maman — Restaurant in Bethesda

I rarely ever leave bad reviews, and when I saw that this is my only bad review in about 6 years. I try to give places a lot of grace, but my husband and in-laws went here on Sunday for (a failed) brunch and it was awful. We were told the wait was 15 minutes, but it turned out to be more like 35. Fine it's busy, but at least be honest about the wait time. Then we were seated at a long big table in a row. This was just very awkward as there were four of us, and we couldn't see or talk to one another. We had to stare across the table at a couple feeding their baby, and older couple, and all I could hear was the loud date going on next to me. I get that big tables look trendy and cool, but practically they are a nightmare if you actually want to enjoy a meal with the people you came with. It took another 15 minutes before anyone even approached us, and when they finally brought us water to the table it tasted old and dirty, like it had been old dish water sitting out for a day. It really tasted like you'd get sick if you drank it. We had to then order a bottle of still water just to get something to drink, they didn't ever apologize or even offer to give us fresh drinking water. Another server kept coming up to our table with random food and drinks (3-4 times throughout our visit) to ask if it was ours. This was again just awkward, and strange, and just showed how disorganized and chaotic the place was. When they finally brought our drinks and food (literally just a bottle of water, two coffees, a tea, and two pastries) the coffee had lipstick on the cup, and they never brought one of the pastries. After another 20 minutes of waiting for them to bring rest of the food, I tried to flag down 3 different wait staff before someone finally came over. I told them that they forgot our food and the coffee cup was dirty. The girl just looked at me with a blank face, never apologized, never said anything. She looked totally indifferent to it all. I told her to take the 2 items off our tab and I paid and we left. It was a horrible experience. We had been looking forward to trying the place, and we had wanted to actually order brunch but that was nearly impossible as the wait staff took about 45 minutes to give us the little food we did order. We ended up toasting bagels at home. I cannot caution you enough, do not waste your money or time here. There is no organization, and the waitstaff could not care less about the customers. You are literally better off going to Starbucks than wasting your life...

Editing this with one star because no one from this company has reached out for clarity on this matter. That tells me that the company would rather not address it. There should be more concerns for safety and sanitation. Very unprofessional and ineffective management. __ I'm only listing two stars for the employee who took our order and welcomed us when we were looking for seating. This cafe deserves zero stars. I ordered a latte with extra whipped cream. It was obviously a busy morning, so there was a bit of a wait. While we were waiting, I saw one of the employees making the drinks shaking and banging the whipped cream bottle against the trash. It was coming out like a liquid and she couldn't get it to work. I was expecting them to tell us that there was no whipped cream, which would be totally fine...but I did not expect to see unsanitary actions taken next. This woman takes a piece of paper from the trash and wipes the drips from the nozzle/ the opening of the whipped cream bottle. She didn't trash the bottle after, but placed it in the fridge. I couldn't believe my eyes. I did not want to make a scene for the people around me, so I left shocked by what I had just seen and questioned if I should contact the health department. If they would be so comfortable taking something from the trash to use it on something that has direct contact with the drinks, what else could they be doing in the back? I will not order food, drinks, or anything again. If they have cameras, they need to check and see who that person was. Watch very closely while they make your drinks. The pastries were too stale. We didn't ask if they were fresh, but assumed they would be. You should ask that question if you order...

Sadly disappointed and grossly underwhelmed! Came around 10am on a Saturday. I think there are definite kinks to work out given they opened just recently. I think some of it is lack of staff but otherwise there needs to be better management. We waited a while to be seated. We waited even more to have our order taken. It took forever for the food to come out. You could tell there was a lot of confusion as they tried to drop off food that we didn’t order. The breakfast sandwich was cold and they totally forgot the avocado altogether. It was mostly bread and overpowered by the bacon jam. Very overpriced for what you actually get. The breakfast bowl was good but not impressive for the price point especially given that it’s mostly potatoes and only one egg. The strawberry peach brioche bun my son picked was totally a waste at $5.30 - the brioche didn’t have much taste to it and the filling was nothing spectacular. To end it all, the check we were presented with was wrong (had drinks on it we didn’t even order). The only good part of the experience is that our waiter was so gracious and the chocolate chip nut cookie made famous by Oprah and their vegan lemon poppyseed cookie are very good. The decor is cute and a little whimsical. If you want to try this place, avoid the weekend as they can’t seem to handle much volume at the moment. Another disappointing aspect is that I downloaded the app to consider doing a takeaway coffee or cookie in the future and they said they don’t have the App capability at this location. What a hot mess! I’d much rather go to True Food or...