Benedict's Morning Heroes — Restaurant in Fargo

This place has so much potential to be my go-to spot in Fargo - I absolutely love breakfast, eggs benedict is my favorite breakfast dish, I love monkey bread/caramel rolls, I'm a coffee addict and I'm happy to pay extra for a great meal, in a nice space, prepared by experienced cooks. This place has it all.....on paper.

In the real world, however, this place just doesn't inspire love. And I've tried. Three times. I was SURE that I was going to love it. But, no.

The first trip: Hot Fried Chicken benny was certainly fried chicken, but was only very luke warm. The hashbrowns were soggy. The "monkey bread" turned out to be just a couple of little cinnamon rolls with runny "caramel" sauce. And I ordered them with the meal thinking they would arrive a little bit before my food. I was wrong, they arrived last. Also had to try the pancakes so I ordered 1 blueberry cake. Yes, it was as dry as it looks in the picture. However, I was convinced that I just hit some snags because they had only been open for a week, so.....

2nd trip: Went with the Classic Eggs Benedict. This time it was all pretty hot with the exception of the english muffin (if that's what it is down there) and I will say that the ham is exceptional. Again, I ordered "monkey bread" since I've heard people raving about them so 1 more chance. They were a little better this time, but this time they came out at the same time as the food. Hashbrowns were better, but nothing special.

3rd time is the charm (right?): Classic benny again since it was pretty good. And, once again, it was pretty good. I'm still not sure what going on with the english muffins but I forgot to ask what they put under them. This time, the hashbrowns were very good. THIS TIME, I ordered the "monkey bread" and some coffee as soon as I sat down. Despite the fact that I was the only person (other than an employee) sitting at the bar, it took the girl about 15 minutes to get me some coffee. Despite the early order, the monkey bread came seconds before the food and it was dry. I didn't even finish it. The bacon, however, came long after the food.

Speaking of bacon, I ordered some each time. And each time, I requested CRISPY bacon. Yet each time it was anything but crispy. Yes, it appears to be quality bacon, but each time it came out limp and very, very greasy. I'm not sure if this is a case of a CHEF who thinks I'm too stupid to know what I want and refuses to cook it that way or if they just don't pay attention. Either way, I didn't finish my bacon on each occasion.

Now the other constant was the lack of attention I got at the counter. Yes, I understand the 3rd trip where the bartender focused all his attention on the 3 college girls that came in and sat at the bar shortly after I arrived. But still, I didn't get offered a coffee refill once during the 3rd visit and very rarely during other first visits. Considering the coffee is $4.00 (yes....4 dollars), I think that I should expect more than one cup. Now I will admit that the coffee is outstanding. But I shouldn't have to beg for it.

This all leaves me in a bit of a quandary. I love what this place COULD be, I just don't know if I want to waste any more time or money in the future to see if they've gotten better. The good news is that I'm not tempted to drive over to the Wayzata location while I'm home - it's too far to...

Have been here 3 times now. Not sure we want to come back, as the last two have been pretty disappointing.

First time: Food was good. We both ordered a regular Benedict. Service was a little slow, took about an hour and a half from the time we got sat to paying the check…but it was Sunday morning, so it is what it is.

Worth noting, there’s specialty pancakes for $5. We ordered a strawberry Nutella pancake. What is my bill? Specialty pancake, add Nutella. So I actually paid $7 after the up charge for the 1 pancake. I didn’t have another 10 minutes to wait around for our server to show up again and get it fixed so I just decided to move on with my day since 2 hours of it were already gone between waiting for a table and the food.

2nd time: One of us ordered biscuits and gravy, the other the hot chicken Benedict. Biscuits and gravy had overcooked biscuits that were really dry. The chicken Benedict was great flavor wise, but the amount of chicken was really lacking in comparison to the size of the biscuit it’s in between. Service was slower this time than the last.

3rd time: Get here at 11am. 30-ish minute wait list. Get seated after an actual hour. Sigh. Get seated, decided to order monkey bread and a plain pancake out first. That took over 20 minutes to come out. Sigh. Since the flavor of the fried chicken Benedict was good, figured why not try the sandwich? The menu reads: “grilled, fried, Nashville hot or buffalo, lettuce, tomato, onion, aioli” So - I say I’d like fried Nashville hot, no tomato. Great! Well, the food comes out (an hour and 15 minutes after we were sat) and the chicken is grilled. I check with the server (won’t call her out by name here) and I’m informed that actually the Nashville hot only comes as grilled chicken, and the fried one is Buffalo.

Well, I’ll be damned. That sure would’ve been an important detail to tell me at the time of ordering. I can make grilled chicken at home, without costing me $15. Server said I could let them know if I didn’t like it - but it’s already been an hour and 15 minutes so - let’s be honest, I’m starving and just want to eat. It was fine - but if I had known what it was I would’ve ordered something else because I just didn’t have any interest in eating a grilled chicken sandwich for $15.

Not to mention, the actual piece of grilled chicken was very small. It was either a butterflied tenderloin or half of a butterflied chicken breast.

Benedict’s has some good flavors, but it would be wise to spend your hard earned dollars somewhere else. My wife and I have both worked in a restaurant - and we have a lot of patience, especially when a place is newer, but Benedict’s has just flat out been disappointing, multiple times. There’s a lot of potential but they need to get things...

I would have preferred to just tell the manager, but no manger did a table touch and no one answers their phone.

Got put on a waitlist on a Monday and were told they would text when table ready, just to find out the person seating was going off of Alzheimer’s memory and was ACTUALLY asking the customers who was up next which allowed impatient people behind us budge in line. He sat people w/ same party size, that came in last, first. As a GM of many restaurants, this amused me.

They were out of water glasses and served water in dirty coffee mugs(picked coffe grounds out of water). Wife was not given silverware to eat with and she had to wait to start eating.

Reused paper menus.

They were also out of apple juice and sweet potatoes, which didn’t tell us until 3/4 orders came to table so then I waited for my reorder just to have it delivered incorrectly(missing items). Every single order was missing 1+ item - no whip topping for cakes, no cheese/onion on hash, no juice, the water and bottomless coffee never got refilled and no pot left at table. I got my cranberry juice that was ordered right when we sat down(as out of Apple) after I had been done eating for 5mins AND I was the one who waited for reorder while others ate.

The “shareable” monkey bread was 1 bite(barely) for 3 people and there was 4 of us.

Server/hippy with skate shoes forgot about us again so we waited forever to get a $98 bill for incorrect orders with missing items served in dirty dishes. I could’ve gone to a Denny’s and got a bill 1/3 of the price for better food and for sure better service. I am an aggressive tipper(often 100% tip) and I had a hard time leaving a $2 tip.

If you are going to charge 3x more than everyone else, don’t be half as good as franchise stores like Perkins. Dining out is more than good looking food.

I compliment the chef as I am one, because it looked beautiful though salt&pepper was not just needed… it was required, but the food is half of the experience. I cannot blame the chef for a hippy kid that doesn’t write down the order and forgets about the tables. Or the FOH manager not overseeing the wait list or getting tables bussed quick enough to serve the next guests with water glasses not dirty coffee cups.

I sell cars and I have never seen this big of a rip off. I’ve never felt so cheated.

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