The French Hen Cafe
| Address: | 518 Selby Ave, St Paul, MN 55102, USA |
| Phone: | +1 651-222-6201 |
| Site: | frenchhencafe.com |
| Rating: | 4 |
| Working: | 8AM–2:30PM 8AM–2:30PM 8AM–2:30PM 8AM–2:30PM 8AM–2:30PM 8AM–2:30PM 8AM–2:30PM |
Location
Photos 100
Reviews 7
A
A Mirta
Our experience at The French Hen was awful. Im not exaggerating. I think we could have eaten at any other restaurant in MN and the food/service would have been better. The cafe was fairly busy upon our arrival, but quickly cleared out. I ordered the croque monsieur and my husband ordered some generic sandwich with a cup of soup. It took over 45 minutes for us to get our food. I didnt understand it. There were hardly any diners in the restaurant. How hard is it to heat up soup and make two sandwiches? The food was bad but the service was awful. The server took our order and ignored us for the next 45 minutes until she brought our food. No apologies for the lateness, no explanation. The table next to ours was equally unhappy. There were six women there for lunch. The server apparently took half their order then disappeared for some unknown reason. She never returned. When one of the ladies tried to flag down another server/busser to finish the order, this server/busser turned away from the lady and walked away. I was upset that my husband and I wasted a valuable afternoon eating nasty food with incompetent service when we could have gone anywhere else. My husband actually made the mistake of tipping 20% and I made him reduce the tip. I wouldnt have tipped at all. Bottom line: okay concept but staff failed miserably. Sorry folks. Im in this industry and this was just not acceptable. Readers, save your money and go elsewhere. ANYWHERE.
A
A Private User
Horrible service. We called ahead and asked if we could reserve a table as we were leaving home, and were told yes that one was ready for us. Upon arrival, they told us they gave away the table, and that we had to wait 10 minutes, which we were not very concerned about. When a table open for us, no one would seat us... Finally after asking if we could take the open table (next to the wait to be seated sign), it took 20 minutes to get our order in. From the time we ordered our drinks to receiving coffee was about 30 minutes. The food came about 1.5 hours after ordering. During this whole time, no one came to our table to offer more coffee, or anything for that matter. I had to refill my own coffee. The servers appeared to not have had any experience in the restaurant business, or any training. The food tasted fine, however, each dish, even though a few were the same items, were prepared inconsistently both in cooking and in portions. It is clear that the owners who decided to plagiarize Bon Vie (who used to be in the same location, but who moved just down the street) are not very good restauranteurs. We had debated going to Bon Vie or the French Hen, and karma got us for passing on Bon Vie. Skip the French Hen, as Ive never had service this horrible in a restaurant....
3
3 Boys and a Monkey
This was a small French restaurant located in the Twin Cities. I love French food, and I happened to be in the Twin Cities some time ago (they really are not known for great food). The logical assessment: go and eat. Review: French food? This was American food with double the normal amount of eggs in it. How is that French food? I saw eggs, eggs, and more eggs in every single dish. If I eat like that every day, I would die of high cholesterol! Really, they need to cut down on their eggs. Enough about eggs. The first dish up was a wall-eye salad. The fried wall-eye was actually not bad, but it was definitely over-priced. The overall salad taste with the veggies and potatoes was not too good. It had an egg in it. After that came a salmon dish. It had salmon sandwiched between two rice-cake sort of things. Two more eggs came with this. The crepe was not chewy at all. It seemed like they took out a piece of pastry from a pre-packaged bag and then dumped some fruits and sauces on it. Crepe also contains egg. So here is my review. I do not recommend it.
BR
Bryan Bedessem
Stopped in around 11am on Labor Day with an understandable 10 minute wait behind 2 couples. We elected the outdoor table that was not bussed yet over the cleaned one inside. My wife and I both worked in the service industry and give the benefit of the doubt to all servers. After 20 minutes with multiple trips by our table, our table was still not cleared. The server was clearly clueless, could not multitask, and had a very poor attitude. One table next to us had been waiting for 1.5 hours with 2 very hungry, yet patient kids. We venture to many small breakfast places and understand the challenges they face during a rush. There is no excuse for poor service nor a poor attitude towards your customers. On this rare occasion, we actually walked out. It was clear it was not going to get any better from hearing what the neighboring tables were experiencing. The menu looked amazing, but was not worth the poor service. We may try to eat here again, but after this experience it will be awhile before we try again.
EL
Elle S
Fresh, clean food at very reasonable prices. Lots to choose from on the menu! On a Monday at 1:45pm the wait was a bit long for our food (with just a few parties eating); however the staff was friendly and Cafe is pleasant to sit in. Outside sidewalk seating seemed a biy noisy with cars wizzing by but we had no trouble finding a nice, sunny spot near the window. Everything looked clean, and I appreciated the changing table and step stool in the restroom. My only suggestion to the chef would be to include more cream and fruit on the berry crepe. There was a large and delicious crepe with no filling and a very small amount of berries on top (difficult to share especially) for $8. We look forward to stopping by again soon to try more!
D
D LaCroix
So heres the problem - I really do love the food at this place; when its on its ON... but they are always understaffed so service is slow, food quality is unreliable. We tried to have breakfast there Labor Day morning, there were a few empty tables but they hadnt been cleaned. After waiting 10 minutes with no acknowledgement and no tables cleaned we opted for another place down the street. It was just as busy, the food also good, but they were properly staffed. We were seated immediately - in and out in 45 minutes. So French Hen people ***please*** fix your staffing and service problems before its too late.
BR
Brett Colliton
It took forever to be seated with lots of open tables. Then we ordered a cinnamon roll and it took forever to get but it was delicious. Then we finally got to order and it took 45 minutes plus to get our food and it was ice cold. THE FOOD WAS GREAT!!! Its unfortunate we had such a bad experience today maybe Ill try it again but the service was horrible and the food was served cold and after all of that it was still delicious. All in all it took over 2 hours to eat brunch and the place was never very busy. I cant say enough how great the food is (even cold) but our experience was still pretty bad.
