The Vintage Baton Rouge — Restaurant in Baton Rouge

I’ve been going to the vintage since it first opened in Baton Rouge and at first, I loved it. The food and service were great, and the atmosphere is wonderful. But over the years, it’s slowly gone downhill. Many of the employees seem like they don’t want to be there, and the menu and ingredients change too often to find something good to order there.

I had a particularly bad experience today with a woman who took our order - when she brought our drinks out, she told us they’d be watered down because she never saw that they were made. She asked who had the iced coffee, and I said I’m not sure but that I’d ordered a cinnamon caramel cold brew. She glared at me and said “it's the same thing” in the rudest manner possible. Its actually not, I order cold brew because they’re made very differently and I prefer the way it’s made over iced coffee, and since I’m paying $10 for a coffee I’d like to know what’s actually in it. I kindly said that they are different asked which one it was, and she said “sure then it’s cold brew.” and stormed away. Everyone at my table was livid after witnessing this interaction - I did nothing to deserve this kind of treatment, I was respectful and simply asking about what I ordered, let alone after she already brought our drinks out late and watered down. Both of the coffees we ordered were absolutely terrible - they tasted nothing like they should have. Someone else came out to bring our food, and we asked about a scone that we ordered as well. She also very rudely said it would be on the counter, and that she wouldn’t be bringing it out so we could go inside if we wanted it. When we went in, it wasn’t on the counter, and we had to go ask the other rude girl to give it to us, to which she rolled her eyes. When we got the scone, there was a hair in it. One person couldn’t drink their coffee it was so bad, so she asked if it could be remade since it was so watered down. The rude girl gaslit my friend and told her we were warned that we needed to come get it from the counter ourselves, when that was NEVER said when we ordered. She told her she wouldn’t remake it because of this, so my friend wasted money on a coffee that was undrinkably bad.

We were also harrassed by 4 different homeless people while sitting outside, as were the other customers beside us. I understand that this is just the nature of downtown Baton Rouge, but no one at the vintage ever came by to talk to them and suggest they leave, and there were young children out there who were horrified.

However, This is one bad experience of years of being treated poorly and receiving the wrong orders at the vintage. I’m only saying something now because I was so upset at the way the girl acted over simple question about my coffee order - it wouldn’t have been that hard to just say “oh yeah it’s cold brew, that’s what I meant sorry!” Instead of giving us copious amounts of attitude and making us feel uncomfortable at our lunch. This was supposed to be a nice going away lunch for a friend who was leaving town today, but instead our moods were ruined by this woman. I usually like to give grace and say that everyone has bad days and is not always perfect, but this treatment was blatantly rude and ignorant.

On the bright side, the man working the bar was absolutely lovely, and so was the woman who came to get our dishes. I love the beignets here, but the lunch items are usually not very good. In general, the vintage makes good hot teas/coffees, but their cold coffees are always terrible.

Overall, I would suggest avoiding coming here if you’re not prepared for rude service, homeless people, bad coffee and...

They advertise themselves as a full service restaurant that sells coffee, spirits and food. Their menu states breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast allegedly starting at 8am - 12pm and lunch/dinner 12pm-close. Their chef, however, actually decides the time which goes against what they advertise online. I came in at about 11am and began to place my order off the BITES portion of their menu. Please see the screen shot of their bits menu and the promised times of service. They don’t serve breakfast til 11am and it’s only for 1hr. So from 11am-12pm. So if you don’t make it in that time frame, you’ll miss breakfast. They also announced that they won’t start serving their BITES until 12pm til close. They don’t have free parking so everything including street parking is paid and the street parking website doesn’t work so you’ll end up paying about $9 for lot parking and that’s every 2 hours. If you arrived at 11 like I did, then that means you already lost 1hr before you can have a chance to order. You wait another 30min to an hour because there is a huge backlog of people who have been waiting to eat since they opened. So they all get prioritized, of course!!! It’s the right thing to do! The bar is just there for vibes. I didn’t see a bartender depute it being advertised as a full service bar as well. I already paid for parking so I’m forced to sort of wait til 12 to each lunch because it’s lunch time, not breakfast. False advertising at restaurants in areas that require paid parking to me just isn’t cool, so I’m giving this establishment a 1. They didn’t have a negative rating so a positive 1 star is the best I could do. I won’t go in on the food because it’s not worth it with the wait honestly!!!!!!!!!!! Also, staff was mid and snippy. It gave, entitled Karen when I asked about an estimated time food would be served. She just kept repeating “it’s up to our chef, when he gives me the go, then food will be allowed to be ordered and served”. With everyone else, she seemed kind and her tone was so much more tolerable. I’m not a confrontational person because of where it can ultimately get me so I remained respectful and simply said “ok I’ll wait for the announcement and order everything then”. To friends and family, I would recommend anywhere else in the area. Use the Yelp Surprise me feature and find some other really good restaurants in the area instead of this one that genuinely offer a full service menu during lunch. Especially if you’re on your lunch break. You would be wasting your time here....

Horrible experience. First off, lets start with customer service. I came with my friend to have morning breakfast + coffee. We took a seat at one of the available spots. Our orders were taken. Then every thing went downhill from there. First came my friend's coffee. Then I waited and waited, finally arrived mine. The coffee was just ok. But the wait time was ridiculous. Then we waited forever to get our breakfast served. I asked the server who was taking orders and she said its coming soon. But nope, we almost sat there talking for about 20 min more and still no sign of food. Then I went to the register, where a lady was behind the counter. I asked her politely, that we have been waiting for our breakfast order and she very rudely said that we are very busy today. Nothing more, no mention of when the food will come or any apology or nothing at all. Infact she just turned away and as if I was not even there speaking with her. Poor customer service and not even courteous.

Now lets talk about the food, which I hoped would be worth the wait time, well I was wrong. When it finally came like after 30 min or more from the time placing the order, my biscuit and poached egg was as if a miniature, shrunk version of the serving. It was literally tiny and not even good. The poached egg (only 1 btw) was too dry and hard boiled almost. The biscuit was like a pre prepared frozen one. It was too dry and not even freshly prepared and there was a some cheese and arugula lying on it. That was it. My friends eggs and grits with cheese and bacon was again dry, the eggs were overcooked and there seemed to be nothing special even not remotely close to something special.

Overall, a big disappointment, in terms of poor customer service and horrible food. IMO, save your time and money and eat...