The Friendly Toast — Restaurant in Bedford

The food isn’t worth the experience.

Seriously go across the street and try the Purple Finch instead.

3 separate experiences eating here in the last month. The first two times the waitress dropped off the check and never came back. Never even offered us more coffee. She also didn’t inform us that there was a time limit on sitting at the tables until we finallllly flagged her down to ask for more coffee. She told us very shortly that we had been there 1hr and 40 min and they have a 1hr and 30 min limit at the tables so we needed to leave - she then ran (literally ran) away from our table.

I was annoyed but understood that with covid restrictions things are hard for wait staff so didn’t blame her and tried the place again a week later. It took over an hour to get our food after we ordered it. My daughter and her friend ordered chocolate chip pancakes, after she ate a good portion of her pancake I realized there were no chocolate chips. We didn’t bother to say anything, as we were afraid we would end up having to wait a long time for another one (and who knows what that would mean with the time limit).

Finally this morning I stopped in. The sign on the door says they open at 7am. I arrived at 7:58 and was asked to “wait outside” until they open. I even watched the hostess walk up to the manager who was sitting in the bar area and ask what she should do. The manager (or whoever it was) told her “tell her we aren’t open yet.” Apparently it’s wrong and they don’t open until 8. I just shook my head and left. Really 2 minutes? Even if they didn’t open until 8 wouldn’t it have been just as easy to seat me and let me know that they weren’t quite open yet but would be with me shortly.

I worked in restaurants my entire life and just don’t understand this mentality of customer service. I know things are hard right now in the restaurant business but customer service, and making guests comfortable should be of paramount importance. It’s unfortunate that this place, which has such incredible potential has obviously poor management. It will be a while before I try this restaurant again. There are plenty of other great...

I grew up going to the friendly toast in Portsmouth (OG). I thought I would bring my girlfriend to the one in Manchester trying to share some of my youth memories. Boiyo did we have an experience. We started out with an Irish coffee, it came out to the table in a glass mug visibly curdled. Although, an Irish coffee is such a strange request at a brunch restaurant. I then ordered a "whiskey for breakfast" which was alright, and then we ordered our food. About 20-30 minutes later ordered a margarita flight to come out with our breakfast, which came out about about 10 minutes later. We thought that meant our food would be out soon, since they were supposed to arrive together. It took an additional 20 minutes for our food to get there, which arrived lukewarm at best. My eggs benni came out with almost no hollandais sauce. What was on there was stuck to my overcooked egg like an elastic film. My girlfriend's eggs, which were supposed to be over-medium, came out like one of those dry crumply ninety's super balls that have been outlawed because they contain carcinogens. Her single pancake was made with what tasted like Betty Crocker yellow cake mix that they got from a fallout shelter that has been sealed since 1982. It tasted like chemical preservatives and was sickeningly sweet. Perhaps the one enjoyable part of this experience was the "dirty blonde" margarita in the flight (1/4). Overall there were no redeeming qualities for the food or the service. We will not be returning and we will be advise our friends and family to steer clear of this place. Why there was an hour and a half wait to get into this place is beyond me. Should consider changing your name to the...

We've visited the Friendly Toast (or the happy waffle as my kids sometimes say) about four times over the past year. Each time, with much excitement as we've either heard great things, or have fond memories of our last visit. You'd think we'd visit more often, as the food really is incredible, but when we arrive-we suddenly remember why this is an establishment we visit only every so often. It's as if the good food memories give us amnesia, and when we arrive again, we remember why we delayed coming. Why you ask? They take 'slow food' to a whole new level. Today my daughter asked to go and we thought "hey! it's been ages!" We set our reservation while at home-because we're quick studies on how to not wait too long with three small children, and it told us to arrive at 9:25, we arrived at said time expecting to wait-but then found it had moved to 9:45-no big deal, we expected this...we were seated about 10:00 by lovely staff and we quickly put in our order since we now know to try to help things along but alas, it wasn't enough. And so we waited....and waited....and waited....our food arrived at about 11:00. about an hour after. We walked out at about 11:20.

Every time we have apologies given to us we're told "it's been a crazy day!" We've since concluded that Friendly toast has not been able to sort out how to meet their demand. All this to say, it is really good food, just be prepared to spend half a day to get it. With little kids in tow, while its still warm out this is doable, but if you are wanting to take friends out (as we once did unaware) I'd recommend setting your expectations. We've since decided to check out other...