Great Harvest Bread — Restaurant in North Bethesda

First experience of this shop and their wares. My wife and I were looking for a good bread shop since the Spring Mill Bread Co. in Montrose shopping center closed during the dreaded pandemic.

When we walked in and asked about the various breads the manager (middle aged lady) was very terse and told us to look at the menu and when I asked about one particular bread on the shelf, she was even more terse and just said read the menu...what good is a menu if you cannot tie the description to the actual bread on the shelf....no not everything was labeled.

When my wife decided to order a loaf she was was presented with a sliced loaf, which she did not want, and when presented a with an uncut loaf, it was not what she requested. Again terse manager when my wife asked why a round loaf and not what she requested and was simply told "they are the same"!!!

The bread itself, smelled lovely but when we cut into it we were disappointed that it had not been cooked properly and was heavy, dense and gummy in the mouth. When we examined the loaf vines of unmixed heavy dough to be seen running though the bread. Not what we were looking for.

Additionally my wife bought a Pumpkin Yumkin bread, on cutting into it she again was disappointed to find a soggy undercooked center. She said the outside was tasty and well cooked and the choc used was good quality, but the center made it unappetizing and she is trying to cook it in our oven in an attempt to cook the center.

On leaving the store my wife heard one of staff being berated by the manager about how she was stacking something. We felt sorry for the young lady.

Maybe it was just a bad day and usually things are fine, but as our first experience it left a poor impression. All in all a bad experience - we will not be returning

UPDATE Really appreciate the person from GHB that replied to my review. Not sure you can see all my reviews that I left for other companies, but they are all 4 or 5 stars so for me to leave a review that is so negative is really unusual. Having said that I would say the response was really great and shows desire to do the right thing. Unfortunately, my wife and I will just move on from this incident but hope that out negative review will assist management make...

I went today after seeing a facebook clip and was hoprful that the rockville one might be as wonderful as the one in the clip. I went to the website and saw some very bad math comparisons to Giant. Even by the ounce, the prices are not only higher, but the image from the facebook clip makes a person believe that the bread is fresh daily...not 3 days old sometimes. The store in Rockville looks like a empty shell...the cash register(?) is a tablet looking thing....not much nice warm bread smell and unless asked point blank, the employee does not answer whether the bread is made that day or not. The plastic wrap also does not state when the bread was made. Sure, the bread is good for at least 7 days, but a person going into the store wants to buy fresh warm bread. I went thinking of the magarita bread or maybe the dakota bread, but since I didn't see the dakota bread, I asked when the magarita bread would be coming out. I was not going to wait over an hour for bread, so when the employee mentioned the simliar popeye bread, I was okay. However, as I paid, I encountered problems (I had 2 prepaid rebate cards, which their system would not accept) and then when I went to try a sample of what I purchased (I was already sort wondering since the bread I had was not warm to the touch...at around 10-11am, there should be some kind of bread that was warm), I sorta decided to ask on a long shot if the bread was made that day. The employee answered it was made on Saturday, so I started having buyer's remorse and held off until I bit into the sample. the sample sealed the deal (seriously, it had some staleness to it) and I requested the refund of what I just purchased. There were very few other freshly baked(?) products there (cookies/biscotti...no muffin/scones/cakes easily seen...very discouraging) so I'd say it would be hard for a person to go in for an impulsive purchase.

I would also recommend that they put stickers on when the bread was made or when the next fresh loaf would be coming out. (Similar to a Krispy Kreme sign or something)

I hope other people who go there have a better experience than I encountered. My experience wasn't that bad, but I will not go there again. I was too...

I am so disappointed with today's experience with the Rockville location of Great Harvest Bread. I placed an order on 12/22 and the system allowed a 12/25 pick up date. Someone from the store called me soon after to tell me that was an error and I rescheduled my pick up date to 12/24. During the conversation I asked how many people I could serve with the apple cake, and she suggested I order a second one. I was thankful for the advice and offered to pay by phone but she said I could pay for the additional cake at pick up. Yesterday someone called me from the store informing me I had not paid for the second cake. I politely told her I was told I could pay at pick up, but offered to pay by phone, which I did. I arrived at the store today and the first person who greeted me told me I needed to pay for the second cake. I explained I had paid by phone yesterday. Then the manager, Luis, came over and said I had to pay. He had no record of my payment and asked me who I spoke with yesterday. Of course I didn't get the name of the woman over the phone. He "told" me to go sit down on the bench and sent over another person who said she didn't speak with me yesterday. Now my blood pressure was rising. It was humiliating the way he spoke to me in front of the other customers. The first greeter came back over and I had to pull up my credit card statement which showed a payment on 12/22 and a second one on 12/23. More waiting while she spoke with the manager. Finally she came back and said I didn't have to pay again...that they found it somewhere in the system but obviously not where it should have been. I was furious by then. The manager (Luis) didn't have the common decency, courtesy, or professionalism to apologize to me. In addition, I was charged two different prices for the same item with no explanation given. I think I deserve better than the way I was treated and dismissed. This turned my smile upside down. You've lost a...