The Friendly Toast — Restaurant in Newton

I came here on my birthday with my friends, and I made a reservation for 8 people at 10am a week prior. The morning of the reservation, I received a text one hour before that said to confirm that we will be sitting at two tables. Upon making the reservation, no where did it indicate that there would be a problem with seating us together. I did not know what to do with this text, so when the 8 of us got there, they showed us to two separate tables (in the same room but not adjacent). It is also important to note that there were several open tables around ours, and they remained empty during our entire meal. We then asked the host if there was any way we could sit together (and even that it was my birthday), they adamantly told us that they could not do that and we had to sit down. Our waitress walked over as we were frazzled deciding who sits where, and she asked if we were together then went to find a manager to fix it. Another woman (unclear on her position) told us we can sit at two tables closer together, but still not sit actually together, as they would not let us push the two tables together. This arrangement was against the back wall, not in the way of anything, and there was a couple at the booth next to us who said they would even move over so we can squeeze together at the booth. The staff was extremely unapologetic and unhelpful, telling us that we had to sit down so they could seat more people, and this was all they could do. (They didn't even seat anyone there anyway, so this rush was completely unnecessary.) This was also a Saturday morning and we Ubered to the restaurant, so leaving to go somewhere else was not really an option for us. We spent the entire meal at two tables, back to back, unable to talk with one another very well at all. This was absolutely unacceptable behavior for a restaurant with plenty of space for a reservation of 8 people made a week in advance. Myself and my friends are not difficult people, and this was not an unreasonable request, and it completely ruined my birthday brunch. At the end of our meal, our waitress put the bill for both tables together without asking and added the "large party," which was just wrong at that point, considering we were two tables of four. Overall, it was a frustrating, and disappointing experience, and it would have been so much better had they made one single accommodation...

We visited The Friendly Toast at Chestnut Hill Mall this past Saturday midday as a party of four (two adults, two kids). Unfortunately, we left a bit disappointed with both the food and the experience.

The flavors overall were very bland, especially the Fire Burger, which didn’t live up to its name. We had substituted the waffle fries for plain tater tots, but what came out were four huge cheese-stuffed tots sitting in a bowl of more cheese — definitely not what we expected. The watermelon mojito was also underwhelming, tasting more like ice water with just a splash of watermelon syrup.

For drinks and apps, I ordered the mimosa flight and the breakfast egg rolls (which are usually my go-to and the one safe choice I can always count on). Those were fine, but everything else fell short.

For the kids, the Cookie Monster pancakes had way too much cream stuffed in between, making them hard to enjoy, and the French toast was shockingly small — just one flat slice for $11, which didn’t feel worth it.

To top things off, when our server (Emily, if I remember correctly) brought the check, I handed her my card directly without reviewing it, assuming everything was correct. Thankfully, my boyfriend encouraged me to double-check, and I realized we had been charged for two mimosa flights when I had only ordered one.

Overall, while the staff was polite and the egg rolls held up, the food quality, drink execution, and billing error left us disappointed. Sadly, it wasn’t the experience we...

The food was some of the worst breakfast food I've had. Literally EVERYTHING was terrible.

Pancakes were super dry even after pouring the bottle of syrup on them. Extra syrup?? $3!

Bacon... Even the bacon was inedible. It tasted like they boiled it. How do you mess up bacon that badly??

The amount of homefries was pathetic. Despite my wife asking for no eggs in her meal and extra homefries. A side of home fries is $4 and you get half a potato at best...

We got toast... It was like they walked it by the toaster on the way to table. It was barely toasted, had a small dab of butter, and by the time we got a side of butter the bread (not toast) was too cold to melt the butter. This toast was the opposite of friendly. It was UNfriendly.

My Irish Eggs were also pretty low quality. The "house made" hash was clearly from a can and my "poached" eggs were essentially hard boiled. Yolk was too thick to run on one of them and the other was the consistency of a hard boiled egg. Even the egg white itself was dry despite LITERALLY being cooked in water!

The servers were the only redeeming part, but only slightly. They were very nice, however the gaps between drinks and taking our order was too long. The gap between me putting my card down on the table to pay and them taking my payment was also quite long.

Overall, I'm disappointed in how far the Friendly Toast has fallen. They went from being a cool place to get breakfast and brunch to your run of the mill corporate...