Blackbird Cafe — Restaurant in Groton

I live close to this place and used to go there occasionally as the food was good and it was a comfy cafe to sit in and have coffee. I stopped going there when they where really slow to re-open dine-in, long after everyone else had re-opened, after COVID. I went this morning to have breakfast with my husband and found that they had moved to a different location in the strip mall. The new location has zero ambiance, really cold. So, we walk in and see there is no longer an order counter but a kiosk, a la McDonalds. We sit down and there is only a QR code to scan, no menus. Super annoying, especially for my husband who is not tech-savvy. A girl comes over and asks if we want water. We say, no thanks, just coffee. She literally giggled and walked away. Then someone else came by and dropped the bottle of water that we said we didn't want on the table along with 2 plastic cups. When I opened the menu I figured out why she giggled. You have to order it like a takeout order form, so I started inputting 2 coffees but I had to do it separately because we take them differently. Meanwhile, my husband is asking me what's on the menu because he can't get into it. This all takes the same amount of time it would have taken to order everything from a server. We gave up and walked out. The entire experience annoyed us for the whole ride to another breakfast place in Ayer. Seeing from other posters that they expect a tip, I'm glad we left. We won't be back. Groton is definitely not hip enough...

The owners might want to legitimately ask themselves if the workers are trying to sabotage the business. I'm so confused by what I received as my recent order. An egg sandwich that was so sloppily, so angrily thrown together, it looked like a toddler did it, but worse. The bread, egg, cheese and meat, NONE of them were lined up, it was like all ingredients were laid side by side and then punched in the foil wrapper? Another strange thing is that they offer aalllll these options about how to get your egg cooked. I chose over easy because it was an option. Sure enough, it comes with hard boiled chalky done egg. I would have just said sunny side up if I knew it was impossible for them to cook it over easy. I promise I'm not trying to confuse them. Over easy, along with many other variations, was an option. They also claim to have "NY style bagels", yet lox isn't an option. I figured since they didn't have lox, maybe they just meant the bagel was baked in a NY style. Nope, it came very soft and soggy like something you'd buy from a mass produced chain in bag at the grocery store. Heck, dunkin bagels are closer to NY style. I guess they're referring to the other toppings, which has nothing to do with what makes a bagel NY style. You can get bacon scallion cream cheese, but not just scallion cream cheese 😅. Anyway, the food was alright....but for these outrageous prices you'd expect the food to be awesome and done correctly or at least made with the bare minimum human...

I am a business owner, so I look at other businesses in that light. I wish people visiting the Black Bird could understand that the owners of this cafe have invested what I can only imagine is a large sum to create this restaurant and when visiting this location as a customer you're investing a little time and comparably a tiny sum. If your experience is bad, maybe contact the cafe directly to help them be better, but instead, I'm reading caustic commentary on an establishment that is trying something different and in my experience served good food. Most restaurants try hard especially now to be good, sometimes unique, but rarely are they intending to make your experience bad in fees, food, protocols, systems, etc. If one doesn't like an experience, just don't do it again, but I for one refrain, from writing these horrendous commentaries as though my $20.00 is worth trying to take down a business that in my experience did a nice job with me in food and service. I get if you don't like it, just don't go back. If enough don't like an experience then the eventual outcome will be the demise of any restaurant. In this day and age of online attacks over $20 or you being inconvenienced, at the expense of a family's income, or employees losing their jobs, maybe consider a phone call instead of trying to dismantle the livelihoods of all those involved in running...