scratch and heat things for you, which does take time, but everyone seemed hurried and tense, like *they* felt like it shouldn't take so long, or like they'd had some kind of kitchen catastrophe earlier or something. The staff didn't seem to trust one another to each do their part. And the "gourmet store" decor is pretty annoying. Most of the stuff in there isn't that special as far as I'm concerned. The picnic tables outside are nice enough, except, let's face it, they are in a countrified parking lot. I think my favorite thing about this place is their environmental choices: they compost their veggie waste, they have a second trash can out back for "chicken feed" and they pack your to-go food in paper containers. read more

The Pantry is a pretty amazing place and I am glad that they are close by. The sandwiches are delicious and I can say without a doubt that you have either never tasted a sandwich this good or it has probably been a long time. This is not your average sandwich shop, this is a gourmet shop. They also sell bread, deserts, and deli items. The cucumber dill sauce is freakin amazing and the new found land bread is a favorite of mine as well. read more

I live in Washington and have been here many times, so I feel like I can make a pretty good assessment of the place. The food is fantastic - everything is fresh, everything is served and plated well, and the quality of ingredients used is wonderful. You won't find a bad sandwich, breakfast item, or dessert here. At least, I haven't had one so far... The staff is also very nice - they'll direct you anywhere in Washington or the locations nearby, give you the "real scoop" on certain things in town, and joke with you after you get to know them...they're great. Why the 4 instead of 5 stars? It's just about price point & ambience if you do sit down. The space is congested, limited, and crowded with small kitchen items you can buy. Maybe some people find the items charming...so it's personal taste. Frankly, we use them for periodic take-out and in my opinion, that's what they're best for. Have a craving for a brownie, piece of pie or a sandwich? You'll get a great one here. read more

Hmmm. I've never experienced any difficulty with the owner of this establishment. He always seems like a nice, sensitive guy to me. I love The Pantry for being one of the most classy, delicious, yet down-to-earth restaurants in NW CT. The food is delicous. Last time I got the cheese, fruit, and bread plate and the local brie-like cheese was absolutely wonderful. The bread that came with it was very fresh indeed. The fruit was like, one cut up strawberry, but who cares? The bread and cheese were very fine, and I got them for like nine bucks. I guess people may have a beef with the lack of atmosphere, but I like hanging out in beige and pink effete gift shops. So suck it. Anyway, The Pantry FTW. read more

Off the beating path but a great find. Friendly staff and more importantly excellent food.

Honestly I use to love this place but after the new ownership, it's changed a lot. Don't get me wrong, there food is great! But constantly rude. I have talked to multiple other people who feel the same way. I have no problem waiting for a great meal. But the way they treat their customers is absurd. Not once (within the last month) have I come and had an ok experience. Honestly I'm quite sad to be writing this because I use to live for this place. If they continue this way, no one will be going back. The workers make it seem like you are an inconvenience to be there. read more

I cannot say enough about how much I love The Pantry. I have lived in Washington half my life and eaten at The Pantry more often than I should admit. My only caution is that everyone loves The Pantry so you should be prepared for lines and longer waits. Now, for the food... Breakfast: Eat the quiche!!! This is frequently prepared by Martin who is a phenomenal chef. If you are not into eggs, try the cherry-brandy scone. This pastry is crispy and perfectly moist. Lunch: Either eat the oven-roasted turkey sandwich, chicken salad sandwich or Sam sandwich. All the options are amazing, try them all on the baguette. read more

If you are anywhere near Washington Connecticut you need to visit the Pantry - the owner is personally involved in the day to day operation - super friendly place and always greeted with a smile - the menu is always changing and fresh - they always have a great selection of kitchen items for sale from great gadgets to full on bakeware and a nice collection of picnic baskets and picnic backpacks. read more

This was my first time here and came for lunch at a friend's recommendation. Pantry is a warm, bustling, lively country community center where fresh baked breads, deli, gift shop, bakery, catering and restaurant combine into one fabulous local institution. Everyone here is happy...the lunch has wonderful gourmet sandwiches including the best roast beef sandwich of my life. Or you can opt for a variety of salads, entree including brisket over noodles, pork chops, salmon, etc. Pantry is a gem and an amenity to the Washington area. read more

Tasteful and mindfully prepared homemade foods. A 3 star by normal means but given the lack of options in this area it gets a bump. No Internet in this area so prepare in advance. Cafe and shops here are decent as well but not a lot of population to merit highest quality or Darwinian survival creating the best, despite the costs! read more

If you want beautifully crafted food this is definitely the place to go! I do not recommend taking children to eat in as there is too much to touch but their take out is how to get around that and the high quality food is worth not eating in. read more

Flavorful, fresh ingredients, simply delicious. My favorites include the carrot ginger soup, vegetarian sandwich, curry chicken salad and the trailblazer cookies. My daughter loves the mac and cheese, peanut butter cookies and the tarragon chicken salad. My husband goes for the fresh baked breads, cheeses and salami. All around great place to enjoy food! read more

The Pantry - Vegetarian sandwich w/havarti and pickled onions. Out of this world one of my many favorites at The Pantry. - Bakeries Near Me - Washington, Connecticut