la Madeleine — Restaurant in Austin

First let me just say, bless their hearts. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they’re all just brand new to this gig. But bless their hearts.

I step up to order a custom crepe - chicken, tomato, mushroom. The (extremely) young woman at the counter looks horribly confused. The chicken crepe doesn’t come with tomatoes, she says. She has to get the manager. He starts listing the ingredients to the chicken crepe. So I hold up the menu and point at the “custom crepe” which, I have to add, features prominently on the back. He says “oh that’s a custom crepe”, as if informing me that I’m horribly confused and asking for the wrong thing. But he gets it fixed and she replaces my order.

Then when it arrives, again bless their hearts, I realize they’ve evidently never seen a crepe before. I know this is supposed to be a rustic French theme here, so I guess since google didn’t exist in the French countryside, no one bothered to look it up. (Tip to La Mad employees if you’re reading this - google “crepe” and you’ll see what they usually look like.) Instead of a folded crepe stuffed with filling, what I got was a bowl in which the crepe was used as a liner, with filling dumped in the center. That was it. Crepe as bowl lining. I’ve had crepes at this chain before so I know it’s not a standard technique. Maybe the cook is new too?

The coup de grâce (since we’re all French here) came toward the end of my meal, appropriately enough. Sitting blissfully alone listening to delicate classical piano, enjoying the final few bites of my crepe bowl, I’m joined across the room by an employee. She sits down, puts her phone call on speaker, and proceeds to shout into it while she eats. At least I got to hear both sides of the conversation. It’s so annoying when you only hear one side shouting.

All that said, my crepe bowl was pretty tasty. And the coffee was, as always, just right. Plus, free bread, with jam that squirts out of a dispenser like ketchup, makes for a lovely touch. So two...

Avoid this place at all costs. Not only is the food boring and overpriced, the service is some of the worst in all of Austin. I waited 3 months to write this review, so that it was not written out of anger, and I still find myself angry about how I was treated.

Firstly, the staff were all talking amongst themselves and being entirely unprofessional while taking my order. I simply ordered a French Dip sandwich. The woman taking my order neglected to inform that they were out of au jus (that's the sauce you dip it in for those who don't speak French). I discovered this when I attempted to dip my sandwich.

Obviously the point of a French Dip sandwich is to dip the sandwich in au jus (it literally translates to "with sauce"). So of course I took it back up to the front register and let them know they forgot the au jus. What transpired could have been out of a dark comedy. The woman proceeded to argue with me that she did not need to inform me that they were out of au jus, that it would not affect my enjoyment of the sandwich, and that she would not give me a refund or allow me to exchange it for another sandwich. She then went back to gossipping with the other staff, and proceeded to ignore me completely. I was so deeply offended that I demanded to speak to the manager immediately. She then informed me that she was, in fact, the manager, and laughed!

Now I have no idea if she really was the manager, but I was so livid at that point that I simply left. There are some people in this world that are so ignorant, so uncultured, and so hateful of their fellow human beings, that they are not worth even a second of your time. Unfortunately la Madeline hires people such as these. Do not...

On Monday 5-13-24 I went to have breakfast with my wife at this place because we haven’t been there for a long time. Well everything was calm in my arrival time, we took the menus to order and we were looking the menu for about 3 min, the time was 12:30pm very in a rainy day. The lady at the register asked me are you ready? I told her not yet and she shake her head like cmon people. Well wife was planning to ask questions about some food items and I told her just to order a simple single breakfast item from the menu to avoid bad attitudes and I did the same. I was placing my order in English and the lady answered me back in Spanish so we never say a word back in Spanish just to move faster from the register. She finally told me my total and also told me that the credit card machine was going to ask me a question and guess what was the question? Well asked me for a tips LoL Not well deserved if you don’t practice good hospitality. At the Time of our meals the 2 croissants in our plates were cold and the extra almond croissants. I asking the sweet young lady that was delivering the meal to the tables to warm up the pastries and I also told her that the pastries were not supposed to be cold and she said I know sorry, I know that wasn’t her problem but I guess is a management issue. Right after that lady at the register left the restaurant I saw another man taking her position so I guess she was the manager on duty just trying to leave. By the way there was no coffee on the restaurant so we have to ask the young lady to make more and she did make some and a really nice way. Please excuse...