Research Boulevard
Men’s room rating: 4. (The taped French lessons in the bathroom are an amusing touch, for a few minutes.)
Dwight’s comments:
“I am of the firm opinion that La Madelaine is hideously overpriced. And also exceedingly pretentious.” -Mike, responding to the original announcement.
I’m not sure I agree with the “pretentious”, but I did dislike La Madeleine intensely.
First of all, I hate cafeteria dining. (As a young child, I entertained dreams of making my first fortune, and using some of the spare money to buy up all the cafeteria chains and close them down for good.)
But La Madeleine doesn’t even impliment that concept well: you have to order certain items directly from the waitress at the front, but if you want anything like salad, soup, or drinks, you still have to stand in the cafeteria line.
This line, of course, bottlenecks at the salad (because each salad is made while you stand there: god forbid that they should make it and bring it to your table), so you wind up waiting in lines that stretch out the door.
And for what? Not terribly good food. I’ve had better french onion soups and ceaser salads elsewhere. (Ancho’s makes a very good onion soup.) The prices aren’t moderate (by the time you add up a soup, a decent sized salad, drinks, and a “main course” such as quiche.)
As far as I can tell, the cafeteria concept doesn’t result in any savings in staff. (We saw a large number of waitstaff, most of whom seemed to have nothing to do.) And, frankly, I don’t see any reason for the continued existance and popularity of this chain, other than as vindication of Mencken’s statement, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”