KitchenTown — Restaurant in San Mateo

I have mixed feelings about this place. On the plus side, it's a nice space, they have free (fast) wifi and the staff are great and friendly. On the downside, they seem to still be finding their way as a restaurant (the space also functions as a food startup incubator). Some examples of that: closed on Mondays (Monday's??) no breakfast on Tuesdays - why? they close at 4, so no dinner hours inconsistent hours in general - hard to plan to go there when you have to break out your pivot table to determine if they are open and what they are actually serving that day no decaf coffee pricey food for small portions kitchen is inflexible in meeting customer requests I have been there a number of times for breakfast (around 10). I cannot eat egg yolks (intolerant) so I ask for egg whites. Every breakfast place in the Bay Area that I have been to accommodates requests like this. In fact, I have never really been anywhere in the US where they don't. Usually they charge extra for this but I'm ok with that. Each and every time I order this breakfast this way, I initially get "we don't do that." And then I ask them to ask the kitchen and they have reluctantly done it. Every time it's this back and forth. For some reason they don't want to do it. Figure it out, guys. Figure out how to do what literally everyone else does. Your bacon and eggs and potatoes comes in at a precious $17. I deserve to have my eggs the way I want them. Note to management: if you aren't aware of this, please take action now that you are. It's exasperating to have to argue for my...

Hi,

I am giving 1 star due to the fact that it took nearly 45 minutes to one hour to receive our order. I had initially asked the male server at the curbside window if we were allowed to dine outside, and he pointed to the direction of available seating in front of the restaurant as well as the alley way to the right of the restaurant. He also mentioned that they will be serving the food and drinks to us. We ordered first, then proceeded to sit and wait for the server. My boyfriend and I ordered had only ordered 2 cold brews, 1 pastry and 1 bagel sandwich. The drinks and pastry came out first, but this itself took more than 20 minutes to receive. The area we were sitting in had too much sun, so we decided to move to the seating in the alley. We waited for almost 40 minutes, and noticed the sandwich hadn’t arrived yet so I walk up to the window and asked the cashier for my order update. She had the sandwich in a bag, and handed it to me and had the nerve to say “We thought you both had already left” YIKES. I asked her how long the sandwich was sitting for and she couldn’t tell me. I saw 2-3 employees standing around behind her.

First off, we were told the server would serve us for dining outside. Second, Apple Pay should have my phone number. Could they have called me? Could someone have walked outside and called out our names? Hey Kitchen town, if you want to stay open please be more proactive. It was our first time visiting and I was looking forward to it, until now as I am very disappointed with your customer service. Very poor customer service. Not...

Just to be clear, I am basing my review on the cafe experience only. I love love the idea of KitchenTown and the fact that it is providing a venue and additional support for entrepreneurs wanting to start their own food business. I think it's for this reason, we all should support this establishment. Back to my cafe experience: The interior was cute and you have a good view of the kitchen. You can actually see people making and preparing dishes, so the wait was not at all boring. I do believe there should be more variety in hot drink options, but if you're a coffee lover I would assume you will be fine. Since I was on the hunt for Chai, which they did not have, I resorted to golden milk. For the amount of people in the cafe the wait for a drink was too long. This is where you have to appreciate the finer things in life and enjoy open concept kitchen and take in the views while you wait. Was the golden milk latte delish? I would say mediocre, but then again I was in the...