Vine — Restaurant in New Bern

A friend of mine is vegan and we were traveling through New Bern on the way back home this past Saturday so we thought we'd stop in at this place to eat due to their menu having multiple vegan food options.

When we first arrived, we had to use the restroom so we waited in line as it was occupied. One lady came out to say there weren't any paper towels in there, so the next lady in line grabbed the roll off of a table that was in the hall and took it into the restroom with her. The restroom wasn't the dirtiest one I've seen, but I definitely would've expected it to be cleaner than it was.

Once we used the restroom, we had been told to sit wherever we liked and they would bring a menu out to us. So we started to look for a table to sit down at and noticed quite a few were dirty and had not been wiped down. They weren't that busy when we walked in so we were surprised at the condition of the tables and restroom. We finally found a table and sat down.

After a few minutes, we were given a menu to look over and we were ready to order after looking over it for a few minutes. However, it seemed those who took priority were people who came in to order at the register and we sat there for about 10 more minutes (after we were ready to order) waiting for someone to come back over to take our order.

We ordered the BBQ jackfruit grilled cheese and Chipotle Jackfruit Melt - neither of which came out as expected. The BBQ jackfruit grilled cheese was not a "grilled cheese" sandwich in any way. The cheese wasn't melted at all and the bread used was rather thick. It tasted "okay" and was edible. However, my friend ordered the Chipotle Jackfruit Melt which was supposed to come with tangy coleslaw and chipotle jackfruit, but instead it came out as BBQ jackfruit with vegan mayo - a big disappointment.

While checking out their online menu as I typed this review, it appears they do not have a Chipotle Jackfruit Melt. Instead the option is "Jackfruit Melt" that has no mention of cole slaw. Their menu in the cafe does not match the one online (and the one in the cafe had the wrong currency as well).

I needed a refill on water and when the employee took my glass to refill, she then started doing other things instead of bringing the glass right back to me so I had to wait a while to get my water. She did not seem the least bit concerned about cleaning up and wiping down the tables that needed it despite there being down time - instead her coworker, who was the one making all of the smoothies, started cleaning up the smoothie area and then went out to start cleaning up all of the tables.

When we were waiting to order, another customer was upset regarding the length of time she had to wait for her to-go order. It seemed she waited around for about 30 minutes and was not happy when she left.

Overall, we were quite disappointed with this establishment. The employee who was in charge of taking care of our table didn't seem attentive at all nor was she concerned about cleaning up the area to make it more presentable. The food was "okay" and the discrepancies between the physical menu presented to us and the actual items we received were disappointing. The service was subpar. I don't travel to New Bern often, but I do on occasion and my friend and I were originally excited about finding a place with several vegan options. However, based on this experience, I don't plan on going back. Maybe it isn't bad if all you want is a smoothie to go, but for anything else - I...

I read your response and am reposting. You are a liar. My wife did not add extra gratuity to all these orders. BTW - we never came back after that experience and never will

First, we are relatively new to the area. My wife has gone to Vine 10 times in the last 8 weeks and gotten take out orders. She has tipped 15% online every time. When she has picked up the food, she has been asked to sign a receipt for the food. The receipts allow for adding an additional gratuity. She explained to me that she has either has marked through the gratuity line every time before she signs or brought down the total without adding additional tip because she did not want to tip twice. Well, I just got through reviewing the email copies that automatically generated and sent to my wife and discovered that on EVERY single order, the gratuity was added TWICE, even though she marked through it on the receipt. I tried talking to the manager about this….granted, I did not have all of my facts straight when I talked to the manager, but in short, I was initially trying to give the restaurant at least SOME credit that my wife was adding the tip twice. Well anyway, when I was talking to the manager, she was absolutely the most ridiculously rude person I’ve ever spoken to…and I’m being serious. She would talk and I would listen quietly; however, when I started talking she would interrupt me over and over and over again. Never in my 57 year life have I had an experience like trying to talk to her. This note is primarily to the manager….you not only have personal conflict issues, but there is a serious issue you are having internally because the problem is far worse than I understood when I talked to you….extra tips have been added by your servers on literally every single take out order by my wife. I really could care less about the close to $40 of extra tips being inserted in her bills at this point. Keep it. We will never do business with you or your...

I hate to give a bad review, because my spouse and I used to love The Vine, but over the past year or so, the quality of service and product consistency have gone down tremendously. Because we are both vegans and there aren’t many places around town that serve true vegan meals, and because we used to love everything about this place, we keep giving it chance upon chance, but I think tonight was the last straw.

Lately, it has been taking an unreasonable amount of time to get our meal when we dine-in. As a result, we’ve been ordering take-out more often than not. Sometimes the meal we get is exactly what we are used to and what we expect, and sometimes it looks and tastes totally different.

This evening my spouse went in to pick up a Beyond burger and sweet potato fries that we ordered for carry-out. Because of the lack of consistency we’ve experienced, my spouse checked the meal — they forgot the sweet potato fries and randomly added avocado to the burger — fine, but the Beyond burger definitely was not a Beyond burger and looked like two McDonald patties slapped together on a bun. When my spouse brought it up and requested it be re-made, they were suddenly out of Beyond burgers …

In the end, we got a refund. I do want to give a shout out to Nia, who was very helpful and tried very hard to right whatever the cooks did wrong. I think there may be an issue in the back, and not necessarily an issue with the people we interact with up front, who ultimately have to deal with whatever issues arise and who, for the most part, try to do so gracefully.

To the management: please check what’s going on in the back — why is food taking so long to get to the tables (reading other reviews, this does not seem to be an issue for just us) and why don’t we know what we’re going to get when we’ve been ordering the same meals every time we visit...