Marigold Kitchen — Restaurant in Madison

Hello all, What a bustling busy petite destination. My mother and I thoroughly enjoyed our first exposure to this lively locale. I ordered a short stack of delicious gf cinnamon roll pumpkin buckwheat pancakes with a delightful streaking of cream cheese frosting and a speckling of fresh strawbs (n a powdered sugar dusting), w some maple syrup to the side. There were some lovely crisper bites where I'm assuming some sugar or cinnamon crystalized in this lovely swirled soft plate. (I must say in comparison to the gf short stack @ the actual Short Stack Eatery, this was a much more endearing serving considering price to portion). To back track, we arrived, after parking in a one hour spot just in front of the Cap and a two-minute walk to a small line, there were three parties ahead of us and we were given an estimate of 15 minutes while I'm sure it was less than ten that we waited. Lovely chit chat with one family's kiddos that my mom and I paused next to, the daughter contemplating the unique door handles and both son and daughter offering my mom and I menus for our upcoming decisions. Prior to our arrival my mother was dead set on not having an omelette, yet seeing the goat cheese and zucchini option struck her fancy, and she ventured into a new taste experience (of which I'm so proud of her). I ordered for her and knew she'd like the sourdough toast option (with one of the other options being rosemary -ooh, maddeningly intriguing). She also recived a side of greens and some fantasticly seasonsed scalloped potatoes. Both her and I were struck by the delightful retained level of suppleness of the egg. A good texture of the cheese with the inner vegetables. Wonderful. Our brunch about 1130am was elevated by the free coffee (offered as early as when you arrive and wait in line to order and seat - note, that you order not at your table but the counter and pay there promptly as well) in addition to a winter marg, which particularly lovely since it was including cran, so scrump(tious). Atmosphere was vivacious and invigorating. In the just over a year my mother and I have resided in Madison, this is the first place we've tried that we would undoubtedly venture to again. I do personally wish the staff would introduce themselves with their names, but I respect that they also do not, nor wear name tags :) An endearing experience. I would recommend. I hold back on the fifth star because, as I said, this is an expectation being set for our restauranting, the sole mutually enjoyed excursion in many months. Cheers! (sorry about no photos, didn't even...

So when you go to Madison, WI you may find yourself Googling the ‘best breakfast in Madison’? Well let me tell you that the Marigold Kitchen is NOT the one!!! You would think that it is near impossible to destroy a breakfast, but this place has done it. When I tell that the toast was the highlight of my breakfast, I am not overstating. Mind you that the establishment was full to the brim with so many diners that it was hard to find a table for one. So one would not expect that once your food was delivered to the table that the only thing hot was the toast. Cold eggs, cold pancakes, lukewarm sausage, and the most god awful excuse for breakfast potatoes. These potatoes need just a little more than a mention. The potatoes were not only cold but the texture and taste was as if they had been sitting on the bottom of a grease latent pan all morning. They were greasy, cold and gummy. At first I confused them to cut morsel of bacon bits, nothing more than bacon fat fried and placed on my plate. But no, they were potatoes cooked to a presentation of partially uncooked bacon bits. The blueberry pancakes were stiff, as if someone in the back had stirred the batter 100 times too many. Let me also mention, if you like Jiffy blueberry muffin mix, then the Marigold blueberry pancakes are for you. Oh, so let me be fair, the coffee was hot too but don’t expect a refill because the waiting staff (if that is what they can be called) go out of their way to afford eye contact with you and only focus on clearing a table and not in providing any type of service. I was extremely disappointed. Mind you this place was super busy, so to get everything on my plate cold was completely unexpected and unpalatable. How can one mess up breakfast? Still in disbelief. Heading to Starbucks for a cup a coffee. Do better...

The only reason I gave 2 stars instead of 1 is because I think our food (or at least mine) would have been really good had it been warm. We were in Madison for a long weekend and had read some really good reviews of the breakfast at Marigold Kitchen and so decided to make this our last stop before heading home. We didn't realize that it was an order & pay, then we'll bring your food sort of situation, but that didn't bother us so much; the only real annoyance is getting your own coffee, because when there are a lot of people in line or waiting around for to go orders, it gets kind of crowded and hard to get to the drinks. It wasn't terribly busy when we came in, there were 4-5 open tables and lots of people left after we sat down. We waited at least 40 min for our food, though, and my boyfriend's pancakes came without syrup, while I got a tiny little bit in the bottom of a cup. We asked the server who brought our food for some syrup, and then waited 10 min before she came back and said she had forgotten. She apologized and brought us some syrup. By this time, our food was cold; my boyfriend said his was cold when it came out, but I hadn't touched mine until we started eating, so I can't be sure about mine. We had luckily each ordered a side (an egg and some sausage) which were fine; the sausage was actually really good, though pricy at $4 for 3 links. I had the French toast which looked amazing and actually would have been delicious had it been hot. My boyfriend had the blueberry pancakes and said they were nothing to write home about (especially when cold). Overall disappointed this was the last thing we did in Madison; could have had good food served hot...