Jules' Bistro — Restaurant in St. Cloud

I really don't like to give poor reviews, but in this case I must share my experience. I have actually waited a few months to post because I didn't want to leave a bad review in the heat of the moment. The service was really bad, the worst I have had in the six years of living in Minnesota.

First the server was not prompt in arriving at our table, not a great start but forgettable if everything else goes well. We came up early to beat midweek rush hour traffic out of the Cities and stopped here for a bite before an art show across the street. I ordered a chicken salad, but the chicken was not anything you would pay to eat. It did not taste fresh, infact it had no flavor at all. It was really tough to the point were it was work to chew, like it had been completely over boiled. I never send food back; I'm pretty easy to please, you can read my other reviews. But in this case I didn't want to eat this meal. This is were the service starts to stand out as being extremely poor.

After you get your meal the server is supposed to come check on your table within the first two minutes to make sure everything is to your liking. Often they say things like, "how are those first couple bites tasting?" Our server never came back to our table. We actually never saw her again. I don't know if it was the end of her shift or what happened, but nobody ever came to our table. Every other time that I have been eating at the end of someone's shift, they always come out and explain and they make it very clear that this other person with be taking care of you. In this case, we were left out in the cold. It wasn't busy when we were there, and about 15 minutes passed from the time I got my food until the time we were able to get the attention of somebody to let them know that my meal was not edible. By this time the rest of my party was done eating and we were about ready to go to the art show. The employee asked if I wanted to order something else, but by this time it was too late, everyone else was done. I wasn't going to make my party wait for a whole new meal to be cooked and then eaten. If someone checked on us right away maybe that would have worked out. So I told the person that I wasn't going to order anything else, but that I didn't want to pay for my meal because I didn't eat it. I was told that was not an option. I have never in my life been treated like this. Like I was about to be a criminal if I didn't pay for a meal I couldn't eat, when the reason it escalated to this point was because nobody checked on us. The employee was trying to get in touch with the owner to be told what to do, and about 10 minutes after I told them that I didn't like my meal we were allowed to not pay for it. We still paid for all the other meals, and my party liked what they ordered and enjoyed their meals. Nevertheless, service this poor cannot get anything other than 1 star.

Needless to say, I won't be...

We were in town for a quick errand, and so we decided to give Jules' Bistro a shot based on all the good reviews it had. Here is the breakdown of our experience in terms of the good, the bad, and the OK:

The Good: The wait staff were very nice. The bathroom seems to have been recently renovated and so was very spacious.

The Bad: The cheese pizza that we got for our older daughter had a piece of hair inside the cheese, which made her lose her appetite. Thankfully, the gentleman who was taking care of us took care of it promptly (never got his name). This, however, was not our only concern when it came to the overall cleanliness of the restaurant, as the utensil pack that I got had dried smudges of cheese and sauce on the fork. We were taken care of really well in the beginning, and the end. I saw that it seemed the front of house seemed understaffed and were getting slammed, so we didn't mind the wait. However, what bothered us was that there was one table next to us that our server constantly kept checking in on, but ignoring us--never checking in, seeing how we're doing and how we liked the food, if we needed anything. Our server only refilled my wife's cup at the end, but by that point, we were done with our meal. Don't know if it was because we are not white and we had our family of four, while the other table were a couple of older white women, but it was very disappointing. No one greeted us when we came in or out either.

The OK: I had the Avocado Portabella Reuben, which was a little on the sour/salty side than I had expected. I was expecting a nice balance between the sweet and tangy from the Thousand Island, with the sour/salty from the sauerkraut, but it erred towards the sour/salty. The guacamole was barely noticeable, unfortunately. My wife had the Downtowner Salad, which had a great presentation. Overall, it was definitely a "heartier" salad than she had expected. But a little too much sun-dried tomatoes, which made the salad on the sour side as well. The pizza that our older daughter had (apart from the hair we found), had way too much cheese on it. The taste wasn't bad, but the thickness of the cheese was greater...

Food is absolutely perfect. Service...well, we had a great server who took care of my table well. However, one of our orders didn't get into the computer, or it got taken to a different table, not sure, but I ended up with my food and literally 10 minutes later my daughter didn't have hers. There were 5 people working, and not a single one of them thought to check in and see if there was a reason I wasn't eating, or notice that my daughter's area of the table was empty. In the meantime, the woman who seems to be the bartender/drink maker was loudly and emphatically complaining about a party that had just come in and apparently totally screwed up their reservation, which she was highly offended by. This is a small, open bistro, and anyone at the main counter is quite visible and audible. So I got to hear all about how these people, who ate literally sitting like 15 feet away in the next room, made their reservation for the wrong day and how much of a pain that was. Our server was helping some tables in that other room, so when Bartender McComplainy came over near my table, I asked her if she would kindly check on my daughter's order, and she snapped at me that it would only be another couple of minutes. Another server overheard and she caught our server and whispered to him, he quickly went to the kitchen, and the food came out 5 minutes later. Unfortunately it was brought by the crabby bartender, who plunked it down with a fakey "Enjoy!!!" No apology or explanation. I started eating my cold soup and sandwich (and thank goodness they were still delicious!). Our server came over a few minutes later and graciously apologized for the mix-up and the delay of the food, and said that dessert would be on the house. So glad that four of the five people working were professional and at least tried. Fortunately, dessert made up for Grumpy McBitcherson, it was scrumptious!! Salted caramel chocolate cake with brown butter frosting...oh my goodness!! Also crazy delicious: my cortado espresso, my daughter's matcha latte, my daughter's caprese panini, my BLT with avocado, the kettle chips, and my mushroom wild rice soup--e.g., everything we ordered. Beyond...