Specialty’s Cafe & Bakery

I enjoy the sandwiches here, but they are always out of most soft drinks in the soda machine. What is the point of having a few hundred soda types when they don’t refill the cartridges? Today they were out of all types of Coke and all no-​calorie sodas.

Don’t advertise a 15 minute online ordering pickup when it actually takes 30+. And when asked about the order, don’t tell me it’s coming right now and then take another 20 minutes before starting the sandwich. Bunch of kids working here, chatting and flirting.

Placed a order online for pick up, and when I got there to pick it up, all we got was friendship and love from Roman who helped put our order together! People like that deserve extra appreciation for for being so kind!

First of all, their cookies are amazing! Evil and delicious!
So I am a regular at this location as it is very close to my office and I have to say, for a chain café, they do a very good job. Their customer service is excellent and if they ever make a mistake (which is rare in my experience), they more than make up for it. Like today, my sandwich was just wrong (again, this is rare, first time it has happened in months). When I took it back, the young man at the counter let the manager on duty know and he not only made the sandwich the right way himself, but they gave me a free pastry (evil cookie, of course). Both were super friendly and exceeded expectations (I forgot to get names but it was just after 1pm).

The quality of service has been going down for the last couple of months. The people behind the register are somewhat incompetent. They only focus on the people at the register and rarely check the orders that are coming through the kiosk. Which means, longer wait times for some people.
The other question is why order thru the kiosk, it is because specialties give you credit for the average amount you spend in the last 10 orders; that is, if you go through the website.
Anyways the staff at this location aren’t the most snappy and they need some training.

Overall, I’ve enjoyed most meals I’ve bought from here but this time I had an unfortunate experience as far as freshness goes.
I got the spring salad (most plain choice you can get) with balsamic vin dressing and unfortunately I picked out 12 – 15 leaves from my salad that were rotting and decided that’s enough to bring it back (which I rarely if ever do) the female manager handled it well, she was kind and realized the problem instantly upon seeing the rotting salad pieces I showed her on a separate plate on top of my salad.
She had my salad remade and also included a chocolate chip cookie which was super cool and absolutely delicious.
But the salad has rotting pieces on it again and I haven’t even opened the salad to sort through it again… So that’s why they get 3 stars. Good intentions but the freshness or lack there of is disappointing. I usually get the spinach salad which is always fresh. Maybe it’s the current batches of spring lettuce. Great place for lunch though esp if you’re a fan of sandwiches.

This review is based on multiple times coming to this location and having the same consistent issues.
I like this chain. They have pastries that i’ll eat — especially the snickerdoodles.
I enjoy their bbq chicken sandwich.
I like their huge variety of drinks avail from carbonated drinks to non.
I don’t like their version of Peets here. Their chai tea consistently tastes like the cup had just been washed with soapy water and not rinsed so the drink tastes soapy.
But, here’s the consistent kicker:
Everytime I go here regardless of day, time, etc.
They are always out of one of the breads.
Here in lies the true problem:
I make my order. I sit. I wait, 5 – 10 mins.
«Oh sir, we are out of that bread, what would you like?». So I tell them
I sit. I wait. Another 5 – 10 mins.
My sandwich comes back; doesn’t look nor taste quite like it should with the regular bread.
This past Saturday was the last straw.
My wife and I ordered our sandwiches.
Waited.
Then we were buzzed 5 – 10 mins later only to be told her sandwich bread was out. So we got a different bread.
Wait… 5 – 10 mins. Nothing.
I go to the counter and ask and they look frazzled and say, it’ll be 3 mins.
more than 3 mins later the buzzer goes off.
Behold my sandwich comes with not the bread its supposed to. Not only was the bread switched on my sandwich, but I was never told. Worse yet, it was white on one side and burnt on the other.
I returned it and said I want nothing but my money back, that I don’t trust them.
After being around the people who work deep within the food industry, I will never ask for someone to correct my meal and certainly never ask for another meal. I don’t trust them to do it right the 2^nd time nor do I trust them to not doing something foul to it.
Especially this restaurant who got my wife’s sandwich incomplete too it turns out — missing the spread, the bread was cold and dry.
Repeatedly, I have suggested to them that when you are out of the bread, how hard is it to write a post-​it and put at the cashier so customer could be told that right off the start.
Waiting for almost 20 mins for 2 simple sandwiches is ridiculous because of having to change the order after you order it.
The assistant manager did apologize and another staff said it was his fault for not notifying me of the bread change. The assistant manager also later produced a gift certificate for more than the sandwich was worth.
But how can you be out of bread, all the time and not informing your customers when they come to order and make them wait a whole other round.
And the final kicker? I have been to 2 other locations — never had this problem. Ever. Eric’s deli who runs out of bread too — information given to customers right away. What is it about this location and not others?

I had a frustrating experience here today. Went in for a diced ham quiche. Long line when I walked in so they were taking orders from the line. Cool.
This could seem like a good idea, except when the line is super slow and you are stuck standing in it holding food/​drink that is quickly cooling and you cannot enjoy. The poor guy in front of me was stuck holding 2 coffees that probably got cold by the time he actually sat down to enjoy one.
When I ordered my ham quiche, the woman went to the quiche tray, but all the various quiches looked the same so she asked the cashier which was ham. The cashier pointed one out. When it got to me in line, I wondered how they knew it was ham. The ham usually has ham on top of it to distinguish it.
When I finally got to the cashier, I asked her how she knew what kind of quiche it was. She pulled it out and examined it, then replaced it with another one, that still looked the same to me. I trusted her and sat down to eat.
It was cheese.
I brought it back to the counter, asked if I could either get the ham quiche or my money back. They flipped over like 10 more quiches and found one with a piece of ham.
I sat down to eat and, lol, it was one of two pieces of ham in the whole quiche. I think the ham must have fallen into a three-​cheese quiche.
So I took to Unilocal to share my experience.
The baked goods here are tasty, no doubt, but getting what you want in a timely fashion… dubious.

