Breadman’s — Restaurant in Chapel Hill

Stick to the breakfast menu, because it's hard to screw up eggs.

Read on for a detailed review, otherwise, just keep searching for some othet place to spend your money.

This was our first time at Breadman's, and apparently a lot has changed in the past 5-7 years (according to a local whose last visit was that long ago).

We unfortunately chose to have lunch.  You'll have to start by reading the menu carefully for the specific days of the week and times when items, like mashed potatoes, are available (specifically, "available M-F after 11:00 am and Saturday and Sunday after 5:00 pm").

I ordered the $9.65 meat loaf (which the menu states comes "right out of Lazy Bill's cookbook") with steamed broccoli, and home fries (since there were no mashed potatoes to serve with the meatloaf).

Well, what I got was a dry brick-o-brown-meat (with grill marks on it, like the Salisbury steak in a frozen dinner).  The flavor of the meat was passable--as that frozen Salisbury steak would be in a desperate situation.  I asked the waitress if there was some kind of sauce that should've been on the meatloaf and she said "no, that's how we serve it," (that's right, it's "Lazy Bill's" way) and she asked if I wanted a brown gravy.  The gravy tasted like those powder packets you get at the store--nothing special, flavorless.

The "home fries" had nothing homey about them--they were dry and tasted stale, like reheated leftovers from yesterday.  They were not buttery, no sauteed onions...no flavor--just lazy.

My friend ordered from the section of the menu entitled, "For Misplaced Northerners." [Please note that, in retrospect, the menu did it's best to warn us about what we'd be served.]

Now, we're not "Northerners" but living in Miami and countless visits to Manhattan does train one's palate to what's lazy and what's not.  My friend ordered the Hot Pastrami on rye which looked and tasted like a warmed up gas station sandwich...it was pitiful.  The coleslaw that came with it was shredded cabbage.  And maybe some salt.  No attempt had been made for any kind of cole slaw sauce...not even vinegar or mayo--flavorless and lazy (as promised).

The broccoli was fresh and steamed al dente.  It was nice once I salted it.

So, if you're too lazy to heat up a flavorless frozen dinner or pick up a sandwich at the gas station, well Bill (Breadman) is just a little less...

Surprisingly disappointing customer service: What should a restaurant do when a waiter spills an entire glass of ice water on a customer (her clothes, the booth she is sitting in, and the table)? Not what Breadmen's did on a recent Saturday morning. The waiter's behavior could be excused by inexperience. He stood, still holding the serving tray, staring at my drenched friend, who was sitting across from me in the booth, but he didn't do or say anything. Just stood there. I grabbed the tray from him and asked him to please go get a towel. He left. We moved ourselves and the food to a dry booth/table. After a strangely long time, the waiter returned with a few paper towels. We made the best of it, but the paper towels didn't do much for my friend's wet, cold slacks. I went up to the person at the cash register to get a new fork and mentioned what had happened (which was completely visible from where he was). He seemed surprised there was any problem. I asked if he was the manager; he said no but what did I want? I suggested maybe Breadmen's could not charge for my friend's breakfast. He said OK, they'd do something. After awhile the waitress, who had originally taken our order, came back and asked if the food had gotten wet. We said no. Should have realized why she asked, because when I went to pay, nothing had been taken off the check. The man at the register explained why: "The food was OK." I expressed my surprise and said the food was dry but the whole experience had not been good. He took $3 off a $14 check, sort of a random amount. Throughout the whole experience the attitude seemed to be, what's the big deal, why would anyone mind getting a glass of ice water poured on them? And in fact, if the response had been different, we might not have. Accidents happen - and how they're handled matters. It's easy to imagine a restaurant where the server makes sure you're comfortable, insists on comping your breakfast, maybe even offers to pay a cleaning bill if needed. That's a restaurant that would build customer loyalty way past whatever it would cost them. Repeat business, and two satisfied customers. As it is, the feeling was such a bummer it's hard to...

I did not have a good experience at Breadmen's. While I know this is probably not supposed to be a southern restaurant, I ordered the Brunswick Stew, which I believe was $8.25. I had originally wanted the BBQ plate, and asked if I could substitute the stew as a side, but they couldn't do that, and I realized a side that I'd wanted wasn't served before 5, so I went for the full stew. After getting the stew, it was pretty flavorless. There was no tang or tomato taste to it, and the vegetables were lacking as well. To my dismay, the crackers they served with the stew were stale. It also came with a biscuit, which was decent. But this is not even what made me so upset. Some of my friends that I came with ordered the $3.50 cup of Brunswick stew. After I'd finished mine, we were curious and poured the cup into the bowl to see that they are the same size. So I paid an extra $4.75 but nothing, or for some stale crackers and an average biscuit if you want to look at it that way. Also, the spoon for the cup was bigger that the one for the bowl, which I found funny on top of everything. When we were splitting the check, the cashier announced that mine was $12.87. I did order a sweet tea, but still, $12.87 did not sound right for what I'd ordered. He qualified his statement, saying that the tip was already added. For a party of 5 this seemed odd to me, and the tip was already set at 18% on top of tax. So basically, Breadmen's is pretentious enough to assume that they deserve an 18% tip for a party of 5 in the afternoon. The service was sub par at best. I am not from Chapel Hill, so I probably would not have to worry about this anyway, but I will most likely not be returning...