little gretel restaurant

kolaches. i just tried chef denise's new kolache recipe and they are great. look for a article in sunday express news food section.


-----30 jul, 2009-----

fred adams. awsome breakfast. stuffed red snapper is as good as i remember it in galveston in the 60's

disappointed. our first visit was saturday breakfast, and it was very good. had the best colache ever.
next visit was for german-type food. the schnitzel was dry and tough. the fries (spelled once "frits" and another place "fritz") were strange: tough and chewy on the ends and just chewy in the middle. the sauerkraut was surpoisingly bland.
they pride themselves for not frying anything. they don't even have that capability. all schnitzels, etc., are baked.
the glasses of pinot noir were about 90 degrees temp. i don't require european cellar temp (about 65), but room temp, at least.
service was adequate; pleasant but not as professional as the place warrents.
all four of us were especially disappointed, as provious breakfast was fine.
the thing to get out of the experience:
there is a reason some things should be fried.

i have not been here in over 15 years since they first opened. passing through town and had a hankering for a good german beer and reuben sandwich. worth the stop anytime.

i would say that as i local--i will never come back to this place. uniformly bad food and service--and i have given it four tries over the years, each time hoping it would improve. the problem lies with the contentious owner/cook. any problems encountered with a meal become yours, not hers. responses are really rude excuses, here. it's not cheap either, so you should expect better. cutesy restaurant playing on our towns german heritage gives other good boerne establishments a black eye. avoid at all costs...

loved it. i recently went to this small treasure i found in boerne on monday, labor day we found the service, food and atmosphere to be as usual-fun, energetic and as always delicious. we spent half the morning eating and drinking in the beer garden and were never rushed. we will be back for more great food

unhappy about service to others. labor day, was enjoying a meal with my family. witnessed an altercation between another customer and the manager. the manager handled the situation very poorly. i was watching this young couple out on the veranda. very good looking couple, came in with smiles on their faces and left angry. i too was angry when i left after hearing what the manager said to them. it would be wise for the owner to properly train her staff (managers included) on how to handle unhappy customers. it shouldn't take an hour for someone to receive their food.

p.s. burger king should never come out of your staffs mouths as an alternate route for a meal. and remember, the customer is always right!

great food and service!!!. i have read some of these negative reviews and have to disagree!!! we have eaten at little gretel many times and have never had a bad meal. my favorite on the menu is the bavarian chicken or the crab cakes and my husband really enjoys the meatloaf. our waitress lauren is the sweetest and is very knowledgeable on all the different foods and how they are prepared. and the desserts are scrumptious. i have never seen the manager veronica be anything but pleasant. i have also seen her and the owners walk around and speak to the customers to make sure they are taken care of and enjoying their meal.
this is a restaurant where everything is made from scratch, not made in the morning and set under a heat lamp all day, so depending on what you order it may take longer then an hour to eat. if you don't have the time to sit down and relax, enjoy the delicious food and the ambiance, or the
company your with, then this is not the restaurant for you. may i suggest brown bagging it or a drive
thru where you can order off the $1.00 menu. yum yum

good pancakes, long wait, noisy. we went for breakfast on 9/1 labor day. we appreciated that they were open on a holiday, since a lot of places we called were closed. i had some out of town visitors in san antonio and we decided to take a nice drive out to boerne to have breakfast. the weather was nice, would have been really nice to sit outside on the patio but it was full, we were only able to get a table inside, they were really busy. we ordered 3 plates, the eggs with bacon and came with toast, the apple pancakes with sausage, & the regular pancakes with over-easy eggs, coffee and a latte. the food took a long time, so don't come starving. they seemed understaffed but not sure if they were just really busy. very nice decor inside and it was a bit cold but very clean and nicely decorated, friendly service. both pancake plates were very delicious. the sausages were regular links, not german sausage which i was expecting, but i guess i shouldve asked the question. the scrambled egg plate was really a fried egg like an omelet almost and no flavor to the eggs- a bit disappointing, and the potatoes on the plate were just ok. the best part of our experience was walking across the street to river road park to watch the ducks and turtles. we had a nice breezy walk along the water on the nicely paved wide sidewalk before heading back.

