French Meadow Bakery Café - Crystal

Not very good as it’s hyped up to be. We only came here since we had a gift card, restaurant is extremely loud and service is friendly but is generally still poor and slow. Food isn’t that good for the price point. A lot of attention goes to “organic and local meat/vegetables”. Typically, meat is local no matter where you go for an actual sit down restaurant- the furthest meat gets shipped in from would be Wisconsin/Dakotas/Iowa. All organic and natural restaurants add these buzz words to dock on 10 extra dollars. I would be more impressed by this restaurant if they had a rotating seasonal menu, but since visiting in summer 2020, the menu is exactly the same- just higher prices. My partner and I realized after ordering that our appetizer was pretty much just bland mashed potatoes on top of pizza crust. We requested hot sauce to add flavor. Turkey Rachel was good, and housemade ketchup is great! I don’t understand why places nowadays steer clear from the typical corn beef on Rubens, but whatever. We also ordered a Pear and beet salad with steak on top. Salad had absolutely no pears, and dressing tasted like complete sugar. Also, apparently adding steak to a salad means 5 small pieces with an $8 up charge. Anyways, unless you want to be surrounded by cake eaters that think they’re better than you for eating all organic and local produce at overpriced restaurants, pass on this place!

This was my first time at this restaurant as I just moved to MN! To start, the food was very good. I’m vegan and I appreciate the tasty vegan food options. However, our server (Amelia) did a horrible job. We waited about 20 minutes without any service before finally asking an employee walking by if we had a server. Our server finally came over to get our order, which we ordered apps, cocktails, and our entrees. She brought our apps out after 20 minutes and asked my husband if he got his drink yet, which he hadn’t but I had gotten mine. She said she would go check and then literally never came back. Another person brought out our entrees and refilled our waters. She then came back and asked us how everything was and then said she forgot to come tell us that they were missing an ingredient for the drink… which she later realized they did have so he finally got his cocktail after 45 minutes. I asked if we could order dessert and she said she’d bring menus which of course she never did. We finally just asked her to bring a box and our check. She was very underwhelming and she ruined our first experience at this restaurant which makes me not want to go back. Also as we were walking out of the restaurant we could hear other employees yelling Amelia’s name. We ended up going elsewhere to get dessert.

Came here to eat and then left to go to the same restaurant at a different place, so the one on lyndale is 100 times better. Asked about ingredients and they couldn't be bothered getting details and the one we're at now got the whole list for us. My bestie has extreme gluten allergy that even if it says gluten free some of the stuff is not doable. So that being said, not a fan of a restaurant when they don't care about their own ingredients.

We had a reservation for a party of 13 with 4 kids for Mother's Day. Everyone seemed happy with their orders. The server was great. I just took a few pictures of food. Not a lot of space for that many people around two tables pushed together but it worked. They had kids menus and crayons. Would go again with a smaller group or just my husband and me.

My group of 10 and I had the best time here. The food was refreshing and felt clean lol clean like, no extra oils or fats and whatnot. I enjoyed my Black Bean and Chicken Quesadilla and the portion was generous imo. I could only finish half but my husband said he liked it too as he finished the other half. I forgot the waitresses name (I know, I'm sorry) but she was really nice and remembered everyone's order so she placed/gave it to us instead of us all trying to figure out who got what. Overall, my gals and I had a great time!