Eric C.
Google
Went in during brunch this past Sunday and I was unfortunately disappointed by the experience. As a whole, the concept is really neat and I enjoyed the flavor of the Beef Birria noodles and I'd love to try their other ramen combos. It's a fresh and welcome take on what's usually seen as cheap college junk food.
I sat on this review for the week to see if I really wanted to give a less than positive review, but I hope this honesty will help this place identify the biggest areas in need of improvement for their brunch service.
The experience is still very clumsy and has a bunch of issues to work out. I will commend the staff for putting their best effort in and I hope that service improves as they work through future brunches.
I originally set a reservation through OpenTable for 12:30pm for 3 people. My group and I arrived slightly early around 12:15pm and the staff was helpful and shuffled a pair of diners, who had only arrived just before us, over one table to accommodate. I love that the staff was willing to accommodate us arriving early, but I also recognize that if we were exactly on time, we would not have had a table set aside for our group.
The ordering system needs major refinement as well.
If you do go in on the weekend, it's heavily implied you opt in for one of their unlimited options. My group ultimately decided we wanted to order a la carte instead of unlimited, but the only clear way to order was to write down the number for the type of noodle you wanted on the back of the brunch menu meant for orders under the unlimited options. We did not have an ordering sheet for non-unlimited options.
The brunch menu we received at the table has a giant arrow pointing right that hints that there's supposed to be a second part to it with the list of noodles and topping your can choose from, but we didn't get that. Instead you have to walk up to the wall next to the entrance to see you options. I wouldn't see this being an issue during normal fast-casual service, but the space is small and the tables are tightly packed. So during a sit-down brunch service, getting up to go look at the wall is not ideal.
We did have someone come by our table about a minute or two after we sat down with some water. When we figured out our order, we waited an additional 6-7 minutes to try and get someone's acknowledgement they would come by our table again before one of us went up to whoever was cooking at the front so we could get an order in.
There is a big bottle neck in service due to the limitation of cooking tops they have to work with. I don't remember exactly how many, but I only recall seeing 4 or 5 burners on their cooking line. And from the way I saw orders being served, it looked like orders were being cooked and served table by table. Based on my periodic observations, it looked like each round of noodles took like 5-10 minutes to come out (prep, cooking, plating with garnished). So if you have a full house with almost everyone getting unlimited noodles, you're going to run into a big backlog of noodles and long waiting times in between rounds for each diner.
From the time my group put our order in to the time it reached our table, it was about 30 minutes (12:28 - 12:57pm). When they dropped off the noodles, we asked about the Strawberry milk mocktail my sister ordered as well. That's when told us they ran out of milk and someone was out nearby to get more. Ultimately, we nearly finished our ramen when we were told that the store they went to ran out of the Strawberry milk needed for the drink.
Once brunch time service is ironed out I hope to revisit here again. Like I said at the beginning of my review, my Beef Birria combo was very good. I love the ability to elevate your instant noodles with a wide selection of toppings.
