The Rhu — Restaurant in Asheville

I just spoke by phone with Luca, a Supervisor at the Rhu. Lots of things make this a 1 Star standout. 1. Their credit card system defaults to a 20% tip for COUNTER SERVICE. I noticed after we sat down to eat (Dec 5, 2023) that I was charged a tip of $6.10 (20%) on a meal for 2 costing $30.50. Its easy to miss that you're being ripped off by default when you're signing for the bill, because its normal decency for the customer to choose the tip percentage, not the restaurant - especially in a countertop restaurant. And if I am choosing to pay 20%, its for extremely good service in a restaurant where I am wined and dined by the staff (i.e. exceptional service) - not for COUNTER SERVICE where the restaurant defaults my bill to 20%, and where customers wait on themselves. Luca promised to refund the $6.10 tip later today, and went on to explain to me that our sandwiches were brought to our table, and that the staff DOES works for tips. Chik-fil-A also brings my order to my table, but does not have the audacity to default me to a 20% tip. And for $6.10, I'll bring my sandwich to my own table, thank you, if that's all that I'm getting for my $6.10. The receipt suggests a 20% tip, but the system doesn't suggest, it defaults to 20%, and its very easy to miss that you're being defaulted into a 20% tip right before you sign. In a countertop restaurant its managment's responsibility to pay employees a fair wage (by increasing the price of the offerings if that's what they feel they need to do, although those higher prices also risks losing customers) or by defaulting to $0.00 tip and allowing me to choose the tip amount that I feel is deserved, not the other way around. From my perspective, the Rhu is by default not paying its employees a proper wage, and is defaulting customers into paying 20% to make up for management's choice to pay its employees less; 2. the 2 sandwiches (Pastrami Rueben and Chicken Salad) we ate at the Rhu were ordinary ... nothing to write home or Google Reviews about; and maybe the most egregious thing is that 3. the Rhu describes itself on Google as "Homemade Breads" but then right on the menu states that my sandwich is served on Levain Bread. When ordering, I asked if by Levain they meant Old World Levain Bakery, and was told YES. What the Rhu is not telling you then, on the menu, is that the Levain bread is NOT Homemade, although the Rhu brags on Google that their bread is Homemade. Its Levain is actually baked at Old World Levain (OWL) Bakery, a most incredible 5 star Asheville bakery. What would you call a restaurant that tries to take Homemade credit on Google for another bakery's bread? Would it be something like "PLAGIARISM"? This restaurant should be named the RHUDE,...

Of course we chose this place because we are Foodies. We ordered a $60 breakfast for two people. We wanted to taste everything. The homemade bagel was good. I don't care for the star anise or fennel. It gave too much licorice taste for a bagel. However, the texture was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside deliciousness! The chicken salad sandwich on the homemade crunchy sourdough bread! What an awesome sandwich, the pickles were perfect on it. The pastrami Rueben with homemade sauerkraut was equally as fantastic. Crunchy bread, wonderful seasoning on the pastrami and in the sauerkraut just made for a fabulous juicy sandwich. Oh my goodness! Our favorite thing! The homemade biscuit and homemade gravy and homemade collards with an excellent scrambled egg! The flavors were the experience that I will be back for. Awesome fluffy biscuit combined with that awesome homemade gravy I could go on forever. This place is a must try! We will be back if only to come by this restaurant for breakfast. We also took a four pack of English muffins to go. They are fluffy and crunchy and delicious. I'm enjoying them at home with crunchy peanut...

I gave this place a rave review on FB last year, but had to update for this particular visit. We make it a point to come here when in town because, though pricey and extremely slow (we have finished our coffees every single time waiting for food), we have enjoyed our food in the past. Saturday was very different. We got country ham biscuits (no mayo) that had a ton of fat. We asked for jam, but got no jam with the biscuits we got. We also got a sandwich that we’d gotten before and loved. This time it was not grilled as before, but rather had melted butter on the outside and not one bit of brown so we weren’t sure it even made contact with anything that would have toasted it at all. I took one bite and was done with this $12 sandwich. I’m not sure if the collards on it weren’t drained or what it was, but it was falling apart and pretty disgusting. I put it away and just had one of the pastries we’d gotten for lunch as we were here for an event and couldn’t get away. With coffee, these few things were over $50 and we pretty much ate pastries which were good. Very disappointed with...