Crêperie de la Mer & French Café — Restaurant in Beach Haven

I’ll start by saying crepes were very good and place was busy so I’ll be fair by conveying that at the outset. I was told after ordering the crepes that the order would be about 30 minutes. I was given a buzzer that would indicate when my order was ready. As an aside, the buzzer was very dated (I’ll refrain from a snarky remark here, but it’s an important detail to keep in mind). There are a couple small tables on the inside of the restaurant and a few on the outside. I waited with my children at one of the outside tables. After about 45 minutes of nothing from the buzzer and seeing other patrons who came after us already eating, I decided to walk up to check on the status of our food. As soon as I got to the front of the line, my buzzer started going off. I was told they had been trying to get a hold of us. I thought that was weird as I was immediately outside and the buzzer certainly had not gone off. Sure enough - our crepes were ice cold. Obviously, this was frustrating but I asked if they could remake just one (note I ordered 3 crepes but figured the one with an egg would be particularly unenjoyable ice cold - and I didn’t think this was a big ask in light of the situation). One of the younger employees started talking to an older gentleman whom I presume to be the owner. This wasn’t really a big deal at this point. A response like - “sorry about that - let me remake that” and there’s no chance I’m ever leaving this review. Instead the owner starts being argumentative with me. Telling me the range of these buzzers is 150 feet, he’s positive this one is functioning and they apparently had been trying to get a hold for us for a half an hour! I informed him I was at his restaurant’s seating outside and the buzzer had never gone off (I also asked him if he thinks I go around making these types of stories up to wait 45 minutes to ask something to be remade - I felt justified in my response at the time - but feel immature for the response as I write this, but his response to the situation brought that out of me… I’m not sparing a detail here). He huffed and puffed and took the crepe back and very begrudgingly remade it. He passively aggressively informed me “it’s going to take a couple minutes” as I waited and reminded me AGAIN about the buzzer range when he handed me the remade crepe. I felt like I was in bizarro world. Like I said at the beginning - they were very busy and I’m sure that’s usually the case. They deliver a good product that’s clearly in demand. I found the customer service to this situation, frankly, deplorable. Everyone has bad days and I usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but the arrogance and condescension in this situation I couldn’t overlook. Do better next time and try to treat your customers with the same respect they...

We went today, ordered two Monte Cristo crepes and one Mixed Berry crepe. We tried calling ahead but we’re told they no longer do orders over the phone, so we went down to order and pick them up. Waited over a half hour for them. One of the Monte Cristos was fine, the other had these weirdly dry, hard bits in the crepe, and the mixed berry was missing the cream inside. So it was literally just crepe and berries. The taste for all of these just tasted off, had to douse the one in syrup to soften the hard bits. The berries in the mixed Berry weren’t even ripe. Overall, very disappointed in this place.

An edit since the owner responded:

Your response doesn’t explain the terrible quality in one Monte Cristo or the the lack of decently edible fruit in the Mixed Berry. Not that I was ever looking for a response or explanation, I was giving an accurate account of what happened in my experience. Please put less effort into long, drawn out responses to your Google reviews (as you’ve demonstrated a habit of doing), and more effort in fixing your low quality food and...

I almost forgot to write a review but came back to do it because my experience was so bad. We stopped here for breakfast on a Sunday and waited almost an hour for our food after ordering. We watched other orders for customers who ordered after us get prepared before ours, and we watched the employees move our ticket to the back after each new order. When the crepes finally came out, my crepe was so over cooked it was like a tortilla chip. As you can see in the photo, it was so burnt it could stand up on its side. Incredibly disappointing after waiting an hour for food and the crepe was not cheap. The only reason this place deserves two stars instead of one is because they remade my crepe and the new crepe was pretty good. However, on the whole, this was...