Green Sage Cafe Merrimon — Restaurant in Asheville

Update:

Shanda C., thanks for your response to my original review. It does not, however, address the house policy issue of how to be sure that the first come are first served, whether there is staff shortage that day or not.

My suggestions are:

train the kitchen staff to ring the bell every couple minutes until an order is taken away from the ready window.

train the front counter staff to prioritize retrieving ready orders for a waiting customer instead of choosing to serve latter customers their drinks or food first.

train the front counter staff to limit personal conversation with customers when there is a line or people have already ordered standing at the counter with a request.

All that said, I did take your suggestion and come try the place again. My second visit began as the first did, with (Lydia, maybe her name tag says) the same woman taking my order. She is amazing and fun and funny, working attentively and quickly and adding sound affects and wise suggestions to her interactions with me as I select from the menu, order, and pay. She even had what seemed like an unexpected and very excited visit from a best friend (who also ordered as a customer), but limited interactions with this person until she finished taking my order and making and serving my drink. I enjoyed my food more this visit and was served it promptly after it came up in the window and the bell was rung. I’ve changed my rating from 3 to 4 stars and will likely be back. Thanks.

Original Review:

Service not quick enough for me. I was greeted promptly and my order taken quickly. I went to my table and waited. My sandwich came up and sat in the kitchen window for a few minutes. I approached the counter and got nothing more than quick glance from the cook. The second counter staff person had disappeared and the only one there had a line of customers and was chatting on and on with one of them about prescription glasses style and cost. She finished taking that order and told the woman “I’ll get your coffee now.” I interjected and asked gently “will you please hand me my sandwich first, it’s been up for a while.” She declined and got the lady her coffee first. I received apologies and sympathies from that customer and others in line, and then was handed my sandwich. Perhaps the kitchen staff needs a bell or to holler “order up” every couple minutes until food is picked up and delivered to the table. I don’t want to wait 5 minutes for a sandwich to sit in the window when I’m on my way to work. Sandwich was dry, needed mustard and mayo, but I didn’t ask because I assumed I would be waiting a...

I ordered pancakes and they were served overdone on the top and crispy with a slightly burnt taste. I ate one to give them the benefit of the doubt and then returned the other. They are redoing them for me, but I’m leaving a 3 star food review because yoo just can’t serve burnt pancakes to a customer. You have to look at them and say, “would I eat these?” If the answer is no, then don’t serve them to me. If the answer is yes, then Green Sage needs to find someone who passes off overdone pancakes as okay. I do love this place and usually it’s great, but today I’m disappointed and that’s never good to disappoint an Asheville local because then I’ll share my experience with others and we don’t want that, right? I hesitated to even write a review. It’s just two pancakes and not war and peace. But if you serve me overdone pancakes and I have to even think about writing a negative review, that’s a problem. I’ve already returned the second pancake and didn’t realize I could take a photo for this review so there’s no pic but you’ll have to trust this happened. They are fixing it and I haven’t gotten the second set yet. We’ll see...

This used to be one of my favorite restaurants in town, but lately they're just not cutting it. They've implemented their "10% service fee" on everything which is just simply tacked on to the price, much like tickets from Ticketmaster or an airline, rather than just increasing all of their prices. I've never heard of a restaurant doing this. I don't care if it's to pay your employees more...just be upfront and increase your price already and pay them what you will. Your customers aren't buying the food from you because of what you pay your employees. They're buying it from you because they think it's a better value than your competition. On my last visit I ordered a hamburger and fries with water to drink and it was almost $18. Last time I checked that's what I paid at Biltmore. Unfortunately the burger was much smaller than it has been in the past and left me still plenty hungry. So now we are paying more for a smaller amount of food. This is used to be one of the best options in North Asheville, but I'm afraid with this new business model they are destined for the same fate as their...