Paris Baguette — Restaurant in Tysons

Flavor performance of bakery goods does not match up with Paris Baguette sophisticated marketing promise which turns out to be disappointingly false in my opinion. Presentation of expansive variety of baked goods is attractive and well coordinated. Baked goods are organized on easy to reach shelving that are lit with the wattage of Crate & Barrel or Nordstrom box stores retail displays. PB graphics and marketing copy are professional, insinuating classic french baking flavors and textures that in my tasting opinion is not delivered. These days I am pretty well fixed on Dolcezza coffee and pastries at Mon & Pop’s, Le Pain Quotidien pastries in Mosaic and Magnolia Dessert Bar fare in Vienna.

I made a couple visits to PB last week to give them a fair try. I bought a Chocolate Croissant, Almond Pain au Chocolat, Ghirardelli Brownie, loaf of Multi Grain Bread and a 12 oz. cup of their Signature Brewed Coffee. PB does not have dining-in option and their alfresco area is an exposed, harsh environment. The alfresco area is on concrete sidewalk, no plant life to speak of just a sad little sapling ornamental tree and a bit of starter shrubbery near the curb in front. There is not umbrella protection from the sun at the tables. I imagine umbrellas cannot be used because of strong wind that frequently whips through Tysons.

The coffee in my taste estimation was okay having flavor registration between Seven Eleven coffee or Dunkin on the low end and Lavazza, Illy, Peet’s and Dolcezza on the high end of the flavor spectrum in my judgement. My coffee taste sensitivity places PB’s SBC squarely in the middle with Java Loco’s brew.

My intention was to enjoy the Chocolate Croissant with the cup of coffee and reserve the rest of the goods to try over the next several days at home. The Chocolate Croissant was disappointing. It did not have a flakey exterior, nor light and airy interior. It lacked the classic buttery aroma of quality french croissants. Not a hint of the critical ingredient - butter. We all know from Julia Child instruction that the key to french cooking and baking is butter and lots of it. The chocolate component was middle-of-the-road quality and not sufficient to overcome or mask the deficiencies of the puffed pastry element. The croissant was soft and blah. My intention was to taste test the other items in the next day or so. But surprised by the low quality of the Chocolate Croissant I opened the Almond Pain au Chocolat hoping the Chocolate Croissant was an anomaly. It was the same experience the only difference being slivered almonds on top and almond paste inside. I had two small bites and tossed it aside discarding it in a trash can at Whole Foods Store in Vienna stopping to buy some produce on the way home.

Later in the evening I tasted the Ghirardelli Brownie. It was a cakey style brownie, light and airy. The brownie had a lightly fluffy, cake-like interior that was on the dry side. The brownie was void of toasted or roasted chocolate aroma indicating that there wasn’t going to be much flavor either. I prefer more fudgy style brownies that are dense and a bit gooey, having coffee or cacao nose and are full bodied chocolate flavor. Btw, Le Pain Quotidien has one that is sensational. The PB Multi Grain Bread was also weak. I buy Dave’s 21 Whole Grain And Seeds Organic Bread at Whole Foods and MOM’s Organic Market that I compared it to.

The store is clinically clean and easy to shop. Staff are personable, helpful...

Harassing/Weird Behavior; Ungrateful attitude towards the customer Buying with multiple orders

I have been a Paris Baguette customer for a while. I really like the items they make. I have been to this location 3 times. Every time I have ordered more than $100 worth of items. This 3rd time, I really appreciated the effort the person put into packing all my items into small PB bags as they wrote the item names on the packet as much as possible making it easier to identify.

So far so good.

The weirdness starts when I go to pickup the order.

I get the order in a big packet, sit there and check if all items are present. Always there is something or the other missing. So I go to the manager Ms. Meena and request her to provide me the missing items and offer her to check the packet given to me. I never leave the shop with the picked up order because it’s best to sit there inside shop and check if all my items are there so that there are no doubts about my intentions. I have never shown any disappointment or displeasure regarding the missing items because I know mistakes can happen.

Ms. Meena the manager has always taken an objection to my placing multiple orders. Reason she gives me is that it creates confusion and hence items are missing. I have explained to her every time that the items which I like if unavailable I would have to order at a different time when its available simple logic, so there will be multiple orders.

Note: I never give multiple timings or dates for pickup. It’s only 1 date and 1 time for picking up all the orders at once.

She also makes me wait unnecessarily showing discontent for what reason I don’t know. Technically I should be the one getting frustrated by the missing items in my pickup order and latter the huge delay to replenish the missing items.Instead of being appreciative towards me that I place large Orders and give a good business to PB and also appreciate the food so much, she behaves like I am getting things for free/discount and she is doing a favor keeping my order ready for Pick-Up. I have to literally struggle to get a replacement for the missing items for which I had already paid for.

When I initially met her even now I think she is good person by heart, her smile can make anyones day happy.

So why does she behave like this as if she would like people to buy less so that she is not put to trouble.

As an employee she couldn’t give me any proof of company rules which says that the customer cannot place multiple orders. Also I bought an item when I was in the store but it said that after 4 receipts no more points can be added which is false because already there were 5 recipes of the same day placed online for which I got the points. So something fishy at the store checkout is also evident.

I would really like the management to investigate this issue. Because the way she behaves might be due to a reason which she cannot say openly. It is detrimental to the companies growth because in this way people will avoid buy many products as they might get this unfair...

Extremely disappointing. Looks so good online and in person the selection is even better. The pricing is also really reasonable. The problem is that the experience is so bad though. You’re supposed to enter through one of two sets of doors, grab a tray, line it with wax paper, and take tongs or gloves to grab pastries as you make your way to the register (I assume). How would you know all that? I have no idea. The signage explaining things is very inadequate and some of it was literally covered up. I tried to catch several employees’ attention throughout the time I was there but employees kept rushing past and wouldn’t make eye contact. Even at the cake/ barista counter they refuse to look up or talk to you. Very frustrating. The wax paper for the trays is too small for the size of the trays, so the food just touches the tray anyway, so I’m not sure what the point of that is. The seating is all next to two doors, so on a windy day the wind will rip right through, blowing stuff everywhere, and the extremely loud air curtain does nothing to help. The door will also stay open because people don’t pay attention and the door can’t handle the wind, but employees will continually look at it and just walk past and ignore it. Very frustrating. I got a fruity cereal doughnut with cream and a buffalo chicken grilled cheese sandwich. Both tasted pretty flavorless somehow and the cheese wasn’t melted. I asked my chef husband what he thought of his food before I said anything about mine, and he said the same. We got iced matcha lattes and they were disgustingly sweet. I’ve ordered iced matcha lattes where they accidentally put 2X the sugar they should because they’re training or whatever and this was worse. Undrinkable. The cashier gave my husband an attitude when he simply politely asked for new ones that are less sweet. She kept saying there’s no sugar, they don’t add sweetener, it was like pulling teeth to figure out what was going on. Finally he asked if it’s a pre-sweetened powder and they admitted it was. They offered to remake it with less powder, at this point I was over the whole experience and wanted to go but he asked for the remake. It was still disgusting but tasted like they switched from cows milk to oat milk for some reason? Why? Very frustrating. I thought I found an amazing new bakery I could go to by the metro but it was just such a hot mess and no one there seemed to care at all about any of the customers...