Pumpernickel + Rye — Restaurant in Maryland

I'm done with this place... It's takes way too long for your food! This morning, I tried calling to confirm as it was MDW and a lot of places are closed. The phone was picked up and hung up right away. I thought it was a mistake, so I tried again, and it happened again! So a few minutes later, my wife tried. Someone picked up and said, "I'm sorry, we're too busy to take your call right now. Please try again later." and just hung up. Even if they were that busy, it's unacceptable to just hang up on your clientele. But against my better judgement, I decided to walk over for breakfast anyway.

I got there about 5 minutes after our call, and there were maybe 3 customers waiting for food, nobody in line, and two employees standing around doing literally nothing! I'm sorry, that doesn't seem like it's too busy to take a phone call. Even a simple, "I'm sorry we can't take orders over the phone, please place it online or in person" would've been 100x better.

So again, they did not appear very busy. Maybe they had a lot of online orders? I don't think so, because you can see all the tickets laid out behind them. There were 5 other tickets at the most laid out. But I ordered my 3 breakfast sandwiches. Simple, egg, meat, cheese on a bagel. How long would that take? 10-15 minutes max? No, I waited 35 minutes!!!!

As I sat in the restaurant waiting, the employees move with no urgency. It's embarrassing for a restaurant. I also wanted to help myself to a cup of water which is self serve. It was empty, so I asked one of the girls who was standing around doing nothing. Her response? "Yes, one minute please." She continued to stare at her tickets for a minute, not actually doing anything, then she poured maybe one cup worth of warm water from the espresso machine. Granted, it was over ice, but that's not going to cool the water down quick enough to enjoy.

When I finally got my food, I got home and my hash browns were FRIED! Not the good way, I mean burnt and inedible. I took one bite, and had to throw them away. They were burnt to a crisp!

Every experience I have with this place is similar. Bad customer service, and mediocre over priced food that takes WAYYYYY too long to prepare. I keep wanting this place to succeed because they're local and not a chain, but today was the final straw. I don't see myself ever going back to Pump and Rye. I'm sorry, I've been fooled too many times into thinking it'll be better...

I went there today for the second time. My first visit showed me that getting there early is definitely the better option as when I first went it was incredibly busy. So I showed up at opening and was third in line. Even as I was waiting, the phone would not stop ringing, which is great because that means business is good. However, that also exposed their weakness.

After spending about twenty minutes standing there waiting and watching everything, it was clear to me that although they get incredibly busy, the system they have in place for getting orders to customers is ripe for errors. While there I saw two customers have their orders messed up. I should have known I would fall victim to the same fate as my initial order taken at the register was missing items; had to do a second transaction. When finally my bag was ready I thanked them and left. I got home ready to get everything prepared for breakfast in bed for my wife (Mother’s day) and I opened the bag to find out that the hot meal I ordered was never included. Being that I was standing there for 25 minutes b/c of the hot food, the last thing I thought was that they would not include it in my bag. Having driven from Clarksburg you can only imagine how greatly disappointed I was. I called and they refunded my order.

The reality is that although the place is nice and the food good, to have walked out with just bagels and cream cheese after standing there for nearly 25 minutes left a sour taste in my mouth and I’ll probably not return. They have to get a better system in place for the level of morning business they do. How they currently operate is ripe for errors as I stated above. And it should be painfully obvious to them that their system is not compatible with the level of business they do as the girl on the phone I spoke with when asking for a refund told me another person had left without their hot food. She told me that they give customers their bagels and non-hot food first while the hot food is being prepared. Asides from the fact that this happened twenty minutes after my order (getting my bag), I would suggest waiting until the entire order is ready before giving customers their bags.

All-in-all, good food, chaotic...

I’m so happy I finally found good coffee/espresso! I got an iced oat milk latte (extra points for having oat milk!), and the first sip, I was in heaven. It’s taken me so long to find a shop locally that I like.

My fiancé and I got bagel breakfast sammies. I got an everything bagel with bacon, egg, and cheddar. He got the Asiago bagel with bacon, egg, and cheddar as well. There are a lot of options, such as being able to order a scramble or fried egg — since they use real eggs, I’m guessing, haha. My only comment is the bacon/egg/cheese ratio. It is more costly than most of the coffee shops around here, but they’re using fresh and not frozen food, so it is worth the extra couple of dollars. There’s a lot more egg than cheese and bacon. It would have been nice if the bacon and cheese were extended across the sandwich, so that it compliments the egg with each bite. The cheddar was not that sharp, either. Not everyone likes a sharp cheddar, but personally I think it does add more flavor — so, that’s just probably a personal thing. It was still delicious, though! And we are excited to come back and try out some of the schmear!

They were incredibly busy, but it was a Sunday morning. They did forget the flavors in my fiancé’s latte, but they had no issue fixing it. Staff was friendly, welcoming, and felt like they were happy to have you there. Also, they played a song from High School Musical. So, that was...