Ancient City Brunch Bar — Restaurant in Florida

Husband and I came in here for breakfast and ordered drinks and the charcuterie board. We were sorely disappointed.

I had the lemonade, which didn't really taste like you would expect lemonade to taste, but it was very good despite that. I had high hopes for the rest of the meal. My husband ordered a chai, and had a shot of espresso added to it. (I was later told that he overheard them speaking and saying that they didn't have enough chai powder to make his drink, so they needed to add something to it to give it body.)

The charcuterie board came out. It looked very nice, but there were issues. We were hungry and didn't think that complaining would do anything. My husband pointed out this:

The meats were pre-sliced, which drives up their food costs quite a bit. It would be cheaper to buy the meat in bulk and cut it themselves, but the ease of pre-cut meats might outweigh that for the owners.

The cheese was alright, but there was one on the board that had an inedible rind that they did not remove before hand, nor did we have the utensils to remove it. Butter knives don't really work on hard cheeses.

The fruit was several days old, as were the tomatoes, evidenced by the fact that there were wrinkly blueberries, and the tomatoes and strawberries included were turning translucent. Several of the strawberries in particular tasted like, well, the fridge. This means that they were left, already cut up, in uncovered containers in the fridge.

Service was meh. We were checked in on maybe once and they were obviously in a rush to be done with us... so that they could have their prayer meeting. Not even joking. I don't care if you have a prayer meeting or whatever, but that should be done before the restaurant even opens, when, you know, you DON'T have customers to take care of. I should mention, too, that the restaurant was absolutely empty.

For the prices that they're charging and all the bragging that they do, they could at least cut the rind off the cheese and serve up fresh fruits...

FOOD- The food was OKAY and incredibly overpriced. $12 for 4 pieces of bacon, or basically any one thing you want on your "breakfast board". The sandwiches are $15, they're alright. Apparently at 10:30am they have zero milk... odd. Or is it that they were wanting us to leave? We also made an order of berries, which they forgot to bring with the order and then got annoyed when we asked them if we can have them since they had already charged us.

SERVICE- Bad service. Rude. They did not know how to kick us out. We walked in and asked if we should sit ourselves or if there was a host. Rudely they pointed to just find a table, which we did. We tried to be as much out of the way as possible and yet the lady with short hair, piercings and tattoos passed by us several times making rude comments about us to other patrons, almost annoyed that we took the table in the back. Every time she walked by she was looking at us. She was hurrying us the entire time. You can tell they did not want us there... which made the entire experience very uncomfortable.

Coming into this restaurant, it seemed as though the staff was annoyed by our presence alone and that they actually had to work. They made us feel as though we had interrupted THEIR day. I honestly wish we would have spent our money at another, more welcoming establishment.

To be honest there are many small businesses in the area that deserve your money, with people who are happy to serve tourists.

I do not recommend this place nor...

Super disappointed!! When we we seated there were only a handful of other customers in the restaurant so I am not sure why it took over 40 minutes to receive our food!! We were excited about getting “brunch” but bummed to find out they were “out of French toast and eggs Benedict but there were other items we were happy to order. The lattes we ordered were TERRIBLE, we did not drink them and there was not even an offer to remove from the bill. Then we ended up waiting over 40 minutes for our waffles, bacon and potatoes. I asked the waitress while ordering if one order of the bacon and potatoes would be enough for one or two people since everything is a la cart and she informed me that it was only enough for one person….FALSE!!! Not sure if she said that because she does not know what a “serving size” is or if she was trying to upcharge our bill. One order of bacon and potatoes is MORE THAN ENOUGH for two people!!! The one good thing about this restaurant was the food…it was AMAZINGLY GOOD! However I most likely won’t be back because the negative completely outweighs the one good thing! So disappointing but luckily it was the only negative thing during our amazing trip to St Augustine!!! Also their listed phone number online is a non working number and the directions by goggle maps is not accurate and when mentioned this to the gentleman seating is his reply was...