The Greenery Cafe — Restaurant in Ogunquit

I’m usually not one to leave bad reviews, nor am I picky, unreasonable or unsympathetic. BUT let me tell you about my experience here &you can tell me whether you’d be leaving this review to warn others. We picked this place during our stay in Ogunquit because they seemed to have good reviews, & a steady flow of people. Hostess was very pleasant. After we were seated we started looking over the menu. Our waitress Sam came over 10min later& asked if we would like coffee. My partner ordered a coffee, I said I would like a water. Waitress comes back, places 2 coffees on table &walks away. Ok, I said I didn’t want coffee but nbd, I’ll drink it &forget about it since she brought it. Coffee was awful& so acidic no amount of cream/sugar could fix it, so I only took a couple sips & left it 2/3rds full. Still didn’t mind paying for it even though it was awful & I didn’t order it. She comes back, takes our order & we wait for our food. Food comes out after a while & again, waitress walks away immediately, my other half realizes she’s missing her single pancake she ordered and I realize my food is not what I ordered. Completely different plate. Told our waitress when she came back out with some other plates for a table nearby to us, I realize those people were also confused looking and when I mentioned my food was wrong she looks down at the plates she had and asks if it’s what I ordered. It was, so she put it on my table & said she would have the kitchen remake the ladys order. She then also realizes the pancake she was about to give this other table was ours & gives us that. Now one lady at the other table has her meal and her friend has to wait for a new meal. She takes off once again. We start eating, I had ordered eggs over easy as I enjoy when they are runny with my toast. These eggs were cooked solid, rubbery, unbelievably overcooked and dry. Hash browns were completely unseasoned & almost bitter & waitress didn’t ask us if we wanted ketchup & failed to give my partner syrup with her pancake. Again, not a problem we ate what we can while we wait for her to come back around. She walks out & says “how’s everything” nods her head in our direction, but keeps going & walks up to another table and stops to chat with them. Didn’t wait for an answer, or for us to ask for the things that were not provided to us that we needed to enjoy our meal. Now I’m starting to get frustrated because I feel like this woman hasn’t listen to anything I’ve said to her since I’ve arrived. I still remain polite, please & thank yous even though she has been overlooking us, being too short & quick with us more than once but is taking time at other tables. When she goes back by us, I kindly ask her for syrup& ketchup & she goes to retrieve them. I choke down the dry, severely overcooked eggs (wasn’t bothering for a remake) &my partner finishes her plate& after receiving the syrup can finally eat her pancake. She ordered a chocolate chip and realizes it’s a blueberry. At this point, we are absolutely done. This has been at EVERY turn that this person dismissed us. Our drinks, our orders were both wrong, gave us things we did not want or order & we are tired of not feeling heard & getting poor quality food &service. Few more minutes go by without her checking on us& we call twice to get her attention when she is 4ft away & are ignored. Finally 3rd time she walks by I call her name & she once again doesn't hear me (or ignores me, not sure at this point) so i call it again slightly louder& she finally turns around. We tell her the pancake we ordered was choc chip, this was blueberry. She asks if we want another one to go (not to remake and eat it there?) we tell her we’d prefer to not take it at this point. She gives us our check minus pancake, we thank her, pay, leave 20% tip & won’t ever be back again. If you come here, I hope you don’t get...

Jam packed for mediocre food and the most unexpectedly nasty and unaccommodating service from the moment you step up to be seated.

I grew up in Ogunquit and know literally everyone in town. My dear friends from my childhood are business owners all over Ogunquit. I have every intention of sharing my most recent experience at The Greenery with them, including long time friends on the zoning board.

Not only is the food underwhelming, the atmosphere is average and this is the SECOND time (had been here twice before) we were met an attitude (We had asked for egg whites and the response was unfoundedly mean) for absolutely no reason, one of their employees from the moment she approached the entry/host stand, was just downright nasty with a sudden and surprisingly unexpected attitude. She literally attacked us when we walked up. We simply asked how long the wait would be for an outdoor table. She said 'I'm not going to rush anyone to leave' ... umm, no one had suggested that. We were in great moods and were taken completely off guard.

