They are one day away from their First Friday 'hard' opening and this is the best they could do? Fifteen bucks for a burger and fries I've happily paid many times at many places, but here? Not so happy.
I was warned they have gotten off to a horrid start, but didn't want to believe that precious Scottsdale place can't figure out hipster downtown Phoenix.
I called when I got out of the Jeff Speck talk over by City Hall and got hung up on in the middle of asking whether they do takeout.
So I rode my bike there anyway to find out how supremely busy they must have been on a glorious Thursday night to hang up on a takeout order. 6 tables out of 22+ have guests, dealt with by two wait staff, with two other staff wandering around and two cooks on duty.
Two strikes already - but wait! It's goes on! The cashier was too busy to even speak with me for about 4 minutes. I never could figure out what she was doing.
So I ordered a cheeseburger from this "French Bakery" - note that is IS NOT a "Boulangerie" - with fries to go. She just looked at me and said "is that all?". I said "yes" and she looked disappointed. After a few seconds, she asked "Don't you want bacon and mushrooms?". I thought maybe saying "yes: might get the order processed. I was right. So I asked how long it would take. Was told "10 minutes". Which seemed slightly quick, even though nothing was being cooked in that moment.
So I came back 10 minutes later and sat around for 5 minutes, eventually noticing two little boxes over by the cashier, who was chatting away at another employee. So I waited 60 seconds before going over to find out whether the little boxes were my order. She stopped chatting long enough to put the boxes in a bag and hand the bag to me.
I've seen greasy spoon short order cooks fork a par-cooked hunk of meat out of some liquid slop and slap it on a grill. This burger tasted like that. I noticed a few little squiggles of something that could have been mushrooms, and a few flakes of something that could have been bacon bits.
I only had to bike 4 blocks home. The food was luke warm. At least the fries taste better lukewarm than McDonalds fries do.
But that re heated burger - not good. It does something to the texture of the meat.
There is serious competition in downtown Phoenix now. This place is not ready to succeed here.