Kneaders Bakery & Cafe — Restaurant in Queen Creek

I have been visiting this particular Kneader’s location in Queen Creek for a few years now, and it was the first time that I actually had the pleasure to meet the District Manager.

While I enjoy the food and atmosphere that is reminiscent of a cozy, warm and welcoming cafe, this review is particularly for Kneader’s District Manager and I can only hope she or the company’s headquarters will read this note, because I was very taken by her authentic, genuine and warm hospitality, paired with her welcoming treatment towards guests.

Typically, as a guest / customer, we don’t get to see or interact with upper management. However, it was at the QC location where I got to meet Deanna (please pardon if I misspelled your District Manager’s name), East Valley’s District Manager, I believe?!

It was a VERY busy late morning, with the bakery hustling and bustling. Despite the long queue with in-bakery dining and customers from all ages avidly awaiting to place their order for the bakery’s famous French Toast and, despite a few very impatient, grumpy customers, one in particular that caught my attention and unfortunately not in a positive manner, Deanna exceeded any and all hospitality standards, with the sole aim to satisfy the seemingly impossible to please and uncooperative customer, a woman / lady who unfortunately felt she should have priority over all other customers in line. On the latter note, in a world of “Kens & Karens”, be a Deanna! 😜 Cheers to that!🍷

I stem from years of fine dining restaurant and luxury hotel management myself and am very observant, though do not typically have the urge to leave reviews.

In this particular instance however, it is my absolute desire, delight and pleasure to send a big shoutout to your District Manager who managed to single handedly impress me, as she went above and beyond and thus, exceeded her hospitality and people management skills while finally pleasing the guest / customer ahead of me who was truly being impossible, all the while being deeply condescending to the team members and even to Deanna herself.

Kudos to Deanna for maintaining a professional, warm and welcoming, friendly attitude and front while also pleasing all other guests as well as customers.

I only had the pleasure to have spoken with Miss Deanna shortly, as I did not wish to occupy much of her time, amid a very busy breakfast / brunch shift at the bakery, with schools having been closed and thus, with also a larger, younger customer demographic present that kept the entire team very busy with continuous orders.

Thank you, Deanna for having taken the time to converse with me, to have introduced yourself to me after my curiosity led me to strike a conversation with you. Above all, thank you for your authentic, genuine, warm and truly welcoming hospitality.

Kneader’s is lucky to have a District Leader / Manager like Deanna and I can only hope that your company’s leadership team will read this and appreciate this pivotal member of your operations, who is naturally blessed to know how to cater towards various personalities in this utmost volatile industry, named hospitality.

Anybody who has worked even one day in this demanding field, knows well and understands the importance of a solid leader that knows the perfect balance between assertiveness, humility, kindness and professionalism and how to guide her team accordingly.

Deanna is the very epitome of all of the aforementioned values and character traits, the very representation of proper, professional, subtle etiquette and I am delighted to have had the opportunity to meet and to speak with her at this Kneader’s location in Queen Creek.

Thank you, Deanna, for also having extended your kindness and warm hospitality towards me and for a wonderful dining...

The absolute worst experience at a Kneaders. Very disappointing because it was a special occasion for our family and we were excited to go out for breakfast. First, they were out of the advertised special within the first hour of opening. Not a big deal but now had to order differently and spend much more. Then, they told us it would take 20 mins to get our food and at 1 hour and 20 mins we told them we could no longer wait. We had our four young kids with us and would not have waited if we knew the actual wait time. We are always understanding of a restaurant being busy and/or understaffed but once we saw every single party around us being served we felt we should be able to expect our food to arrive. The employee we asked went to check our order and did apologize because they had lost our ticket and the four kids orders we were waiting on had been sitting out for 45 mins while they waited for the regular French toast. So the kids breakfast was cold and hard. Since we knew we were not going to be able to request any more orders of the “all you can eat” French toast (because of the wait) we asked if we could get some extra cream and strawberries when they brought out our orders instead of waiting for additional servings. They brought out our French toast and they were tiny pathetic portions with a couple strawberry slices and said we couldn’t get any extra because they were out of strawberries (after this discussion we watched them bring out order after order with cream and strawberries). At that point we asked for a refund because not only had we had no decent service or consideration but now we had a meal that was not appetizing and definitely not what we had come for and paid for. Now our family of 6 had waited an hour and a half for measly portions of sub par French toast. Such a huge disappointment. She didn’t want to give the refund and asked if we had touched it yet, we told her no and she just took the plates so they could give it to someone else. Not concerned with the experience we had had at their location or the fact that now we have wasted time and haven’t had breakfast and every other place has now stopped serving breakfast.

The issue isn’t that they were busy. We could tell the employees were in working hard. But it needs to be made clear by the employees how long a wait is going to be. Then you need to put out a good product. You can’t charge the regular price for a meal and deliver a smaller, worse quality version of that meal.

The only redeeming thing that happened was as we were preparing to leave the male employee who had initially taken our order brought us a bag with a loaf of bread and some cookies and told us he felt bad and please accept this on them. It was a kind gesture that reflects positively on him as an employee and the Kneaders brand. Unfortunately, the overall experience will prevent us from being...

One of the worst experiences I've had at a restaurant. My wife and I go to this location often so we know what to expect, which is decent service and good food. In fact one of my best experiences happened here less than a year ago when we came towards the end of breakfast time and were gifted two full boxes of French Toast (like 4 big pieces in each) since they didn't want it to go to waste. Super nice guys! This time however made me never want to come back.

When we got in there weren't a lot of people eating, so when we were told it was going to be a while until we got our French Toast and smoothies it kind of threw us off. After almost 20 minutes we finally got our food only to receive completely cold toast and a piña colada smoothie that had absolutely no pineapple or coconut in it whatsoever and instead had a very strong banana taste to it. My wife went to ask if she could get her smoothie remade since she thought maybe they gave her the wrong one, only to have one of the ladies working at the register say, "Well it does have bananas in it." and be kind of rude in her tone. My wife only ever gets this smoothie because it doesn't have a banana taste and she's had it at least 30 times... she knows how it should taste. Anyways the lady took the smoothie back and had it remade, only to have it given to us 10 minutes later and have it taste worse with an overwhelming banana and artificial coconut flavor. We were done after that and left as quickly as we could. I was able to work through the cold toast since the syrup was somewhat warm and I'm really not a picky person, but after trying my wife's smoothie I was ready to get out.

I don't know if the employees were having a bad day or what, but man that was some awful service and food at a place that usually nails both. And it's not like they were being rushed because it wasn't really busy. Maybe 10-12 other people that already had their food and a few others that came in after us. Just a poor experience all around and we'll probably be looking at another breakfast place to go to in the future because of...