Kneaders Bakery & Cafe — Restaurant in Riverton

I am a resident near the Riverton, Utah Kneaders location and have visited this location multiple times, including this past Saturday, December 10, 2022. My family and I stopped by to grab a few pastries on our way to a family get together that was starting at 8:30. We entered the store at 8:12 p.m.

There was only customer being helped at the register when we entered the store and that person finished placing their order within less than thirty seconds after we entered. It took another three minutes for any of the employees to notice that we were waiting at the register. We placed our orders without difficulty, until after my order was placed. I ordered what came out to $20 and change in various cookies, brownies, and eclairs. As soon as my order was complete, I waited to be handed my receipt. The cashier informed me that they were unable to print receipts at that time and when I asked if they could email a receipt instead, they said no. As someone who keeps rigorous track of my purchases through receipts, this was inconvenient at best.

After ordering, we turned the corner to wait by the tables alongside the drink dispensers and noticed three other groups of people waiting on their orders. Ten minutes went by, Then fifteen. None of the customers waiting in front of us had yet received their orders. The employees behind the counter consisted of a tall man who looked to be in his twenties or thirties, two young women who said that they were in their twenties as they talked with the fourth employee, a teenager who multiple times had difficulty reading the menu when he was asked to fill orders. For fifteen minutes we watched them joke and laugh and look at things on the cash register and very, very slowly fill orders for customers in the drive-through.

I did notice that the main dining floor had been fully cleaned and closed up for the night. They had cleaned all of the tables, put up the chairs, and vacuumed the floors. It was a lot of work they'd done at 8:00 p.m. or earlier for a restaurant that doesn't close until 10:00 p.m. The dining tables by the drink dispensers were covered in large piles of gift baskets, leaving nowhere for customers to sit in the restaurant.

At this point, we had been waiting for thirty minutes. We had missed the beginning of our family get together that started at 8:30, and I was extremely frustrated. I walked up to the register and waited for an employee to approach me. For the majority of my time in the restaurant, only the two women and the teenager were anywhere to be seen. The tall male employee spent more than half of the time back in the office of the restaurant. After a moment of waiting at the counter, one of the employees walked over to me and asked if she could help me with something. I replied by explaining that we had been waiting for over half an hour for our ten pastries and that I would like a refund. She brushed off my request and said, "Oh, we can get those right out to you!" I told her that I no longer wanted the pastries, but that I wanted a refund instead, and asked for a refund again. Instead of starting the process of my refund, she asked the other employee to begin filling my order. This was even more frustrating because I had directly asked for a refund and was ignored. Just over ten minutes later, they finally called my name with the order.

My time in the store was 44 minutes. We missed being at our family gathering on time because of the inability of these employees to effectively serve a few customers on a Saturday night. I asked for a receipt and was denied. I asked for a refund and was ignored. Until the ownership of this Kneaders is changed and new employees are hired, I will never visit this store again. I will gladly drive out of my way to visit either the Draper or South Jordan locations. I worked in food service for years and can say with absolute certainty that had any employee working any shift at my job performed as those employees did on Saturday night, we would have been fired on the spot.

Kneaders used to be...

First, the good. I gave a single star because when I finally got home to eat the cinnamon roll I ordered, it was delicious. The four stars this Riverton Kneaders location did not get were also earned.

It was 9:00 AM on a Monday. I was the loan vehicle in the drive-thru and since I later discovered the doors to the dining room locked down, I can attest there was not a single patron inside, making me the ONLY customer. My order was three cinnamon rolls, you know, the ones that were already made and just sitting in the display case waiting to be simply scooped up and put into a container. I'm left wondering why then it took five minutes for the young lady to walk to the case, extract three cinnamon rolls and walk back to the drive-thru window?

Wanting to ensure there was enough frosting on the cinnamon rolls, I peeked into the bag and was disappointed to see that two of the three had very little and the third had frosting on one half but practically none on the other. Since I had pulled slightly forward of the window I decided to just drive around to the lobby and go inside to ask for a bit more frosting. That's when I discovered the doors were all locked. A bit frustrated, I got back in my vehicle and drove back to the drive-thru window where I explained my dilemma and asked for a bit more frosting for my cinnamon rolls. The young woman asked how many I'd like and I told her I had no idea since I had no idea the size of the container they came in. She offered to bring the tray to the window, which I thought was odd, but agreed so I could see how big the container was - I was thinking maybe a fry sauce cup. Instead, she brought the entire tray of cinnamon rolls (which were very light on the frosting for the most part). I explained that I didn't need more cinnamon rolls, just the frosting. She said she'd go check with the baking team and would be right back. After eight or so minutes, she returned with some fry-sauce-size containers of frosting, which was much appreciated.

So, the issue here is that it shouldn't take a collective 20 minutes or so to get three already made cinnamon rolls and a little extra frosting when I was the ONLY customer. When I opted to write my review it was then I stumbled onto numerous other reviews reflecting similar issues at this particular location. The sad part is that the reviews span from just a few days ago back several months. The common refrain from ownership is that they have been working to bring this location up to their company standards and appealed to customers to give them a little time for those new standards to be reflected. Yet, the same problems persist it seems. I fear that months having passed since these quality controls have been implemented and still the same issues remain this IS company standards.

Despite ownership asking customers to give them another try it seems evident that no one really cares or these issues would have resolved immediately. Riverton and Herriman are growing and more dining options are being added all the time. I've enjoyed a good sandwich from Kneaders from time to time. Sure hope those changes they've promised are real and will come to the public sometime soon or they're...

3rd Update. THIS IS THE WORST FOOD RESTAURANT. If it was an option to give negative stars, I wouldn't hesitate. 1st. Went to pick an order that was made ahead of time 4 days ago. Of course they didn't have my order!! Sadly not surprised. Three of the employees sat there and told me they couldn't refund my money for the order that I had previously paid. They couldn't or didn't know how. 2nd. While sitting there waiting for them to collectively scratch their heads about what to do, I witnessed a male & female cook, sharing food. The problem, they were eating and feeding each other, with the SAME gloves they were making customer food. He grabbed his sandwich with his gloved hands and leaned over and fed it to her. In the era of covid and with as many terrible illnesses going around, kneaders has employees who wear gloves that go into their own mouths making other people's food.

This place seriously needs to just be shut down. Also, walked out with no order that was for Christmas. I can't believe I was dumb enough to try again.

Update. For once the online ordering worked, congrats on that. But honestly. Went to pick it up, the lobby was closed. So we had to wait in line in the drive through for at least 20 minutes to get our cold food. Top that off. THE ORDER WAS WRONG. IMAGINE THAT. called to see if we could get the items missing from our order, yes, but you still have to sit in the long drive through to pick them up. Because the lobby is CLOSED.

RECENT changes in management or not, it's just seriously not worth the hassle. Done. 11/17/22

This may be a location issue. Our closest store was all of the sudden closed all weekend.. what's that about. So, we chose another store, and man we regretted it big time. They were out of pretty much everything, which is strange because it was normal business hours. As you can see from the picture below, this pathetic thing was supposed to be a Ruben sandwich. Literally, this is one piece of pastrami. The bread soaked in thousand island dressing was soaked and soggy. They're were a few pieces of cabbage. I'm sorry but this is a joke....