Fry's Red Wheat Bread Bakery — Restaurant in Victoria

On November 15th I picked up a flour order, paid online, from Fry’s Bread. Baking for nearly two weeks I thought something was odd. The I realized that the “sifted red fyfe flour” was strange: clumpy, darker than normal and very fine. It reminded me of pastry flour. I called the bakery to ask if they knew what might be wrong. That person told me to call the mill. The miller at Nootka Rose (partner with Fry’s) informed me that she could “probably” identify the flour if I saw it. I explained that it was too long a drive (about 40 minutes each way). When I asked for a manager or owner to talk to, she said “No”. She explained that “It may have been a bagging error”. As a customer, one would expect a response like ”Oh, sorry to hear this. Let’s see what we can do”. She could have offered to have the flour brought out to her from the bakery for her to inspect. The next day I drove to the bakery with a small bag of the flour and a slice of the recent bread I’d made with it. First, I asked if I could purchase some sifted red fyfe flour. Unfortunately, they were out so I couldn’t compare it to what I had. I asked the counterperson if there was anyone there who might be able to identify the flour. I was pleased when she got the attention of a couple of bakers(?). One poked at the bag (I suggested that she could open the bag and then throw it out after). She said that “It might be another grain”. That’s all she could offer. I said “Thanks for your time” and bought a couple of pretzels to go. I left a tip. Simple – nobody was yelling, crying, swearing or accusing anyone of any dastardly deeds. Soon after, standing in line at Bakeology, Fry’s owner called me. I greeted him with a chipper “Hey! How ya doing?!” - I thought he was calling to help. He told me that I was no longer welcome at his bakery because I had been rude and disrespectful! Presumably, his staff had told him that someone had questioned a purchase. If anything, the staff may have sensed my exasperation but instead of helping to resolve it in some way, they misinterpreted it. I was stunned, and asked if I could ask him a question. He said “No... you’re an ahole”. I could not believe it. Now, I was livid. Unfortunately, my frustration with the whole issue got the better of me and I couldn’t help but call him a “fing a*hole”. (My bad!) A responsible person, or owner, should have tried to determine what actually transpired. I wasn’t the one who said “bagging error” or “different grain”, etc. How is one supposed to address a negative outcome? Asking questions doesn’t seem to be an acceptable route to take at Fry’s. With all the owner’s history in this industry, somehow he seems to have missed the part about customer service and diplomacy. In his early thirties, I trust he has time to improve. I’ve been in Fry’s “boat” before. It’s easy to see that sometimes employees are uncomfortable trying to help someone if they are not empowered to do so. This philosophy should come from the top down. It is therefore the fault of management, not the consumer. This flour purchase has resulted in a mistake that has cost me about $55 for 10 kg of flour whose identity is unknown. I have plenty of baking (and business) experience, and nothing turned out satisfactorily with this particular flour. If I had known what it was actually milled for, the outcome could have been quite different. So. Ponder this: you go into a butcher shop and ask for minced hamburger meat. You get home and open the package to find minced chicken. What do you do? Does the butcher tell you to call the farm? I could go on... Fry’s Bread has lost this $1000+ per year revenue source, not to mention that of my friends and whoever may read this and may decide to stay away. Most online reviews for Fry’s are positive. Others have experienced negative interactions and some confirm occasional arrogance and rudeness. Customer service may not be part of the business model... CAVEAT EMPTOR! I left about 9 kg of the flour for them to identify and use....

I'm still reeling from my experience here -- we are visiting from Seattle to celebrate my child's birthday, which happened to be today. We planned a surprise day for her at the Raptor center over an hour away in Duncan BC and had to be there by 10am -- because it's in a pretty isolated area you need to bring your lunch with you, so I did some research to find a bakery that was open at 8am that also had premade sandwiches that we could throw in the cooler for our lunch. I was excited to find Fry's Red Wheat Bakery via my internet searching; I called the week before we left and explained our situation and whoever answered the phone there assured me that I could get sandwiches that early and if they weren't in the case already it was no trouble to quickly make us two sandwiches. We arrived at 8:15am and there weren't sandwiches in the case yet so I asked about them. A man working there said they wouldn't be ready until after 9am. I explained that I had called the week before to check on this and what I'd been told. He said that he wasn't the one who had talked to me last week and no they would not make us two sandwiches. I mentioned that we could wait as late as 8:45 -- could they just throw two together in the next 30 minutes? Again they refused. There were five people working and the whole time we were there only two other customers came in. At least two of the five people were standing there with not much or nothing to do. I explained again that this was basically our only chance at having a lunch as we were on a tight schedule and being unfamiliar with the area I didn't know what else was open with sandwiches at 8am. I asked, could they charge me for sandwiches and just hand me a baguette and some loose fillings so we could make the sandwiches ourselves and again they refused. I spent the next 20 minutes in a panic walking up and down the block and then trying to search for an alternative nearby on my mobile phone using maps. Finally I found a Fol Epi bakery near us. We were thankfully able to make it out to them and to the Raptor center exactly on time so we didn't miss any of it. At Fol Epi they wished my daughter a happy birthday -- what a difference! I can't believe that Fry's Red Wheat Bakery was fine with making a 10 year old go without lunch on her birthday for literally no reason. I mean, what kind of...

The product is fantastic as reviewed here but trying to be a regular customer is a frustrating experience. They usually have one person making sales with everyone else working back of house and no one ever stops to help when there is a line. This causes long waits with one person collecting orders and slowly tapping at the machine while customers dig around for exact change, etc. I don't understand the business model as the product is made and sitting there, the bottleneck is getting it out the door! Expect to wait in line, and you will see lots of people take one look at the line and walk away. The other issue is inconsistent hours. There are lots of random closures and holidays which discourages driving out of your way to drop by randomly. If you can catch it open and have the time to stand around for a while you will...