Maggie’s Downtown — Restaurant in Fredericksburg

Just ate a Maggie's sandwich and soup for the first time for lunch today and was mostly underwhelmed. The soup was a bit bland, and could certainly have been better seasoned, and the sandwiches were pretty standard, one-note, and boring.

First off, the sandwiches appear to be cold only, with the exception being the hot dog. That's a shame, because some of these sandwiches would be much better if warmed or toasted.

The BROMO - which features cold London Broil roast beef, tiger sauce, BBQ sauce, and red onions - was drowned in the horseradish-forward tiger sauce, but still tasted mostly like raw red onion. The astringent, harsh, raw onion flavor overpowered everything. Serving this sandwich warm - heating the beef with the BBQ sauce so it caramelizes, and swapping the cold, raw red onion with sauteed red onion - would make a world of difference with this sandwich.

The Italian sub was also heavy on the raw red onion flavor - not because everything else was overpowered by them, but because there were no other strong flavors to compete with.

The "Italian dressing" that was advertised as being on the sandwich must have been just olive oil and Italian seasoning - no vinegar - since the sandwich was in dire need of some acid. Italian meats are fatty and really need a briny or acidic element to add contrast.

The Italian sandwich could have had the best, highest quality ingredients, but they were drowned out by the chunky slices of red onion, and didn't have any vinegar or acid to make them "pop." The end result was a bland, boring sandwich with nothing but the strong, astringent flavor of raw red onions and little else.

Toasting or warming the Italian meats to render the fat slightly, adding some acid or briny elements (olives, pickles, etc.) to make the sandwich brighter, and maybe adding some sweetness (balsamic glaze?) to balance it all out would make this a sandwich worth eating.

Ultimately, in a town with lots of national chains making much more flavorful sandwiches - including hot options like cheesesteaks - Maggie's just doesn't seem to compete. And while I'd always choose to shop local whenever and wherever possible, the product that they're producing needs to at least be on par with the competition. At $7 for a bland sandwich, I would be hard-pressed to purchase the Italian sub from Maggie's over a similarly-priced Italian sandwich from Jersey Mike's - with "The Juice."

That being said, Maggie's did just open. It sounds like more sandwiches are slated to hit the menu soon, and those might be better than what we tried today. However, the cold, bland soup and boring sandwiches aren't really making me want to go back and give Maggie's...

We love Maggie's and always expect and have recieved excellent service and food. However, this evening when we came in at 5:45 to grab three cold deli sandwiches (because they had already turned off the grill and stacked all the chairs) the staff made it abundantly clear that we were not welcome fifteen minutes before they closed. After begrudgingly taking our order, the staff brought sandwiches to our table ten minutes later, and informed us that we were not welcome to stay to quickly eat them. When we expressed our disappointment (we understood we needed to not linger) we were informed by staff thay they don't make enough money to stay late. I wish I could take back my tip and we really hope this poor service was an anomaly.

*Updating my review to reflect our experience since posting. Matt was immediately responsive and reached out to us. He gave a way for us to contact him, and we did. Any delay in resolving this was due to our busy schedules and nothing to do with his willingness to be in contact immediately to hear what happened. He explained that he was addressing the issue with the servers, gave us some free sandwich coupons, was apologetic, and certainly made things right. Even after that (one bad experience) we went back last weekend because the sandwiches are just so damn good. The customer service was fantastic then. I will happily continue to eat at this restaurant because of how seriously (and well) Matt took our comments, and his desire to quickly make...

I was craving a sandwich for lunch and a parking space in front of Maggie's magically appeared. Coincidence? I think not.

It was a dreary day, so a soup and sandwich meal just felt right. I ordered the Bromo and clam chowder to go. I barely had time to snap a few photos inside before my order was ready.

I headed home with my order and was floored when I opened my sandwich. Holy cow, that's a ton of London broil on that Kaiser roll! The tiger sauce combined with the BBQ sauce gave it just the right kick. This was a cold sandwich and it was divine. The London broil was so tender it practically melted. There were zero "fat strings"....you know what I mean...that stringy tissue you have to embarrassingly pull out of your teeth in front of your crush. Nope...none of that. This was high quality sliced meat.

The clam chowder? Yup, you guessed it, that was good too. Creamy and flavorful. It's a good thing I took my order to go, because I required a nap shortly thereafter and I don't think the restaurant would have wanted me sleeping there.

Just fyi, they offer hot sandwiches panini style as well. They also have an outdoor patio out back which is gorgeous when the weather cooperates.

Check them out! For those of you that have been around town for awhile, this location was formally Frasier Wood Elements and it's unrecognizable. They've really...