She dismissed us as we told her we would wait for a table to become available. We then went for a walk around the building while we waited and as we came back around to the front, we saw her from afar, speaking with an attitude to everyone who approached the hostess stand! Others were murmuring about it.

She was clearly busy and maybe she was having a bad day. I always try to empathize with this. We ALL have bad days, but when I kindly and simply asked if she was the owner, she NASTILY attacked me! She literally said 'I know you want to speak to the manager, I can tell by the way you're glaring at me!' ... I was not even vaguely glaring at her, in fact I was barely even looking at her, nor did I ask to speak with the manager. Completely assumptive and rude! Though after that, I definitely preferred to speak with a manager, hopefully someone KIND and hospitable while I'm trying to enjoy my hard earned vacation. My friend who also had been attacked by this angry employee, knows I'm super good to others, was absolutely shocked by this interaction, as was I.

Maybe because I have green eyes she thought I was 'glaring' at her? I wasn't nearly upset enough to do that. However, once she spewed this inaccurate accusation, THEN I was upset and though a table opened up, we chose to leave and now will no longer be a patron of this place again. They don't deserve good people there. No one deserves to be treated this way especially when we asked a simple question regarding wait times. Truly appalling.

I used to frequent this place but this is now the second time I've had an unacceptable issue with the people who work here/operate this place.

Go a few feet up the road to The Egg & I, an Ogunquit staple and eternally good food (get the grilled blueberry muffin with blueberry butter over there or the banana foster French toast, also WAY better eggs Benedict's there too),

Seriously don't bother with this black cloud establishment. Simply cannot believe how we were treated ... and for very average fare. A total waste of a meal in Ogunquit....

It was okay. Food tasted good. Service could be better. Coffee not great. I wouldn't come here again.

QUICK POINTS:

1. They lack knowledge of what ingredients are in the food they're serving.

2. Waitress was kind and attentive, but lacked clear communication skills.

3. No dairy-free cheese options.

4. latte with almond milk with ick. Probably the brand of almond milk.

5. No Dairy-Free pastries or muffins.

They don't know what's in the food they're serving:

I expected a place called "The Greenery" to be more conscious and knowledgeable about their ingredients of the food they're serving. I asked if the bread bread for the burger had dairy in it, she went and asked and said they didn't know because it came from an outside source... I feel it's really irresponsible to have no idea what ingredients are in the food you're serving your customers.

Waitress was kind and attentive in checking in on me, however, there were a couple points in conversation that I felt like she lacked transparency or a willingness/ability to be clear and avoid confusion.

Example - I asked for maple syrup in my latte. She asked if I wanted table syrup or real Maine syrup. In my mind, they were just going to add that to my latte while making it like every other place I order it at, so I chose the Maine syrup. But instead a little unopened bottle of maple syrup arrived with my latte, and I got the feeling I was going to have to pay for the whole bottle... I asked and yes, $4.50 for the bottle.

She could have just presented the cost with her statement and it would have saved us all time and the annoyance of her lack of transparency.

Food tasted good, but was nothing original or spectacular by any means. They kindly put the veggie burger on a wrap - and it tasted Great. It came with choice of side salad & Dairy-Free dressing, which tasted fresh and great as well.

There are no Dairy-Free cheese options, which is fine, just letting you know.

The water tasted good, which is rare at restaurants.

My latte was ick. I'm pretty sure it was almond milk that made it taste watery and chalky. I'm guessing they use Nature's Promise brand, that usually has the chalky/watery taste.

They charge a $1 for a to-Go cup for coffee, which I think is fair as we all should all be moving toward reusable things anyways.

No Dairy-Free pastry options. They have a Lot of pastry options, but none of them...