La Conner Calico Cupboard Café & Bakery — Restaurant in La Conner

Really wanted to like this place, but poor service overshadowed the experience. The good things: lots of great food options, including gluten free; our party of 6 was seated within 15 minutes; the food was delicious; the waitress was really lovely; and the atmosphere was warm and comfortable.

Unfortunately, however, overall our visit was not positive. While we were seated relatively quickly for our party size, we waited nearly an hour for our food to arrive. The restaurant seemed overwhelmed. It was past the main lunch hour when we arrived, about 1:30pm, but we could not get water for the entire table because the restaurant had run out of water glasses. Our party included a 3-year-old whose food came out in a reasonable time, but everyone else waited approximately an hour before our food arrived.

When the food arrived, one of our party was provided the wrong order. The waitress did offer to request the kitchen to put together the correct order, but we declined because 1) at that point it was close to 3pm and we were all very hungry, 2) the 3-year-old was understandably restless and growing agitated at sitting for so long, so further delay was not desirable, and 3) having just taken an hour to get our food, it was not clear how long it would take to bring the correct meal out.

We all agree we could mostly have forgiven everything preceding. However, the bill arrived with the wrong meal included on the receipt. When we requested the restaurant to remove the meal, since it was not what we had ordered, but the manager declined because the "meal had been eaten". This is very poor customer service. We paid, of course, but a more appropriate response would have been to remove the cost of the wrong meal in recognition of the overall poor service. Despite the good food and the good front line staff (we do not blame our waitress except for probably mishearing the wrong order), we will not...

We came here for an early lunch after driving down to see the tulips. We had eaten here before and we were wanting a good bowl of Cham chowder, which they did not disappoint. It was fairly busy and we had to wait 5–10 minutes before being seated.

Our server Bettina was great, checking in every so often to see his things are or if my wife needed a coffee top up. I observed she was also very good about explaining the menu options and interacting with other customers.

It wasn’t long before we were both enjoying our soup and homemade bread. The bread was like a rye with a slight hint of sweetness and some nuts. I enjoyed dipping it in my soup. The soup was creamy with lots of clams and veggies. New England style which is my favourite. It was great after taking pictures of the tulips on a dry but cold and windy day. The homemade lemonade in a mason jar mug was very refreshing as well.

I don’t normally post pictures of the bathroom but it was like stepping back in time and a really cool place for a bathroom! The changing table looked like it had a marble top and was very interesting piece of furniture.

We were pretty full from lunch so we had no room for dessert. We did buy some baked goods to have when we got home as they looked too good to pass up.

Later that night after dinner we sampled the desserts. I enjoyed a Maple Bacon Cinnamon Bun with real bacon, which was so large I saved most for breakfast the next morning. My older son and wife enjoyed the tasty Lemon Bars while our younger son devoured his Snickerdoodle cookie. They make delicious baked goods as well! So if you want a great meal or tasty dessert or snack they have lots of...

I really wanted this to be a better meal than it was.

First: who plates a $17 burger with store-bought potato chips?!? It seemed like a cop-out when the buns are supposed to be custom, but $30 furnishes such a sparse plate of two industrial meat patties and coffee.

When the food arrived, one look helped me realize that I could have stayed home, cooked and assembled something much more appetizing, eaten and cleaned up in the same amount of time it had taken me to come out and enjoy this one... just by adding some color with carrots on the side.

I ordered coffee, but it was weak, and I never received a refill. My water glass received it's refill after I paid the check and finally asked (sparse table attendance is OK, but please either provide larger drinking vessels or ensure that staff are consistently able to make eye contact with patrons in order to communicate their needs). Please understand: I don't fault the wait staff... this is clearly the way the restaurant wants to be run.

By the time my meal was over I regretted spending $ on it, which is very rare for me.

No... I did not sample any of the baked goods.

p.s. I'd have preferred to provide this feedback directly to the restaurant instead of using a public forrum, however the restaurant's website provides no form or email for feedback, and given the level of service I was not comfortable that my phoned-in feedback would have reached...