La Chatelaine French Bakery and Bistro — Restaurant in Sharon Township

It’s so unfortunate that I am giving by this place 1 star-because not only do they have delicious food and coffee, they do have some great employees that work there- but my God, I have had nothing but negative experiences from one of the employees in particular-MaryAnn. This is the 2nd time that I’ve gone to the bakery and had a negative experience specifically from her. The first time she was just rude for no reason to myself and group of acquaintances- I just assumed she was having a bad day-but it was so bad that had a hard time returning. Today, I decided to give it another try—I went to go purchase food and coffee to go for myself, a friend, her elderly mother and her special needs daughter. During this time, my friends elderly mother, who does not speak English, asked where the restroom was. I heard her speak very rudely to her saying “it was right there when you walked in! Didn’t you see it?!” Correct me if I’m wrong, but I am pretty sure that is NOT how you speak to anyone, let alone a paying customer or an elderly person. Then, while waiting on her mother and me purchasing the food, my friend decided she just wanted to sit down and relax because it had been a long day. Again-we came to the establishment fully intending on taking our coffee and croissants to go. But I swear she was watching me, because as soon as I sat down, this MaryAnn saw me, came up to us and started yelling at us because we did not pay the tax for sitting in the establishment, that we needed to take our things and go because we were breaking the law-she said it was like going through the drive thru at McDonald’s and then sitting in the restaurant and eating and that was against the law—According to her, the owner kicked someone out just last week for doing the same thing. She came over 5x in an extremely hostile manner to yell at us, put together our receipt and told us we had to pay the tax if we wanted to sit down. The tax was $1.84 and we had no issue paying that, and were willing to pay that, and if we were planning on sitting down, we absolutely would’ve paid that from the beginning. However, with her attitude on how she handled the situation and even went as far as calling the owner, Charlotte, twisting our words and was making us to be the bad guys. Completely unacceptable. I understand 100% that people have bad days, we are human-we ALL have bad days, but treating customers or really anybody the way she treated us was absolutely inexcusable. She was extremely hostile and made the entire experience very upsetting. It has been several hours and I’m still very upset and completely appalled and disgusted by the whole situation. And the fact that this was the 2nd time specifically from her that makes the situation so much worse. Do better La Chatelaine. People like her are going to hurt your business....

Disappointing. I met a friend for lunch here on the patio this week and we both decided we’d not be returning. Two orders of their so-called combo lunch, soup, small Caesar salad, and a half sandwich and two lemonades came to $37 and I inadvertently ended up leaving a 15% tip on top of that as the touch screen on their checkout system wouldn’t permit me to complete the transaction with a custom tip or no tip. What am I tipping for in the first place? It’s a cafeteria. I’m happy to give a buck or two, but come on. I mentioned the technical issue to the young man at the register and he shrugged and said, “Uh, sometimes it does that”. Uh-huh.

Everything was extra, as well. You want cheese on your thimble-sized (only a slight exaggeration) cup of onion soup? That’s extra. Who serves French onion soup with no cheese? You want your sandwich on a croissant instead of bread? That’s extra. The half-sandwiches looked completely squashed and were just a piece of turkey and cheese thrown on. No lettuce or tomato. Guess that’s “extra”, too.

We proceeded to take our paltry $42 lunch to the patio in search of a table. We found one but as the table had not evidently been wiped off in a long time, we were mercilessly dive-bombed by yellow jackets. We wet some napkins with water and wiped down the table ourselves and they left us in peace finally. The accumulation of pancake syrup had apparently been their draw.

If you want to overspend on lunch, go down High Street a bit to Northstar Cafe. Yes, a salad or sandwich will still cost you about $20 pp, but at least the portions are decently-sized, the tables are clean on the patio, and they will actually bring your food to your table to earn any tip. Avoid Le Chatelaine unless you want to overpay, overtip, and wash...

I ate recently 1-9-2020] at La Chatelaine French Bakery and Bistro [at 627 High St. in Worthington] because I live near La Chatelaine in Upper Arlington [and have eaten there several times] and just happened to find myself in Worthington, during the lunch hour, within one block of the Worthington location of La Chatelaine.

The woman at the ordering counter greeted me with "Bonjour."

I do not speak French so I momentarily considered greeting her in Spanish ["¡Hola!"] but decided instead to tell her [in French] that I do not speak French ["Je ne parle pas français"].

She had no idea what I was saying so I let it drop. I wonder what would happen if a native French speaker who does not know any English were to eat there

I decided to order, from the "Lunch Entrées" menu, "Gratin Macaroni Fromages," a delicious multi-cheese macaroni and cheese. I had previously seen that item on the menu at their Upper Arlington location but had already decided, that day, to order a different item.

Another person further down the ordering counter [a different person from the "Bonjour" woman] asked if I would like soup so I decided to order a cup of Cream of Mushroom soup completely unaware of the fact that a cup of soup costs $4.00.

Several minutes later, a server brought me a large serving of absolutely delicious macaroni and cheese and a tiny little cup [about half the size of a baseball] of Cream of Mushroom soup.

Had I realized the high cost and the small size of the serving, I never would have ordered a cup of Cream of Mushroom soup. I also want to mention that there had not been any pieces of mushroom in my cup of Cream of Mushroom soup.

I did enjoy the ambiance at this different La Chatelaine; however, I will now study the menu more closely whenever I "eat...