The Tall and Small Cafe — Restaurant in Antigonish

Visited at lunchtime; it was busy, but not that busy It took a half hour to get to the cash. The person taking orders seemed to be chill, so chill that they contributed to a long wait. When we finally ordered, it was a pleasant experience. Because you pay first, you must leave a tip before being served. I wish I could get my tip back. We were in a bit of a rush, driving to see friends before hitting the road again, the wait to order was long, but it was a sunk cost by the time we ordered, or so we thought. When we sat down to wait for our food, four tables had ordered before us. We didn’t get our food for another 45 minutes, 1 hour and 15 minutes to get soups and sandwiches. We finally asked about the wait, indicating that we had a schedule we were trying to keep. The only thing the staff offered was to pack up our meals to go. We were with two kids who ordered chilli; by this point, they were starving and asked if they could at least get their food sooner. Read, please spoon chilli in a bowl and bring it to the table. They refused, saying that they do one order at a time, a good rule in principle, but not when the people in the kitchen are moving in slow motion. We finally got our food. When it came, we asked for water, but they never brought it. One of the bowls of chilli was cold; the other was hot. We ordered cheese on top of one bowl of chilli; it did not come. Also, the chilli was more like a vegetable soup with a few beans than a chilli. We ordered an Asian dressing for a side salad accompanying one of the sandwiches; we got a ranch dressing. Maybe the kitchen decided to punish us because we complained. The food wasn’t terrible, but the service left a bad taste in our mouths. I would not recommend the Tall and Small Cafe, and I won’t be...

Coming here was a big mistake. We came because a local friend recommended it, and we were passing through town on the way to Cape John. at 12:30pm on a Friday we waited in a long line 25 minutes to order the food, which should have been our first clue. After ordering 4 sandwiches (JUST SANDWICHES ON BREAD - not fancy baked things or whatever) and three bowls of "chili" we waited more than an hour for the food to arrive. After 40 minutes of waiting for food we asked if they could speed it up because we needed to get back on the road. We were told they had a policy to only make the food in the order it was ordered and their were still 3 orders ahead of us. We then waited another 20-30 minutes - I was watching and in this time they were making 7 sandwiches. In case folks are saying "yes, but staffing issues, etc etc...) there were 5 people working and there were about 10 tables. So not a bad staff ratio. The food was NOT worth the wait. It was very basic. Lastly if you see "Soup of the Day: Veggie Chili" on the menu you might expect to receive Chili. Instead we received tomato-based minestrone vegetable soup, and it was warmish but not hot.Twice we asked for water and twice two different people said they'd bring it and didn't. What time did we leave this basic sandwich shop? 2:30 - a full 2 hours after we arrived. I can't for the life of me understand how this place has the...

Pleasantly surprised. We were passing through on a trip and found this little gem because we kept seeing people go inside and thought it must be not bad. They were more than that. The ingredients were fresh, the bread - homemade - was really good. We had their homemade burger sandwich as well as a make your own sandwich. Both were truly delicious and as good as any we've ever had anywhere if not better. The ambience was cafe-like, comfortable, artistic, and the crowd was pleasant with all ages patronizing. Definitely worth your dropping in for lunch breakfast or just a quick bite. Although we didn't use the electrical outlets, they had them at every table and we saw someone decked out on their laptop looking very comfortable working there in their free wifi. All in all we had a...