NU Kitchen Somerville — Restaurant in Somerville

We’ve ordered Nu Kitchen a couple times via Caviar for lunch, but today I decided to take a bike ride and go pick up myself. What a mistake!

First, you walk into complete chaos. The staff is running around like crazy, there are half a dozen customers milled around the door, none socially distanced, with no designation for where to go (ie. Order Here, Pick up Here). Not having a socially distanced pick-up/waiting area is unacceptable.

Second, they forgot to make my order. Ha! I ordered online through their website around 11:30 for 12:30 pick up. Arrived at 12:25. Once I was finally able to talk to someone after 5 minutes of waiting, she explained that my order wasn’t ready and wouldn’t be in the next 5 minutes. Given what I’ve read on other reviews, I’m glad I didn’t try to wait it out. She explained that they had had a lot of orders and hadn’t gotten around to mine. Honestly, despite the chaos, they didn’t seem to be actually moving that much food. I waited with the same customers for the 10 minutes I was in the shop. If you’ve ever been to a Flour or Sweet Green, you know what slammed is. They were just confused and chaotic.

It took the woman helping me another 5 minutes to figure out how to refund my order. If you have anything like my anxiety about Covid, social distancing, and cleanliness,...

Nu Kitchen or RUDE Kitchen? I went there today and the only staff folding up bags did not acknowledge me as though I was transparent. I asked her very politely about the parking situation because it was a mess outside of the cafe with heavy traffic and construction going on. She replied in a very impatient and unpleasant manner.

After parking my car, I went in and saw this staff again. Once again, I was ignored. She seemed to be a manager or a more senior staff "busy" ordering other staff around. I waited at the counter for a good 5 minutes - again these people were right at the counter but no one seemed to bother to greet their customers.

At a neighborhood cafe, on a Tuesday morning (10am April 20), I expected to have a pleasant and personable experience, but it turned out to be rather disappointing. If she's not happy working there and having an attitude already in the morning and ruining people's days, why bother?

On a side note, I did notice her being more polite towards an old white male customer after I got my food. She even went to their table, bent over, listened and nodded ----Wow!

And I agree with other reviews, the music was...

Tried this place for the first time due to the overall good reviews and decent number of vegetarian options. Ordered the SoCal smoothie which was delicious, lemonade which was also very good and scones.

The scones were probably the worst scones I've ever had in my entire life. I have had the good fortune of eating scones in Scotland and from many other Scottish friends. Firstly they're round in shape but I can ignore that. They are either unsweetened or very slightly sweetened and most importantly they're plain! They're plain because they're usually eaten with cream and jam or butter and jam.

The scones I got from NU kitchen were so thoroughly loaded in cinnamon and sugar that it was impossible to taste anything else. I will never understand the American obsession with cinnamon but that's a whole other topic. The scones were dry and crumbly and not moist at all, which is the opposite of what a good scone should be like. It's a shame because the SoCal smoothie was so perfectly balanced in terms of sweetness that I know that at least they do understand how to not make...