Le Pain Quotidien — Restaurant in Glendale

First: we love the bread and the concept of "LPQ". However, after having had service issues almost every we have been to this particular one, we are pretty hestitant.

Yesterday, we tried it again (Denny's was closed for maintenance, and the much praised Granville only does breakfast on weekends, so yes, service can be worse).

The quality is still nice - and the concept awesome, but it just feels that the service in this place needs serious attention. Whenever we go, something goes wrong. Sadly every time. Maybe it's us.

For the curious among you here the full story: we were five, and ordered five drinks - two coffee, two ice teas, one water. We had the amazing bread basket and the fingerling tartines (one Avocado, one chicken/ mozzarella), two eggs sunny side up with bacon.

All hungry. Bread basket first, then 15 minutes nothing. The drinks. On one tablet. The waitress attempted to pour the coffee on the tray. Failed - spilled the coffee over us. Did not even realise - hence no apology. After drinks, the eggs and the two tartines emerged. Bacon came after eggs were eaten, still waiting for my water.

Again, we enjoy the concept and their great food. I just wish they would step up their game in service. Last time we waited 60 mins for our food. The kitchen has messed up - the server apologised and gave us two amazing croissants for the wait.

So if you have time and patience, you may go. If you go with friends and are possibly the one who recommended the place (aga "the one to blame") I would rather go elsewhere.

@customer service, should you ever read this: Please please please do not comment and ask me to send you an email, leaving the impression that you may care - to then never respond to such emails. I found this a disrespectful waste of my time and much more disturbing than the service issues in...

Have eaten here regularly over the past few months. The best feature of this eatery is the wide selection of organic food.

However, before you spend your hard-earned money, please note the following:

-the extra few bucks you pay for EVERYTHING is not worth it; -the service is ok, but the overall ambience is rather conceited; -they charge different prices for carry out vs eat-in. Although this is the norm in Europe and other countries, but it is relatively novel in the States. Having spent a long time living and traveling in Europe, I welcome this pricing strategy in order to pay fair wages to employees. However, Le Pain takes this to non-traditional extremes. Not only do they charge about 20-25% more for eat-in drinks and pastries, they do not advertise this to their customers AND still expect a TIP in addition to already exorbitant prices. This is outrageous, if not clear-cut highway robbery. It's ok to charge more for eat-in as a "service charge" but the customer should be advised that an additional TIP is unnecessary (all they have to do is to visit across the street to Brand 158 for an example). They get away with this practice because of their location, ignorance by the public, and rather strategic geographic monopoly. -lastly, the management/waiters lack common sense or decency: we recently ate here for the umpteenth time and found a hair in an untouched omelet and we kindly requested for it to be replaced. This was done, but we were still charged for this clearly unhygienic kitchen mistake;

There are other eateries serving similar fare around the corner, and we shall not be visiting this...

I sat today at this cafe to chill as I was waiting for my business partners. I was taking out a book from my bag when waiter guy without even a greeting of some sort came up to me and just put the menu on top of my bag while I was fixing some stuff. I told him no thanks because I will just order coffee later. And he ask me to order again and I insisted I will order later since I was waiting for someone to arrive. And he asked me if the coffee is to go. Why on earth would you ask me about the coffee when I told you already I will order later? Again I insisted, I'll order later and this waiter lectured me that it is his job to take orders with an agressive tone of voice. Is there any law in this land that says I cant wait till im ready to order, even if it is just a coffee? So basically he was saying that I should order now or else leave. So I left this stupid cafe. They are rude to customers. Very bad manners. This place is pretentious. Never go this cafe. They will force you to order even if you are not ready or they will kick you out if you just want to order coffee. This is the second time I had a very bad experience with their staff. The one in Downtown LA is no good either. Their staff there are rude as well. Very bad customer service. The thing is I was waiting for 5 people and I was the one who supposed to pay for all their orders. So this cafe just lost a good amount of money todsy because of the stupid...