Main Streets Market & Cafe — Restaurant in Concord

3 Strikes – 3 different visits over 3 different seasons at 3 different times for 3 different meals – all failures

I make it a point to support independent businesses whenever I can. Unfortunately, Main Streets isn’t worth it. Now I know what other residents have been complaining about.

My recent experiences at Main Streets have been horrible. The only bright spot is if you sit at the bar. The bartender is great. She is polite, competent, efficient, and pleasant – all the things her colleagues aren’t.

My family and I will be avoiding Main Streets and I suggest you do the same. There are other more worthy restaurants in town who appreciate their customers.

My most 3 most recent experiences are below.

July 2019 – Strike 3 - Given my previous bad experiences dining here for lunch and dinner (see below), I decided to try Main Streets one last time by ordering take out. This was another failure.

I called my order in and was told it would be ready in 10-20 minutes. I arrived 18 minutes later. My order hadn’t even been put it. The staff offered to put my order in and have it rushed. I declined. The last thing I wanted was rushed, ill-prepared food and to wait another 20 minutes.

May 2019 – Strike 2 – I was meeting a colleague at Main Streets for a quick business lunch. I arrived early to get a table so we could get in and get out. Even though there was plenty of room in the dining room, the waitress didn’t want to seat us. She wanted to put us in the burrito bar. Having been to the burrito bar previously, I didn’t want to sit there again. It’s not a conducive setting for a business/nice lunch. After discussing this for some time with the waitress, I finally pointed out that my colleague and I would be eating for the same amount of time, 1 hour, as most of their other patrons. So, what was the problem with sitting in the dining room, especially since there was plenty of space?

March 2019 – Strike 1 - Three other dads and I went to Main Streets for a beer at 8:45 PM. There was plenty of space available, so we picked a table for 4 in the bar area. The waitress came over and asked what we wanted to eat. We told her we only wanted beers. She told us that even though there was only 15 minutes before the kitchen closed and even though there was plenty of empty tables, all of the tables were only for patrons ordering food. We said okay, we’ll look at the menu. We ordered 4 beers. When she came back, we told her we’d like the nachos. She rudely said, “Is that all?” Since we didn’t even want the nachos and we ordered them just to pacify her, we told her we didn’t want anything else. She again mentioned that these tables were only for dinner and stormed off. After this rudeness, we each had our...

We were very disappointed last time we had dinner at this restaurant, and we will not come back for dinner. We paid 58$ including the tip. We are clients for over 10 years. My husband ordered an English burger (15$) and he wanted to substitute the fries since he is not feeling well when eats lots of carbs. He asked for a substitute of steam vegetables. It used to be fine to substitute even if charged an extra fee. The waitress told us that the kitchen does not allow substituting fries, so we settled for a small salad for additional 3 dollars and hold the fries. When the meal arrived – the burger for which we paied15$ - was extremely small- the meat patty was so small that was hard to see it between 2 sides of bread. Nothing else was on plate- for which we paid 15$- other than this small pathetic so-called burger. We do not eat at McDonald’s but from TV advertisement their burger is 3 times bigger for 5$. The 3$ additional salad was tired and frankly not good. My meal – fried fish: had less than half the quantity of fish the dish used to have (I order this dish for many years). Plate was full of fries – frozen assume because they did not have any taste. We ordered also corn bread which the waitress forgot to bring it to the table. When we reminded her of the order, she brought us the corned bread to take out. And charged us 3.50$ for two small pieces. Actually, comparing the size of corn bread to the ones seen of the other customer’s looks like was one piece of corn bread cut in half. Used to be free corn bread served with dinner but even if tavern wants us to pay at least have decent sizes. Overall, our dinner was a very unsatisfactory meal based mostly on frozen fries. I did try to give feedback to waitress bust she was not interested: her answer was she is not in charge with portions. I did call the restaurant and talked with Becky – one of the managers. She told me that she will let know the manager who was in charge at that specific time- Jennifer was her name -and Jennifer will call us back. That was 5 days ago, and no call received from Jennifer. Overall: the quality of meals went down a lot as well as...

Waited over an hour! No service, cold overpriced food, missing drinks, bad manager. Here’s the facts: Placed order 10:29am. I was asked ahead of time for a tip even though I was not getting service in the outdoor seating. Regardless I gave a tip of 18%. I was given a buzzer and told where to pick up when it goes off. All they had to do was buzz me when the food was ready for that $13 tip!

55 mins later, still with no buzzer going off I went to check and my food is sitting out getting cold. Nobody bothered to buzz me. I showed it to the man working there and he said it’s probably not there long cos it’s coming out so fast. That’s not my point, I’m 50+ minutes waiting for food, I gave a tip and all you had to do what push the buzzer to let me know it’s ready. I take the food to my seat and it’s cold. No drinks either. $15 of drinks missing that I paid for. I go back in and reorder the drinks a second time after a further ten minutes of waiting for the second time reminding them for my drinks I just asked for a refund on the drinks and the 18% tip considering I’m the waiter doing all their work. If your that incompetent again then I’m done.

That’s when the manager came over, and initially was fine but then insisted and argued with me in front of patrons that I was lying about the buzzer not going off. That’s when I had enough. Lousy service and cold food, missing the usual accompaniments like toast etc Complete incompetence and unwillingness to just be responsible and accountable.

Stop asking patrons for 18% plus tips to serve themselves! Fix your buzzer that’s not working.

Ended up leaving at 11:52 almost one and a half hours after placing the order still hungry and missing food items. I will never be back there.

Please stop taking customers if you can’t accommodate and provide service to them. Your just motivated by greed rather than service. Be honest with people and tell them they will be waiting an hour plus...