Chattering Squirrel Coffee Cafe w/ Drive Thru — Restaurant in Siren

Tl;dr: food was fine to good (see 2), staff needed more/better training which caused issues (see 1). Probably worth trying.

Experience: The place itself was very cute! We stopped in about quarter after 5 to pick up something for dinner - not their main focus, obviously, but that wasn't an issue. They stop serving hot food after lunch (that's definitely fair!), but the cold sandwiches and wraps were all still options. So far, so good!

The first issue came when we asked if there were any kinds of peppers in the cranberry chicken salad (one of our party has an allergy). The three staff that were there offered their opinions or vague memories of what was in there (one mentioned a recipe book, but none of them actually went and got it), but in the end they told us that there wasn't anything like that in the salad. I had a vague memory of already deciding the cranberry salad wasn't an option, though, so I pulled up my phone and found the online menu which did list the ingredients, which include red bell peppers. The person serving us remembered that they were there when I said this out loud, so we got confirmation, but I wish we didn't have to go off of vague memories from looking up a restaurant to avoid eating allergens. It would have been nice to be able to trust the staff to know what was in the food.

The second issue was with the order itself. All three of us ordered half sandwiches (I appreciate that that is an option!), but after paying and looking at the receipt, we noticed that one of them was listed as a full sandwich. The person who took our order was already off making the sandwiches, so we got the attention of the other two staff that were behind the counter. They told us they could tell the one making the sandwiches the correct order, but that they didn't know how to refund it anyway, so we said we'd wait and they went back to what they were doing. When the first person came back with our order, we asked again - they offered to go back and fix the sandwich itself so that it was only a half, but agreed that they couldn't give us the refund when I asked. So...we just took the full sandwich that we didn't order because there didn't seem to be any other alternative?

Obviously this isn't a huge deal in the long run - a small amount of wasted food and wasted money in relative terms - but it's not a good thing that none of the people there had been trained on how to fix an incorrect order. Whether they refunded the difference or cancelled the order entirely and re-did it correctly, we wouldn't have cared, but they didn't have enough training to do either of those. Whoever is in charge of training, please do better by your staff!

Food Ok, the food! We ordered to go. Cranberry chicken salad sandwich got ordered by a different (non-allergic) member of our party and apparently didn't have any actual cranberry taste. That was disappointing, but otherwise it wasn't a bad sandwich. The deli sandwiches we got both tasted good!

+1000 kudos for wrapping the included pickle in paper so that my chips and sandwich were not soggy when I got to them. Seriously, thank you for that!! Soggy pickle-chips are the worst.

So in conclusion, probably a bit of a fluke experience-wise, but it leaves you feeling pretty uncomfortable when this kind of thing is your first experience with a new place. Still worth a try if you're just looking for a quick...

We almost missed coming to the Chattering Squirrel because there is almost no signage for it. It's in the middle of a building with a kitchen accessories store on one end and general store on the other. Mostly, it's what appears to be a neat little coffee shop that also serves great sandwiches, wraps, soups, etc.

We had the Cranberry Chicken Salad Sandwiches and Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese Soup. Both were excellent, the soup more so than then chicken salad. The sandwich was on a wonderful multi-grain bread but the chicken salad was more just chunks of chicken than anything. It had very little mayo or anything to hold it together, so the chicken pieces kept dropping onto my plate. Regardless of being a little dry for my taste, it was still good.

Service was good though you order at the register and they bring your food. It didn't take long for the food to arrive and the staff was very friendly. The Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese Soup was the hit for me. They served it in a unique way, with a handful of popcorn on the plate that held the bowl and one kernel of popcorn on top of the...

This place has gotten worse & worse. Even though their voicemail says open until 6, they close at 5. Today I flew there after work, to get there before 5. I got there at 4:57. I sat at the speaker yelling "hello?!" Until I finally just pulled up to the window at 4:59. Nobody there either. As I sat at the window, I saw 1 girl FINALLY walk by. She didnt come to the window. When it JUST turned 5:00 THEN someone came to the window and said that they're closed. I told them I was sitting at the speaker. The kid had an ear bud in, NOT THE HEADSET (for the speaker), and said he "didn't hear me, so there's nothing he can do." I said "so because NONE of you were paying attention, I cant get my drink?" He said there's nothing he can do. You pay close to $10 for a blended coffee (cheaper at franchise shops even) They USE to be great! Great coffes AND great customer service. But with the rapid turnover rate for the past year, came not so great products & all around bad customer service. I guess we'll be trying out Crosshatch from...