Worst coffee place ever. When its not busy it takes 20 min to get a coffee. Unfortunately it is the closest coffee to my place. So i have to tolerate this cream colored stuff called latte for 4.50.

This place is convenient to my office, so I go there more often than I should. The online order never fails to disappoint. I will get a message stating that my order is ready for pick up, but I always end up waiting another 10 minutes before it actually is ready for pick up.

I come here for lunch sometimes since it’s close to work. Once every 2 – 3 visits they manage to screw something up. Today it was that they didn’t put any blue cheese on my Beef n Blue. I told the guy handling distribution of orders and he just gave me a small container with blue cheese, didn’t even apologize. He should have taken the sandwich back and made sure gets blue cheese. It’s not my job to put the blue cheese on my sandwich that is supposed to come with it.
Other times that I’ve been here they wasted my time giving me false estimates on the time it takes to finish backing pastries and then dropping the ball and realizing they weren’t even put in the oven yet. Took them an hour and even then I had to rush them to give me the stuff despite it being super hot.
I love the place, but please guys, step up your game! Hire better staff.

Customer service stunk! They could not make a blended white mocha… even though it is attached to a Pete’s coffee! Cashier was pretty rude. Hopefully the food is good.

I am a regular here since it’s right next to work and very convenient. Sometimes when it gets really busy they can make mistakes but just talk to them and they have awesome customer service!
They won’t even hesitate to make sure you got what you need!
I tried ordering a salad to go, (me of all people!) someone who doesn’t eat leaves at all and they gave me the wrong salad when I checked the bag when I got back to a work meeting. I didn’t even eat that day bc I really didn’t like the salad they gave me.
I went in the next day and briefly told the lady in charge the faux pas and they offered to remake what I had or give me something else with the same value!
I was a bit surprised because I thought I would just lose my money, but they made up for it!!!
So four stars for being usually reliable and customer friendly!

I so badly want to like this place because it’s near my house and it would be the perfect place to get work done. So I’ll give them that — the place itself is great.
However — besides the coffee side, they consistently get everything wrong. My sister and I stopped by for a «quick» coffee/​breakfast break. They had to toast a ciabatta and spread some cream cheese on it for me and warm up a quiche for her. Twenty minutes later, we’d almost finished our coffees and still no food.
When we go to ask them they said they ran out of quiche (when were they planning to tell us? not sure) so my sister got something else.
I get my ciabatta and, it’s not the kind I ordered (sesame) but whatever. Then, I go to spread the cream cheese and it’s super dirty — bits of onion and ham in it. I ask for a new one and they give me one filled with ice crystals that can’t spread.
I’ve been here often to have a coffee and do my work or study when I was in school, but they’ve gotten my order wrong almost every time and even if the place is empty they’re so SO slow.
Swing by for a latte, but otherwise, don’t bother.

My 1^st time into a Peet’s Coffee under the name of Specialty. My latte didn’t taste up to par, and they didn’t accept Peet’s gift card. Well, I’ve learned my lesson, gotta avoid going to Specialty for Peet’s coffee coz it is not their specialty, period.

Mediocre service. Sandwich was mediocre. All around mediocre experience. Not memorable. Not worth going again. Ever.

Just paid $ 6 for a breakfast sandwich that just looked so sad I had to post it on Unilocal.You’d think whoever made it was rationing the last of the world’s supply of bacon. Did you see the photo? Enough said.

I love coming here to study or get some work done on the weekends. There are tons of tables and plenty of outlets and their wifi is above average in terms of speed. Some of the booth tables on the side can get pretty cold with the AC blowing at you so make sure you bring a light jacket.
This place does get pretty crowded on weekend afternoons. After about 330pm on Sunday its pretty dead so it’s a great study spot. They do close pretty early though I think at 6pm? Wish they were open longer!
Not too big a fan of Peets coffee but I think they have some pretty good soups, salads and muffins. Great selection of freshly baked pastries. I always get their turkey sandwich, it’s super simple but omggg their bread! It’s sooo soft and delicious. I’m normally not a fan of cold sandwiches but I really like their turkey sandwich and I think it’s mainly because the bread is so amazing. Also love their banana muffins. Not super greasy like most other muffins and it’s very tasty and a great study snack. They’ve also got some really great soups that they change up. Tried their salmon chowder, chicken tortilla and tomato soup. all were delicious. Prices are a bit high for the café like food so I don’t always eat here, but the food is good!
Plenty of parking and very friendly and happy employees are a huge plus!

I came here today to pick up sandwiches for my family before heading to the beach and not only did they take too long just for 4 sandwiches (when the place was nearly empty) they also messed up an order.
All the sandwiches were labeled & seemed right before we left, but it wasn’t until we got to the beach that we found my daughter’s SMOKED HAM sandwich to NOT have ANY ham at all! Ugh how do you forget the ham in a ham sandwich? What a great way to ruin a family picnic because now she had no food. We got back into town late but will be calling in a complaint first thing tomorrow.
$ 27 for 4 sandwiches (roast beef & chicken salad sand that were just ok). No thanks! Won’t be back!

I’m not much for sandwich/​soup/​salads for lunch but since I met up with friends who has little kids at seven seas park, we decided to eat here since it’s close by. Plus it’s kid friendly.
It’s my second time at specialty’s and I got a chicken Cobb without the bleu cheese and ranch dressing. I felt they could’ve added more chicken but overall it was your typical salad. Nothing exceptional. It took about 10 – 15 minutes before we received our food which I thought was quite a wait for a place like boudin or panera. I never wait that long at those other places.