Bread Box Cafe

I cannot believe anybody would not appreciate the warm atmosphere, great contact with the servers, bartenders, cooks, and owners, and the fantastic food. The crab cakes are phenomenal! If you say you've had a bad experience here then I highly recommend a 2nd try. This is BY FAR the best place to eat in town! I have yet to find a place I enjoy this much in the AREA!Steff and Jobi are great, always come say hi to the table! The wine and beer tastings are always a great time and the presentations are excellent. This is the site of all important dinners for myself and my family. My wedding rehearsal dinner will be here, and I hope that the Bread Box can cater my wedding!THANKS GUYS!!!!

My husband and I went to the Bread Box to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We were in and out of there in under an hour! Even though the place was far from full we were not permitted to linger over our courses. The sun was hot and we were seated a window table to bake. 2 flies buzzed our head throughout the whole meal. The salmon was overcooked and rice was bland. No veggie came with the meal even though it was the height of summer. Salad was scant. All in all, the meal was expensive, there were no vegetarian options, and the experience was lousy. We won't go back again.

I am not from around here.. I come from the big city.. I am used to several, actually MANY places to choose from to eat.. Coming here to Waterville, Maine, I saw very few places to have a meal in a nice atmosphere rather than a fast food environment.. The atmosphere here is great. There is a great variety of food from meat, seafood to vegetarian. I have tried most everything there. I do agree sometimes on the weekend to having to wait a bit however I find the timing almost perfect and if my hgusband and I are in a hurry rather than enjoying the food and company, we tell the server and most always get out in time. I guess there can be some bad nights.. We have eaten here many many many many times and have loved every time so we have yet to experience one of the bad experiences mentioned above. Even if there was one bad experience, you really have to try it again as it is one of the best in town.

Been there many times, owner (standing in bar) couldn't be bothered to acknowledge my presence.
Seating no prob. Asked server for two glasses of wine, she tried to hard sell a whole bottle. I'm no eating out cherry and know exactly how many glasses are in a bottle of wine. Please don't have a 21 year old waitress tell me how to select and enjoy enjoy my wine. This place has been questionable about serving excesses of alcohol to people in the past (OUI).
Maine course was a joke for $25.00. It wasn't the price, it was the diet portion of fish that was topped with an unknown sauce and really inferior lobster cull claw meat. The were old and looked like something from a scorpion (tiny).
There seems to be an air of superiority there now, though I am not sure why. I go there because it is close and I don't have to drive a 100 miles to eat out. So, don't flatter yourself. My party will be a long time in returning there. I will just have to spend more time n the road from now on.

My husband and I had our first date at the Bread Box in Waterville, Maine. We were promptly seated and the service was excellent. The food was beautiful and very tasty! We returned on our anniversary and we are returning for Valentine's Day! We hope we can return each year and celebrate our love in the place where we fell in love.

We had no trouble getting promptly seated on a busy Friday night and both the service and ambiance were excellent. There was no evidence that an anchovy had ever swam near the "Cesar" salad dressing, however. The featured steak was a large, tough piece of shoulder that tasted like a roasted hiking boot (bad choice) and the menu boasted "wild" Atlantic Salmon--highly unlikely as there is no commercial salmon fishery on this side of the Atlantic. Embellishment is one thing, an out-and-out falsehood quite another. For $60, I expect to be impressed by a better cook than myself. The Bread Box failed to meet this standard.

The Bread Box catered my mother's retirement party at short notice and did an amazing job. Jobi Culver assisted with suggestions for both hot and cold food, and was very flexible in meeting our requirements. Everything was ready on time, and prepared/displayed perfectly, from artisanal cheeses to seafood. It was a perfect event, and I'm extremely grateful to Jobi for his efforts.

After reading the reviews in this column we, 3 couples, decided to go to another location in the Waterville area that we have been to many times in the past and were always satisfied with the food and service. The problem is they did not take reservations so we decided to throw caution to the wind and reserved at the Bread Box Cafe for a Friday evening at 8 pm. The restaurant was very busy but we were seated as soon as we walked in. You would have thought we were to only patrons in the place with the level of personalized service, we felt as though we were somebody special. We ordered drinks and appetizers which were delicious. Each of us had a different entre and all you heard around the table was mmmmmmm with every bite. I personally was very skeptical after reading the reviews and am so happy that we ultimately went to the Bread Box Caf. I would return there in a heartbeat and highly recommend a visit. In addition to the superb service and mouth-watering food, the atmosphere is warm and comforting. The whole experience is a 5 star evening

We did go on a Friday night, and they were busy as could be expected. However, we used that time to study the menu, and ordered as soon as we were seated. After an interminable period, the appetizer appeared, and we were left to ourselves with our appetizer for another half hour. When our server appeared, it was to inform us that she would bring out our salads soon, and as soon as the salads were served to us, THEN our food would BEGIN to be cooked. We were shocked, having forgiven being left with an appetizer for so long, thinking that of course our meal was being prepared as we eating. The table next to us cleared and refilled, and both parties voiced objections themselves to either the service or the food. The server came back eventually to say that they were out of one of our orders, only to be overruled by another server who stepped in to say they had it after all. When the food arrived, more than an hour after we had, the crab cakes were charred outside, and gooey with raw batter inside. The first duck breast cutlet was salty yet decent, but the second was so salty it would have to be boiled to be fit for human consumption.
All in all, we spent our evening in a cramped, noisy environment, in uncomfortable metal fast-food style chairs, with a server whose ability to smooth over such gaffes as were happening all round was better suited to a cheap buffet restaurant. We paid for quality, got poor pretense instead, and would never go back.

The food is very good and consistently good. The service is variable, ranging from very friendly and effusive servers to downright unfriendly. The desserts are notoriously good. There are not many vegetarian options. The portions are good sized but not opulent. A big con is the fact that they do not permit the splitting of checks. This is a big con for young people. When the restaurant is full, it is slightly claustophobic and can get quite loud.

PROS:
CONS: dont split checks

I've only been here for lunch so far, but we were pleasantly surprised. We had here some of the best food we've had in Maine (which, sadly, isn't saying much). Their bread appetizer we got to appease our toddler was a big hit--delicious warm fresh bread served with olive oil, garlic, parmesagn, and I think pine nuts. Great, kid-friendly service and quality ingredients. We'll come again.

PROS: Good food, reasonably priced, good service
CONS: none