Le French Dad Boulangerie — Restaurant in Montclair

If you asked me before August 25th about Le French Dad Boulangerie, I would write an outstanding review, starting with the ambiance of the shop, the warm and welcoming staff, who pretty much call all the customers by name, to the overflowing amount of deliciousness of bread, pastries, desserts, grab and go items. Then, they closed for vacation. When they reopened they renovated it, so it is a bright sterile looking environment, nothing in the dessert case except some macarons and one croissant cube. The charm of the original store is gone. The first thing you see are donuts from Montclair Bread. The selection of breads, and limited pastries are arranged haphazard with no indication of what anything is. There are a ton of pictures hung up of various colorful drinks which looks out of place. The staff is entirely new, made up of disinterested teens. I've come back a second time since the remodeling and the experience got worse. This past Saturday morning, there were 2 people a head of me. Both staff members were emptying trays of breads into the display case. One finally saw a woman standing there and decided to help her. The line had grown to 8 people some, with children. The other girl would look around, empty a tray and not look in our direction. I asked politely if she could help the next person, as there is a line. She responded very nasty that how do we expect her to walk back there if she didn't empty the trays. She proceeded to slam the tray, shift around something by the coffee machine and huffed to the back of the store. The other girl responded that she is the only one at the register. She made no attempt to work any harder, had no organizational skills, nor a system and was not very pleasant. The two people ahead of me had to wait a very long time for their items. They each had a total of 2 items. I had a bit more items, and I observed how she squeezed three items into a small bag. When I got home, pretty much all of the icing was on the bag on not the danish. When I asked where Sara and the other woman was who works there, I was told they don't work here anymore. It took a long time to get what I asked for. Upon leaving, I checked my watch and I was in the store for almost 20 minutes. This was 8:15 a.m.

Did something happen that Arben no longer owns Le French Dad? Their Instagram page hasn't been updated, and it is usually up to date with new items, which I usually go and buy after they post. The customers in line were all wondering the same thing, and had the same opinion about the new store. It is no longer a special place. On their website, it says: Who We Are Whether you are in the city of lights or in a small village in Provence, France wouldn't be France without its boulangeries. Every day, boulanger(è)s and pâtissier(è)s hand craft breads, viennoiseries and pastries for their community. As a Frenchman and baker taught in the French way, this is what I wanted to bring to Montclair; a community bakery where you can pick up a baguette for tonight's dinner, grab a croissant for your breakfast or snack. This is not the case anymore. The grab and go days are over, unless you have at least a half an hour or more to wait. I spend roughly between $75 - $100 a month here. If the quality of service remains as it is, I am sure you will lose a lot of customers. Be honest with your customers and let them know what...

Absolutely delicious!!! Apparently there are new owners (or just a new name) at this French Boulangerie (bakery) & cafe. I came here for some good French bread with aged yeast. I was told all of their breads have this. I got their Champagne Pain and their Olive bread. They were absolutely beautiful! Everything was actually, but these were so elegant and high-end. The Olive pain (bread) had a beautiful design on it. They have so many flavors of macaron.... I also got a chocolate filled croissant. It was lovely. The chocolate was a nice multi dimension flavor closer to a dark chocolate. I sat down for a sandwich and coffee as well. I am vegetarian so I had their veggie sandwich. I asked to have guyere cheese added. Holy amazing! I was sad about the veggie saute sandwich at first, because most places seem to cook the same veggies and serve it up. Those things are lackluster, but this, now, this sandwich was toasty and gooey from the amazing cheese. The veggies also had a lovely dimension and unique combination of flavors.... AND... oh my goodness... they served a small side of cut up romane lettuc with... ... their own home-made spicey dijon mustard tricked on it. Now, I know, that sounds incredibly strange—spicey dijion and romane, but another knock-my-socks-off homerun. Seriously, I am blown away. Oh, and, usually I find French sandwiches to be a little less than filling, but here I had to take my after meal croissant home. I was beyond...

Zero stars for this place that I visited this morning at around 10 am and although they did not have any customers at all, the two available employees never cared to answer me! There was a tall big man who was busy cleaning the table and a lady busy with her phone! I stood by the counter and I said "good morning, do you have chocolate cake"?the man looked at me then looked away without saying anything. The lady behind the counter was so into her phone, she didn't even see me!!! I felt extremely humiliated with such negligence, disrespect and unprofessionalism so i headed towards the door to leave when i finally heard the lady saying: hello you need help? SERIOUSLY??! You help the customers at your own best timing when you are done texting and finally free? Well, thank you.. keep your mismanagement to yourself. I regret stepping into this miserable big failure bakery. MY ONLY RECOMMENDATION IS STAYYYY AWAYYYY FROM...