Blue Baker

Reviews 4

MA

Master Gohring

I was excited to try something new ... I think I got a mailer or something and I might have heard something reading a Chronicle review but I dont recall ... but I took my staff up to the Arboretum to try Blue Baker. It was confusing at first and the people are not trained for new people like me. I said to two different order-taker-food-prep-people, this is our first time here and the first one said, "ok" ... so I stared at the menu ... and then another order-taker-food-prep-person said "may I take your order" ... I replied, "no, not yet, its our first time here" ... "let me know when you are ready" ... so that takes two stars off for me. Cafeteria type unfriendliness. So, how about a "Welcome to Blue Baker. First time here... you should try our ... a lot of people like the ... what are you in the mood for?" I think where they got wrong is having kitchen people take orders. Friendly helpful cashiers (once I finally got to them) ... were much better. There is a reason that these tasks are kept separate. I own a small cafe and my kitchen guy is awesome at making sandwiches, breakfast tacos and doing tons of prep. He is not consistently friendly. I would never have him work the counter. So to give credit to the order-taker-food-prep-people, once we told them what we want, they did a great job making it and the food was good. Once I get to know how it works here and what is good on the menu I think I might like it. Like I said, just not great for a first-timer like ... or perhaps I needed to have come here with someone who is a regular first. I had ordered the soup and salad (broccoli cheese soup and smoked salmon salad). As a first-timer I didnt understand that it is really the soup and side salad I ordered. I could have figured that out by looking at the price but I looked through the salads ($9) and assumed that I would be adding a soup to that ... only after then gave it to me did I see that the soup and side salad was around $9 too ... so of course it would be a side salad. I had got the smoked salmon side salad and only then realized it was not grilled salmon (my fault) ... which is something I typically get at other restaurants. The friendly cashier had no problem letting me get something else. I got the club, blue club or something ... it was good ... on a croissant ... my staff got chips and a roast beef something which they said was good ... my other staff got a pizza which she loved ... olive oil as the base ... which now she wants to try at home and I think she also got the greek salad which she liked too. Oh, there coke syrup was out, which at the time (hungry and annoyed) I didnt feel like letting them know. Assuming I come back I will make an update but there are a number of other restaurant in the Arboretum I still havent tried. Hope this had some use for you.

JE

Jeffrey Gipson

I should probably start the review with a disclaimer: I had breakfast, not lunch. Although empty, there were a few dirty tables. Service was confusing. Its apparently counter-service, but despite the fact that there was a stack of electronic pagers, we were neither issued a number nor a pager. Instead our food was walked to us after paying, while we were pouring our coffee at the coffee dispenser station, and handed awkwardly to us as we were trying to balance a plate (with no tray) and our coffee. It would have been better if they waited until we picked a table and walked the plates straight there, if they didnt want to issue a number/pager. While Im on coffee, they dont offer milk, cream, or half-and-half at the coffee station. To the credit of the staff, they cheerfully gave us half-and-half upon request at the counter. I had expected that a place that either bills itself as a "Café" and/or a "Bakery" should certainly have real dairy products at the coffee bar, where they only offered "Coffee Mate." The coffee-itself was good. Finally, the food wasnt what I expected. The sausage patties and eggs were institutional. I mean, the patties were obviously formed in a food factory somewhere, and the eggs were a very homogeneous yellow fluff that reminded me of eggs at a low-end hotel chain. I wont mention which one, but I mean a $99/night kind of place with no kitchen that seems to produce a breakfast buffet. The eggs and sausage were dorm food. My wife had a crescent breakfast sandwich. She said the dough tasted like it was over sweetened. That was her only complaint. As a breakfast café, this place flunks; but perhaps it isnt much of a breakfast place. Perhaps, I will go their sometime for lunch and try their pizza and purchase a loaf of bread to take home and try that as well and see if the experience is better. My advice to the owners: If pizzas, sandwiches and salads are your thing, then ditch the fake eggs and factory sausage; OR, get serious and start preparing eggs and sausage in-house.

AL

Allie Ogden

This restaurant was the main reason that I wanted to move to Austin (the only other Blue Bakers are in College Station, so that wasnt an option). Ive had things from just about every category on the menu, and I havent been disappointed with anything Ive eaten here yet. Among my favorite things are the chocolate croissants, fresh berry tarts, potato soup, neapolitan pizza, and apple walnut chicken salad (if youre looking for food recommendation). Its worth it to go here for the bread alone as they make it all fresh instead of having it shipped from another location. You can even watch as they prepare the dough for the next day (or the one after that). Most of the customer-facing staff are very nice, although there are a couple of people who just want to get their job done (as is the case with almost any service establishment). All-in-all, Im writing this review because this is my favorite restaurant in Austin, and I would be completely heartbroken and at a loss if it had to close for any reason, as I hear that its location has been unlucky with regards to businesses staying open. This is how passionate I am about the restaurant.

MI

Mike Hinshaw

My wife and I decided to give this restaurant a second chance, as she had been before and had not had a good experience. We were in at around 12:30 PM on September 24, 2013 and they had a full staff. Service was okay, but the food was terrible. My wife ordered a Tejas Blue with turkey and "hot sauce". The turkey had absolutely no taste and the hot sauce tasted like ketchup. I ordered the Blueben, which is supposedly a version of a Reuben. The bread was decent. The corned beef had zero taste and could not have been even a mid level product. The Swiss cheese was also tasteless and the overriding flavor was the sauerkraut (at least from the ingredients perspective). The most atrocious flavor was the "signature dressing". It had been populated with an extra dose of pickle juice and left a disgusting taste in my mouth until I got home and rinsed. I can say emphatically that we will not be back and I can not with any clear consciousness recommend this restaurant to anyone. We were going to purchase a loaf of their artisan bread, but after the sandwich experience we nixed that idea and left. Save your money and your taste-buds.