Cafe Yumm! - On Gateway — Restaurant in Springfield

I want to preface this review by admitting that I am by no means the target audience for a restaurant that serves primarily rice and beans.

That being said, my wife is, and as such, I have been dragged to this location half a dozen times and after the experience, I feel I have some idea of what it must be like to be a vegetarian in a meat eating world.

Much as at McDonald's, there are some token options for a non meat eater to choose from, Cafe Yumm does serve "chicken"... Unlike McDonald's, their chicken comes out of a microwave. No joke. They keep pre cooked chicken in a fridge wrapped up lest it contaminate the purity of the rice and beans, put it in the microwave, and heat it to a warmish temperature, and slap it on your bowl without too much recrimination.

The selection of options is decent enough, and they're reasonably quick at producing their fare. I just can't shake the feeling that all their various permutations of rice, beans, sauce, and toppings could be produced at home by myself, for a significantly lower cost. They even sell the only ingredient unique to them for home use - and in bulk no less!

I understand they're selling a lifestyle as much as a bowl of rice and beans and I respect that. If you like rice and beans and have plenty of money to sirens on them, you may just...

I LOVE Cafe Yumm but my most recent experience is the reason I won't be returning to the Gateway location. I called in a to-go order, asked for 2 alterations on my meal and when I went to disconnect the call, I overhead that staff member who took my order make a sarcastic remark using my name. I was put off by this but figured that perhaps she was just having a bad day, I've worked customer service so I get it and let it slide. When I picked up my order 15 minutes later and returned to work, I discovered my Yumm & Greens Bowl was missing the Yumm Sauce. It's the whole reason you go to Cafe Yumm (lol)! I don't happen to have a bottle of it at work but I made due and called the store just to give them a friendly heads up. I was met with a short tone and given the excuse, "Yeah, we were really busy." When I went and picked up my order, only 2 people were dinning and one other person was waiting for their to-go order to finish being ready. There were 2 people at the register and 3 in the kitchen, all of whom were talking to one another when I walked up to the counter. This is the 3rd time my order has been wrong at this location and I get the same thing every single time. I'll be exclusively visiting the Oakway location...

We went by 40 minutes before closing and everything was put away already. The Wednesday night crew looked extremely inconvenienced/pissed when I asked for 3 bowls, (which I get sucks but my sister is from out of town and I promised her we'd get some before she went home).

Luckily, the cashier was extremely pleasant, the only one of the bunch. We left a pretty generous tip realizing it was kind of late regardless of their attitides.

We took our food to go, only to realize when we got home they had put very little sauce in all the bowls. One was a hot and jazzy with tempeh and it tasted the same as the originals. The tempeh, which they chose not to cook thoroughly was still raw. (Instant tippers remorse)

I would have called the next morning to complain, but I took comfort in knowing I was the first person in a rush of 14 people they had.

Karma's a...