Cafe Zupas — Restaurant in Middleton

Salads I purchased yesterday had rotting avocados, and were sparse on ingredients besides lettuce. This is not remotely the normal quality of food I receive here. Also, the staff appeared to have turned over; the staff working seemed untrained - unfamiliar with the salad ingredients and dressings. They seemed to have difficulty keeping my order of 2 meals together. They were not the level of professionally friendly that makes this a great restaurant. As a regular customer, this experience was extremely disappointing.

Update 11/28/22 The food quality has improved since original review. However, tonight and on my previous visit staff the following have happened on both visits: mixed orders up and asking customers to help them identify what food belongs to who. There is not hand sanitizer in the sanitizer stations. The small cup lids are empty. On tonight’s visit, many other items are next to empty. And my water cup leaked out the bottom (without me drinking anything) so there is water all over the tray.

Update: Re-Review 12/15/23 Location continues to have a lot of staff turnover. Tonight I visited for the same salad I normally get. A new staff member was making the salad. I was directed to the cashier. While waiting, the cashier had to leave her station to assist. The salad appeared to be made with incorrect ingredients. As I was watching from afar the staff picked ingredients out and replaced with new ingredients. While this might be seen as a cost-savings to the store, it does not take the customer into regard. I cannot eat many ingredients without becoming ill. The staff seemed to have no concept/training about food allergens and cross-contamination. I asked for the salad to be remade and the cashier did not understand English. She had to have another staff member assist (a man who normally makes the salads accurately). He remade the salad, and I am grateful for that. Went to get water and the dispenser would not turn off after multiple tries. I am unsure why the restaurant is opening another location in town this week when there are repeated issues with this location.

Update: Re-Review 1/5/23 Tonight’s salad was good but the vinegar in the vinaigrette dressing was very fumy. One of the workers on break had a female friend visiting who was wearing a very low cut sports bra that was distasteful for a restaurant. One compliment - this is the first time I’ve seen the dining room area exceptionally clean in about 2 years.

Updates: Re-review 9/12/24 I stopped back to Cafe Zupas this week. The quality of the food seemed to be an improvement and was fresher than it has been in some time. However, the salad price has also gone up. The condiments were well-stocked this time; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this. I received my food on a tray with a huge chip in it. I’m routinely asked by the cashier what my order is on my visits, rather than this being passed on by staff. I sat outside and the table was dirty with several large spots on it. It consistently feels like there are a couple of steady workers doing most of the work, rather than this being a “team” staff who works...

If there was a way to rate zero stars I would. I don't normally complain about simple things like misorders but this is a matter of health and safety. We decided to eat at Café Zupas for my boyfriend's lunch break at about 3:20. We don't go there but we hear nice things so we decide to go. As soon as we walk in we see their store manager, Johnny, yelling at his employee to go on his lunch break and to return in 25 minutes. We were immediately turned off by his snappy attitude towards his employee. He was very short and cold with us while we ordered. Whatever. My boyfriend ordered the Southwest protein bowl and an avocado turkey bacon panini. Johnny told him that the protein bowl would come with barbecued pork and asked if it was okay, and it was. I ordered their new pumpkin chorizo soup and asked if there was cinnamon in it. I expressed that my boyfriend has a serious cinnamon allergy and that he cannot come into contact with it. It became a whole conversation between all of the employees including the cook who said that he didn't know what was in it so we determined it was unsafe for my boyfriend to eat. They gave us our food in containers and we took it and left to go eat in the car. As soon as we got to the car we realized that they had got his order wrong. It wasn't anything near the Southwest protein bowl that he ordered instead it seemed to be some sort of fruit salad. I went in to correct the order and Johnny gave some sort of excuse about the day prior being his usual day off or something. Either way that didn't matter. They told us to keep the original fruit salad because apparently it was delicious and we both should try it but they would remake the Southwest protein bowl for us, and they did. So we go and enjoy our food. My boyfriend starts eating the mistake salad. Several bites in he asks me what kind of salad it is. All they said was is was some mango salad. We don't go there so we don't know they menu at all. I took a bite and immediately realized this thing is riddled with cinnamon. He's going into cardiac arrest at this point and I start to panic. I call Café Zupas Middleton right away and ask what was in the salad they mistakenly served us. Johnny takes the call and I ask him if there was cinnamon in the salad he gave us that we didn't order. He must have known he messed up because he began to stutter and tried to recall the ingredients. When I told him that my boyfriend's breathway was closing and that he was in danger due to exposure to this allergen, he tried to make an excuse about the signs they have up everywhere warning about nuts and such. Again, we don't eat here often. Not to mention, we didn't even order this salad that has cinnamon on it. We didn't even know what salad was given to us, we only now know that it caused my boyfriend to go into shock during his lunch break at work. This is ridiculous and I don't think we could ever go to Café Zupas again. And we will actively boycott Café Zupas until they...

Cafe Zupas is one of my favorite places to eat, and they have super yummy food, so I’m very disappointed with my experience today. I ordered curbside in advance knowing they’d probably be busy. 20 minutes after my order was supposed to come out it still hadn’t, so I called the store to make sure it hadn’t gotten lost and was still being made. The lady who answered the phone was rude and short with me, which was unfortunate considering I was very polite. Eventually my order came out and there was no drink with it, even though I had ordered a large flavor of one of their infusions. I tried to tell the man this and he said he didn’t speak English. While getting the receipt to show him what was missing I found an empty cup in my order bag, and ended up having to go inside to find out that they were completely out of the infusions. What I’m having a hard time understanding is why you would send someone who does not speak English, to no fault of his own, out with an order that has an issue or something that needs to be changed and throw an empty cup in the bag instead of offering another drink or a refund on that item. I’m not sure what they expected me to do next with the empty cup but it should not be the customer’s responsibility to problem solve when you’re out of something, especially on a curbside order. I was also missing the complimentary roll with my soup and my food was cold, but at this point I just wanted to get home. As someone who used to work in food service I understand that things get crazy and busy, but I’m very disappointed in the lack of customer service and it will be awhile...