French Press — Restaurant in Bethesda

I ordered a medium chai latte - I was asked for my milk preference and the drink was fine, though not memorable or a standout.

The real challenge was with my order off the menu of a “croissant, avocado & egg sandwich with cheddar cheese & greens/tomato. With both items, my breakfast was nearly $20, but I was starving & freezing so had hoped for something filling and decently tasty.

What I got instead was a bad tasting avocado & egg breakfast sandwich that was otherwise tasteless despite the lovely looking croissant/presentation. The croissant had very low low flavor & flakiness, the unseasoned mashed avocado that looked fresh, but tasted bad like it had preservatives (sour/bitter aftertaste), a “cheese omelette” that looked processed and several slices of “American” cheese - not real cheese, with some spring greens & a slice of tomato with almost no seasoning.

I am not very picky especially with limited options plus I was very hungry so I ate 2/3 of it before deciding to speak to the staff because the bad taste in my mouth was too much. I explained it to the gentleman on staff, gave him the remains of my sandwich, and asked him if he could just give me something sweet to take away the aftertaste. He kindly offered to give me a slice of adequate coffee cake (and kindly warmed it) which reduced but did not eliminate the chemical taste left over from the sandwich. It was a bottom 3% breakfast sandwich experience - pretty awful considering the cost & local...

Though I'd been here in the past, today was the first day I ordered online for pickup and randomly chose Seamless from the options listed on Google maps. Unfortunately, this cafe is not actually partnered with Seamless and is listed on the site without their permission. I cannot believe Grubhub (owner of Seamless) is continuing this practice even after settling a lawsuit over this exact issue earlier this year.

Just posting a review because I really appreciate how patient both of the gentlemen working were with me--they even went so far as to call the owner to discuss the issue. I appreciate the service I recieved, even though I technically wasn't even a paying customer from their perspective (again, through no fault of French Press!). So shout out to both of the gentlemen working this afternoon for handling the situation kindly and with patience.

I made my first ever Better Business Bureau report against Seamless today with the request that they remove French Press and any other restaurants that have not given permission to be listed on the site. And moving forward, I'll definitely be avoiding Grubhub/Seamless. What a world we live in these days.

My food and atmosphere ratings reflect my experience from...

We've been here twice. The first time the service, food and coffee were good. No complaints really as it was new. We just came by again. There were no customers at the registers and no food or drinks were being prepped. So we ordered two drink and two sandwiches. Then people started to come and order after us; about 5-6 customers. They all got their drinks before us; mixture of hot and cold drinks. Our food was ready and was just sitting in the back. Then finally, after everyone received their drinks, our drinks came out. I asked for an extra hot peppermint mocha. It wasn't extra hot and the peppermint was so overpowering that it tasted like toothpaste. It was a lukewarm toothpaste drink. I asked for no tomatoes on my sandwich; ended up with tomatoes. What made this worst was this total came up to over $50. If were paying over $50 for drinks and food, it's expected that they deliver and unfortunately they didn't. We really like supporting small businesses and give grace but when it's shown to your face that they do not value customers or any cadence to follow to provide exceptional customer service, it puts a damper on the support. We will not be...