08/29/09

Excellent Food!

by Whitman2002

My family and I love Essential Bakery! The food and beverages are absolutely amazing. You need to try their soup and sandwich combo. You won’t be disappointed. I am always excited by their selection of creative and tasty dishes. The prices are a tad on the expensive side and the portion sizes (especially breakfast) are a little small. However, the taste and quality of the food cannot be rivaled. The menu does change a bit...so don't fall in love with one dish, as they may not have it the next time you go. Over all, I LOVE this place for a hot cup of organic coffee or lunch with girlfriends. Highly recommend!

PS - The barista was a little rude to me once when I asked her to make my latte again...I asked for decaffeinated and got caffeinated coffee which doesn't sit well with my system. Definitely not Starbucks service...but the coffee is better quality.

• Pros: Location, Food, Atmosphere etc.
• Cons: Small Portions, Inconsistent Menu

07/30/07

Wish I could like it...

by young5977

We only live a few blocks away from the EBC. It's so convenient that I wish I could like it. I want to like it. But I don't. The food is okay and the breads are fine (albeit not quite comparable to the Grand Central and Macrina's). But I can't get past the snotty staff. Who hires these people? If they were moderately considerate or pretended quasi-convincingly to give a darn about their customers, I'd visit a lot more often. Surely there are some nice-ish twenty-somethings with the requisite number of body piercings in need of a job....

• Pros: It's close to home and will do in a pinch
• Cons: The bratty staff.

04/12/07

Was better two years ago, before greed replaced commitment to quality...

by calaha

I have a hard time rating Essential Baking Co., because I really would like to have rated it before their overhaul last year. In fact, I would just like it to be like it was two years ago. Either way, I'm not going to give you a better review of the service - this place is an employment haven for rockabilly punks, and punk kids in general. They all seem to love working there, and like each other - quite obviously more than the customers. However, I have never had a really bad experience with them.

My primary beef with Essential is the brainless greed that went into their menu change around a year ago or more. They basically took everything off the menu which was really really good, but probably cost more to make, minimized the portions and raised the prices. Of course, they kept the things that were cheap and tasted terrible -- I do NOT understand how anyone could like their tuna sandwich - I didn't know you could make tuna taste that bad! They even cut some of their most popular signature items, and got enough protest that one or two were readded. But overall, there are only a couple of thing worth eating on their menu now, and since they cut out everything my boyfriend liked, I don't get to go there anymore.

Before then, I would have said it was a near-perfect place. Now it's just average, and certainly not worth the money.

• Pros: Coffee is good, and they are one of the few places that carry rice milk.
• Cons: Limited selection, nearly nothing suitable for kids