Boudin SF — Restaurant in San Jose

This restaurant deserves and microscopic star, for serving us baby size cups of chili. When I receive terrible service, low quality or quantity of food, I often give it a second try. Sometimes businesses have off days, just like us. However, this time, being the second time, ordering through Doordash, my husband and I were convinced that this was definitely not a Doordash problem, but rather a Boudin problem. Last time instead of a regular size dinner roll with their small bowl of soup, they had replaced it with thin slice of small toast. This time the soup size was reduced to an even smaller cup for almost ten dollars and the bread was even smaller than the normal dinner roll. It would take 5-6 cups to fill a regular size bread bowl, meaning, the soup in a bread bowl would cost, minimum $50. We were disgusted by the level of greed. we had also ordered two salads. Not sure if they think the consumers are too stupid to notice, as they leave the pieces of chicken and salad leaves uncut, to make the clear box, look fuller. We had to choose a drink with with our order, which meant choosing four bottles of water instead of soda. Everything was shoved in a small bag with four bottles of water on top of the soups and salads, which caused the bag to tear by the time it made it to our doorstep. The management of this Boudin location should be ashamed of themselves for this price gouging and lack of...

I haven't eaten here in a while. Granted, it's the closest Boudin to me, so I stopped in for some lunch. Staff was friendly to me today, and the food tasted very good. I ordered the Turkey Melt stuffing sandwich with a side salad and a diet coke. The cashier was very polite and thanked me for waiting during the rush. I really appreciate when workers do this. It shows they value you. Props to him! And the woman who served me my food was very very sweet. The only reason I am giving this Boudin 5 stars is during the times I've even simply come in for Doordash deliveries (not eating there), I've observed multiple times that a lot of tables are just littered with dishes that previous customers had left behind when they left the restaurant. I understand if it's busy, but I just feel tables could be cleaned a little better ontime and dishes shouldn't be lying around near the soda machine (for instance, today, there was a dirty plate with food on it by the soda machine). It wasn't appealing to look at . Cleanliness could be improved just a tad. Other than this, I enjoy coming here and the staff...

I have very mixed feelings about this place. It's a valid alternative to the traditional restaurants, and they have good tasting food. At the same time, there are so many minor annoyances that could have been avoided (some I'm sure are specific to this particular branch, others are bad corporate decisions).

This particular branch is (IMHO) very poorly managed. I've been there just to have them run out of ice tea or sodas (they didn't even give me a rain check, basically, I paid for something I didn't get and that was it.) Tables take forever to be cleaned, forcing customers to sit where they don't want to. Lines are usually long and usually there's only one cashier serving customers.

On the corporate level, it seems a very "strict" place. Want this sandwich? Fine. Want the bread toasted? No sir, not even if you pay more for it (compare to Panera Bread where they will do it "your way").

In short, it's a good diversion from the usual unhealthy places, but for the money I'd stick to Panera Bread or another...