Uncle Mike's Food Emporium — Restaurant in Town of Grand Chute

Edit to add: IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!! And I’m now going to 1 star based on poor service alone. We stopped in to grab some quick baked goods, asked what was in the savory spinach Kringle, and the girl shrugged, laughed, and said “Spinach”….which I had to follow up with, “cheese, meat, eggs?” And she responded, “I have no clue.” Like, WHAT?!? I’m getting ready to start making the trips bake up north. This place utterly sucks with their service!!!!!

BAKERY REVIEW: we have been going out of our way to De Pere and even Green Bay west for years now and have always had stellar, attentive, fast service. This establishment does not replicate that same service. This morning I went to the Appleton food emporium to pick up a pre-placed order of regular glazed Cronuts, which they only ever make maybe a dozen of..,not very smart for a “food emporium”. I get it at the other locations because they are much smaller, but they’re obviously a good seller, why not make a double batch at least? Anyways that’s just a poor business decision in my personal opinion… My real gripe is that the staff is undereducated about the products, young, and lack attention to customers. They don’t even make them wear the silly hats which I always loated for them, but at least be decent at your job if you don’t have to wear the ridiculous attire. Maybe the hats do make a difference? lol. I digress. They don’t know what ingredients are in the food, and I had to wave my hands at a huddled group of young girls to get some attention because the only woman who was actually working was kind of helping another customer who didn’t know what kind of Kringle she wanted to order. So, everyone was kind of just standing around while I was just trying to pick up my order and pick out a couple cookies. When I asked the girl who finally got to me, what was in the Texas ranger cookie or whatever it’s called she replied “oatmeal and walnuts, I think. And some other stuff.” I had to for real ask this girl to find out what is in it. Maybe she was new, but playing the guessing game when I came to spend money doesn’t fly with me. I want to know what’s in something if I’m interested in buying. Also, I tried their wayyyy over priced coffee which was so bitter. I ordered the brown sugar latte and was not very pleased. But those coffee girls did at least greet me when I approached the coffee counter. I visited at 9:15am on a Sunday, and there was only one other customer (the guessing Kringle lady) in line. Not busy at all, so why did I have to wave down an employee to get served?

Also, I called last weekend to see if they had Cronuts to sell (which shocker, at 7:45am on a Sunday, they were already sold out) but what bothered me was that the girl who answered the phone replied at first saying, “ I think so, we should.” And I had to ask her to physically go check and she realized she was wrong. If I had driven there to go buy them and there weren’t any, I would have been peeved.

Just not good service on the bakery...

I wanted to leave a review because I genuinely believe people are completely blowing the "cashless payment" completely out of proportion. A VAST majority of the low reviews are bashing on the cashless payment with little regards to the actual food. This is not an issue for the vast majority of people but it's more about people (of a very certain age group) being annoyed about being told what to do. For a new restaurant, it's not a big deal especially since more and more places are going cashless (more closer to the bigger metro areas) but maybe it's because I'm from a younger generation or that I spend most of my time in larger cities

Outside that whole payment issue, the food is genuinely pretty good. The woodfire pizza was crispy on the edge and and a great amount of chew to the rest of the crust. It's definitely more artisan with the toppings like arugula, truffle oil, prosciutto, etc. so it can be a little off pointing for some. I got the veggie pizza with pepperoni added and was genuinely impressed. Good amount of toppings, good size pizza for the price, and the quality being fantastic. In my experience woodfire pizzas tend to get soggy overtime so if you're going home with it, you'll lose that woodfire charm sometimes(as I saw in some of the reviews). For the price and quality you get here, it rivals pizza places from the big cities but thankfully not charging you $20+ for it. Absolutely worth it for the pizza. For those who want more traditional toppings they have "make your own" options as well!

I stopped by the pastries area as well and genuinely glad they aren't overly sweet as I see in some bakeries. I'm more of an Asian bakery type of person so my preferences are more subtle sweet vs a blast of sugar. Greatly appreciate finding a new place close to me here that can help saciate some of the pastry cravings I have but not go too hard into the sugar.

Overall a great experience, a lot of the staff in the bakery section seem on the younger side (high school students maybe?) so maybe this is why there were a lot of negative reviews on the service but I didn't have a big issue about it. I came during a quiet weekday night though so could be different when they're busier. Decor could probably be spiced up but it plays it very safe if not on the more blander side Overall, surpassed my expectations for an area like Appleton and I'll definitely...

For a new opening restaurant, the expectation is always kind of high in terms of food, service, and atmosphere. I can say that without a doubt the food was absolutely amazing. But it took us 30 minutes to even get a server to come take our drink order so I went ahead and ordered what we wanted immediately so we didn't have to wait much longer. My boyfriend got a cherry coke and I wanted a Strawberry Boba Lemonade. We got the truffle fries with no parmesan cheese and a Margherita pizza with pepperoni. The young lady who was serving us, didn't know that there was no cherry coke and just brought my boyfriend a coke without offering any other options. My drink took longer to prepare obviously and then sat on the bar an extra 5 minutes after it was made. The truffle fries were honestly divine and came out hot but we were given no small plates for the appetizer which to me seems like something that comes standard at all restaurants when ordering appetizers. Our pizza was warm because it sat on the rack for an additional 10 minutes when it came out. We didn't have a small table rack for our pizza which made us feel a little slighted in the experience because other tables had pizza racks and some were even on tables where there were no people. Overall we spent 2 hours in total waiting to get 2 drinks, a pizza and some French fries and my boyfriend had finished his coke by the time we finished the fries and received no refill and wasn't even offered a refill. Our server had no sense of urgency and although she was kind we didn't feel that charisma that a few of the servers had there. She didn't engage with us very much at all to be completely honest. The fastest we saw her get back to us was when it was time to pay. If the place was super packed, I could understand maybe taking a lot more time for things to get done but it wasn't packed. While I am easily satisfied once fed, my boyfriend is kind of furious that it took so long especially when the menu is so limited and the restaurant was nowhere near full. We probably will be back due to how delicious the food was but if we have another experience like this last one I can't say that we will give Uncle Mike's another...