Westchester Breakfast Club

What It Cost:  $5.47

Worth It:  No

The Rating: 1/5

The Details:  It’s a deli.  You go to the counter and order and they bring it to you.  I ordered bacon, egg, and cheese on an everything bagel.  They forgot to add the egg.

The Bottom Line: I would rather pay $500 for breakfast than ever go to the Bread Factory Cafe again.

I ordered a sausage, egg, and cheese on an everything bagel which actually came out perfectly fine despite having to wait an inordinate amount of time for it.  I’ve had better breakfast sandwiches off the back of a truck in midtown and gotten them faster too. It was not like the kitchen was backed up; including us, there were perhaps 10 customers in the entire place.

The bagel was actually fresh, and had an even sprinkling of salt, onion, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds, all the things that go into an everything bagel. The cheese was hastily added at the last second at which point the whole sandwich had cooled to room temperature so the cheese did not have a chance to melt. My sandwich arrived lukewarm at best. The only thing that made the whole sandwich worth eating was the fresh bagel.

Avoid this place for breakfast if you can. The money saved by going elsewhere for your breakfast sandwich could probably buy you a quart of gas, which is worth using to go elsewhere.

“No, look down.” She slowly looked down. “Then look left.” She slowly looked left.

“Oh,” she said. “The seven grain bagel.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

I was exasperated, so I just said I would have cream cheese. I rounded out my order with a chocolate chip scone for the group to share, as well as two prune Hamantashen cookes to bring home for later. I selected a bottled water to drink. With a 10% off coupon I had, my bill came to around $10.

My bagel arrived promptly and was barely toasted. As is to be expected, there was a bit too much cream cheese, but it wasn’t as bad as what you would typically get slathered on a bagel from a deli or bagel shop. I slowly ate my  bagel, trying to make it last until the rest of the group got their meals, which took a bit of time, and had a couple of snafus.

The Bread Factory Cafe is very similar in concept and food quality to a Cosi, Panera’s or Atlanta Bread Company.  Out of those four, The Bread Basket Cafe now ranks the lowest through a combination of sub par service and mediocre food.

This place just opened up in the Best Buy / Trader Joe’s / Marsall’s shopping nook in Hartsdale off Central Park Avenue.  I had found out about its recent opening while I was on my way to Dim Sum at the Central Seafood next door.  The Bread Factory serves breakfast so the WBC had to give it a try.

The fantastic display of pastries and the French country home kitchen decor were visually pleasing.  You order at the counter, and then take your issued number plaque and choose a seat.  I had an Egg White Special: spinach, artichokes, and swiss omelet with potatoes and my choice of bread.  I requested the raisin challah.  I also had an english breakfast tea with skim milk. 

After a bit of a wait, our meals were brought to us piecemeal.  I was served a spinach, artichoke, not quite so white omelet with two slices of swiss cheese plopped on top, potatoes, and toasted white toast with a huge slab of butter mushed in between.

Oh where to begin!  First, the toast.  It wasn’t raisin challah.  I’ve had the Bread Factory’s white bread before, and it is generally pretty good, especially when lightly toasted with a little butter.  However, this toast was chewy, and the slab of room temperature butter must have been placed in between the cold toast and mushed in because it wasn’t melting into the toast and it wasn’t spread on either.  It was just butter and toast in the most unappetizing form.  I ended up taking my fork and just scraping all the excess butter off the toast, but it was still too much.

When my omelet arrived, I was immediately disheartened by the two slices of deli swiss cheese placed on top.  By the looks of the cheese, the omelet had been sufficiently cooled at the point that the cheese was added.  Then I took my fork and picked at the cheese, and found that it peeled off quite easily.  It was gross.  I peeled it off and moved it to the side.  The omelet itself was pretty decent.  A lot of artichoke and a little bit of spinach.  However, judging by the coloring of the omelet, it may not have been all egg whites.  The potatoes were okay.  Cooked well, no crisp, and a bit greasy.

The service was slow.  Ordering takes a lot of patience.  The place is on the new side, but it was not their first week open, and yet the cashier was still a little confused as to what this place serves.  The kitchen needs a few lessons on proper food preparation.  It wasn’t busy at all while we were there, and yet everything seemed like it was taking forever, and they messed up my toast order. 

The czar says:  Food wise, think IHOP pretending to be a cafe minus the ability to add pancakes to anything.  Be patient when ordering and order slowly.  Anything that sounds fancy is probably not worth the extra money.  Stick with the pastries and the bread, they are all supposedly made each morning on the premises and are pretty decent, but really nothing special.  Nice for a quick pastry and coffee post-pedicure from the salon next door, or to pick up some bread or dessert, but that’s about it.