Justamere - Café | Bistro | Bakery — Restaurant in Antigonish

First visit to this restaurant today. When I walked in, I was pleasantly surprised at the cozy atmosphere as the outside is very… blah. The outdoor seating area was amazing! Our server was very friendly and attentive. For me, this is where everything kind of peaked. For starters, I ordered a vanilla latte. It wasn’t BAD, but wasn’t what I expected from a cafe. It was more Tim Hortons than Starbucks (for an easy comparison). I ordered the fried chicken sandwich for my lunch. Although it had honey garlic chipotle sauce, I was expecting a very southern flavour profile; however, it was more along the lines of like a Korean BBQ profile. The sauce was waaaay too sweet and kind of an odd flavour. It was way more honey than garlic or chipotle. My opinion is irrelevant as I am one person, but I don’t feel this southern style fried chicken burger should have a super sweet profile. The French fries were very bland and lacked any kind of seasoning. Again, my opinion… tossing them in seasoning salt and some parsley flakes goes a long way. On my way out, I figured I’d try a baked good and opted for the safe choice of red velvet cupcakes. Although the icing was fantastic, the cake itself was so bizarre! It was chewy and had a bizarre flavour. I’m a baked good fiend and this was like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. My wife is a baker and she couldn’t even eat it. She scraped the icing off and put it on another treat we had at home. Had we been in a position to return them for a refund, we would have. In conclusion, my first experience here was not great. That said, although I’m hesitant, I’m sure we’ll try...

•• editing my original review from 7 months ago to say that during a recent visit the speed of service had improved a great deal.

My husband and I might have spent about 1/3 of our time in this restaurant on a quiet afternoon actually enjoying our meal. It takes time to make excellent food - and the food is excellent - so we can understand why the kitchen wasn’t exactly fast, But though the service was accurate and friendly, it was exceptionally slow.

We waited to be seated. Then we waited to be provided menus, to have drinks delivered and to have our order taken. The kitchen was about a 20 minute wait (worth it). But the most frustrating of all was the 25 minutes between finishing our meals and being able to pay. My husband left after the first five minutes because by that point we realized it wasn’t going to be quick. He made three transactions - in the mall, the pet store and the grocery store - by the time I was able to settle the bill. He asked where I’d been when I got to the car and was shocked that I was just getting out of the restaurant.

Other than this it was a great experience. A creative menu, amazing ingredients and amazing baked goods. We look forward to visiting again and we will be prepared to be patient, but hopefully they can streamline things to reduce the unnecessary delays - from the customer’s perspective it really does seem like eons and it overshadows the excellent work in...

TWO HOUR WAIT! Yep, we are not the only ones to experience this. Read the other reviews!

When seated with water. We were told that they had a group of fourteen in the patio area and we had to wait for their menu's as that's all the restaurant had. Never asked if we wanted any drinks.

After getting the menu's and placing our order, we noted the table next to us ordered and then wait a bit and left as well as another table get up and leave. After a bit a fella sat at the table next to us. I felt embarrassed and I also felt it was necessary to inform him of what we witnessed and for him not to drink from the water glass where he was seated, as it had been drank from.

During the wait there was no contact or eye contact from staff. The gal serving the fourteen would walk right by us with only two plates every 10 minutes or so. How big is their grill?

After receiving our order, I asked why the two hour wait? I was told, "I told you we had a group of fourteen on the patio."

When we got the bill she gave us 15% off the bill. No tip deserved here, but with a credit card the least listed is 15% LOL

This is a sinking ship, unless something is done...