Neighbor's Mill Bakery & Café — Restaurant in Springfield

This was my first visit to Neighbors Mill. I'd been told the food was fantastic, so we decided to skip our usual place and go here. I was unaware of the process to order and the order taker seemed in a hurry to get us away from her despite there being no one behind us.

Then came the second counter to get drinks. We didn't know about this and the first counter just said 'go there' when I asked to add drinks. So we went there. Asked for a water and she rolled her eyes, said 'Your ticket.' We hand that over, apologizing, and then she asks what we want. We start with a water again and she gave us two cups. Very frustrating.

The food was tasty and well made. The Reuben was the perfect mix of corned beef to cabbage and cheese, and toasted well. My pimiento cheese was tasty, but a little skanty, even for a half sandwich (highly recommend toasting the bread first!).

My mandarin salad was good, but they packed the thing into too small of a bowl. I had to take the plate from under my mom's soup to put the chips on, wipe the plate down, and then eat my salad on the plate. There was zero way to mix the dressing into the salad the way it was packed without getting things everywhere.

Our table was sticky and had not been wiped down. The two nearby empty tables were the same, despite two people moving through the dining room bussing.

Overall, the food was good. The rest? Not so much. I might go back on a different day and give it another go, but I dislike feeling like I'm...

So I have a wheat allergy, and have been going to neighbors mill for a long time because I can have the spelt oat bread. Here recently the customer service has gone way down hill. Today I called a head and order a grilled cheese on spelt, a tomato soup, and a salad and told them “no bread on the side.” When I got there I checked my food (because I have ordered this before and still end up with bread on the salad and have to give it away) and the salad had the focaccia in with it. So I told the lady checking me out that it needs to be remade, and her response to me was “well you should have told us.” (It was written on the receipt) so while I was waiting for that I asked for a spelt pumpkin muffin, paid for it and went on my way. At a stop light I had realized that she had given me a regular pumpkin muffin. So I turned around and when I got there she said “what’s wrong now?” And I told her that she put a regular muffin in my bag when I had asked for a spelt one because of my allergy. Needless to say I’m done, between what happened today and a buddy of mine used to work there and he told me that they treat their employees like garbage. Now they’re treating their customers...

Odd experience. Ordering is confusing with different menus every which way and 4 different ordering stations? Order lunch at one, bakery at another, and the coffee menu is like 20 feet from one and barely readable. No one was standing at the bakery station so we just kind of waited around until someone noticed us over there? Then the lady taking our order realized a few seconds in that someone was standing at the OTHER bakery ordering station and left us to attend to her. Why are there two open kiosks with one worker bouncing between both? So so strange. Then a different worker decided to finish our order but needed the other worker in order to complete it because she couldn't figure out what we were trying to purchase... A loaf of jalapeno cheddar challah. It was all around quite unwelcoming and confusing. To add insult to injury, the bread was raw in the middle and on the bottom when I opened it a few minutes after leaving. Weirdest place ever. I'm sure some of their food is great. Just a really strange ordering process with staff that had a really chaotic air about them. I left stressed and disappointed that I spent almost $8 on...