Urban Beets Cafe & Juicery — Restaurant in Brown Deer

My husband and I stopped at Urban Beets Cafe & Juicery in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, after a doctor appointment. He was driving me since my car was in the shop, and we noticed the restaurant right across the street. We didn’t realize it was vegan until we were inside and saw the mission statement on the wall. Since we don’t usually eat vegan, we went in with an open mind and decided to try something different.

I ordered a BLT with coconut bacon and a vegan patty. The food itself was fine, tasty and different, but not something we’re used to. Less than ten minutes after eating, I started feeling stomach discomfort. After a quick bathroom stop, we hit the road for our hour-plus drive home. On the way, I felt nauseous, had strong abdominal cramps, and struggled with motion sickness. The discomfort kept coming in waves, and I couldn’t even think about the food without feeling worse.

We ate at the restaurant around 11 a.m., and didn’t get home until 1 p.m. From the time we left until just now (3:30 p.m. same day), it took the full two hours (and beyond) for me to start feeling better. During that time, I had many trips to the bathroom, extreme abdominal cramping and pain and the sweats. If you know you know. I used remedies like Kaopectate to help prevent vomiting and slow down the frequent bathroom trips, baking soda water to help with heartburn, and magnesium lotions and sprays used topically to help with cramps and abdominal pain. Right now, I feel pretty good, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely out of the woods; I might still feel nauseous once the effects of the Kaopectate wear off. Then, I'll have to prepare myself for round 2. Ugh

My husband and I also ordered the mango lassi, and honestly, it was not good. There was the taste of some spice that was just overpowering, and it had bananas in it, traditional mango lassi does not have banana. I don’t know if the drink contributed to my food poisoning, or if it was the burger alone, but either way, I cannot recommend this place.

While the food was just okay, based on my experience, I can’t recommend eating here. If you decide to try it, do so at...

I typically frequent this place at least 2-3x a week & usually it’s a great experience.

Today unfortunately my experience was disappointing. The staff here need to be re-educated on customer service standards as well as food safe handling. The cook made a mistake by plating my food when I asked for it to go. Dawn grab my food off the plate with her bare hands & boxed it up for me to go. I informed Dawn I no longer wanted the food as she touched it with her bare hands. Dawn indicated she “just washed her hands & grabbing the food with her hands was more safe then using gloves”. Prior to the incident I didn’t see Dawn wash her hands before touching my food, she was helping other customers & cleaning. Dawn did not see anything wrong with the incident which made me question if the kitchen staff are also following this same protocol when handling food. Instead of Dawn trying to understand the incident from my perspective, she deflected. The only resolution was offering me a refund with no apology.

Smoothies are good however I would caution when ordering...

We were super excited to try Urban Beets (Brown Deer location) after hearing their food comes highly recommended. One of our entrees was delicious, the other was just ok.... definitely not worth the price overall.

The staff was a completely different story. Rude and very slow staff, especially since there was only one other customer besides us inside. Kitchen staff was more concerned with their personal convos and phones than actually making food. Even the owners were in and made zero attempt to be friendly. The girl taking orders has absolutely no customer service skills at all, too busy being nose deep in her phone. We received dirty looks from the few staff members working, the entire time we waited for our food. Coming from a small business owning family, I was shocked at the lack of effort put in by the entire staff, owners included. Likely won't be back. Maybe the Mayfair location...