bad service, bad manager. i went there for lunch during my lunch break with one other person and sat down at our table outside at 12:05. our server didn't come to our table until 12:11 and didn't come back to take our order until 12:19 after we asked the hostess, who was also working as a busser, to please have our server come by our table. we ordered our food and told him that we were there on our lunch hour. our server did not stop at our table again until we caught his attention as he was passing by at 12:40. we told him that we would need our food in to-go containers because we have to get to work. he said okay and asked if we would like to-go cups for our tea. we agreed to that and he brought our ticket to us. we noticed that there was a $1 discrepancy on the price of my meal based off of the menu. he said in all his time working there nobody seemed to care about that. at 12:55 we walked inside and to the bar. our server was there and was finishing up our ticket. he handed it to us and just as he did that the cooks put our food (in to-go boxes) in the window. i asked to speak to the manager. at this point i was more disappointed than mad that i wouldn't be able to eat my lunch (i am not allowed to eat at my desk) until after work. the manager, veronica, came out from the back with an obvious attitude. she was not kind and did not try and help the situation. she came out of the back throwing out all the wrong body language. you could tell she was pissed off. (was it not my place to be angry?) i tried to tell her the situation and she began to argue with me. "this is not fast food. you got here at 12:05 and are trying to cash out at 12:45? that sounds like a quick meal to me" i don't think she quite understood about my situation. let alone that it was 12:55. i got a bit defensive and asked her if people not getting their food until 50 minutes after they get there is standard for them. she told me “you can't say that you just got your food right now." i told her that yes we just got our food while standing at the counter. this didn't seem to help at all. she yelled at us in frustration while throwing her arms in the air "what do you want me to do about it?" my answer in the back of my mind was "grow up and act like a manager and deal with your customer." what i said was “i am just ready to walk out of here without any of it." she said i couldn't do that. they made the food for us. the best she could do was 50% off. i would have been pleased with that when she walked out of the back room but after the show she just put on i wasn't happy with that. she clearly made things escalate. i pointed to my tea and told her. “i don't think you understand. this is my lunch. i won't be able to eat your food until 5 o' clock after it has been sitting in a hot car all afternoon. it won't be fresh and it won't be good." she yelled back at me. "whatever! just leave." and when we were almost to the door she yelled out loud enough this time for the whole room to hear. "go to burger king next time!"
veronica, you will be happy to know that i will not be dining in your restaurant again. i can assure you that i will also tell those i know to not dine there either. while i can understand the fact that your food is not “fast food” i believe that if the service was quicker the food order would have been put in earlier and there wouldn’t have been a problem at all. if you enter a conversation with an upset customer ready for a fight you will get one. so try and stay calm and try and your customer will most likely calm down too.

good breakfast spot. we had a good german dinner here about a year ago and decided to come back for breakfast. i ordered the eggs benedict and my husband ordered an omelette. they won't win accolades for presentation, but the eggs benedict were delicious as was the omelette. at first i thought the hollandaise sauce was a bit skimpy, but it was rich and thicker, turning out to be just right. the potatoes were not up to the same standard being rather blah and a couple of larger pieces weren't cooked all the way through. they need to step it up to match the quality of the eggs benedict. the coffee, however, was especially good. we may go back just for that.

in our experience, the service can be dicey. when we went for dinner, the server was excellent. the waitress at breakfast was cheery and attentive, but she seemed to get orders confused at other tables leading to several errors. those were remedied quickly to everyone's satisfaction.

we will definitely go back for both breakfast and lunch/dinner.

delicious and fun!. we had the pleasure of dining at little gretel for dinner, and enjoyed every moment. we were welcomed by lauren, our very knowledgeable and enthusiastic server...she was delightful. we opted for the kwak belgian beer, and boy were we in for a treat. the beer was served in unique wooden stands, and lauren shared with us the interesting story of how and why the stands were made. next, we had the jager schnitzel and sausage plate - both delicious. and we ended our night with a featured espresso ice cream dessert. the only thing missing - we wish we had ordered the steak tartare. you see, the neighboring table ordered kwak beer after seeing ours, and when they ordered the steak tartare....we wanted some of their steak tartare!! the steak tartare was prepared by lauren tableside - adding an egg yolk, various seasonings, and served with crispy bread. we asked if it was a common menu item (so we could come back to order it), and she informed us that it was a special feature - one that was introduced by visiting czech chefs. we hope that when we return the tartare will be on the menu! also, as a side note, the restrooms had some interesting and quirky installations... i won't ruin the surprise...do czech them out for yourself!!

sadly i will not be going back. having spent much of my childhood in germany i would say that they either need to hire a german chef or switch to a czech menu. my schnitzel was not a bavarian style schnitzel. i like every other german cook have my own interpretation on what the schnitzel should taste like, this one had a consistence issue. it needed alittle more time in the fryer. the breading did not stick and it was soggy even without the jäger sauce. my husbands bavarian meatloaf too left us questioning technique and interpretation. while the restaurant was a present meets old world environment sadly the food does not complimenting to building.

absolutely amazing! with real authentic czech/german recipes and friendly staff, this place is a must! my favorites are the pancakes--so light and tasty!--and the chocolate and cheese kolach!

the owner had my negative review deleted and left my much older, positive one. promising early on, it's a disaster on a plate now. make no mistake...which means eating here would be one.

big clapping hans(el) for this little gretel. a little german restaurant on the rhine? well, not exactly. it is right across from the lake boerne dam though (i will spare you the location pun). the interior is small, but nice and bright with plenty of natural light to make the place cheery. they also have a small bar inside with a few stools though its not exactly where you would want to hold your next oktoberfest celebration (nor would they want you too most likely).
the draw is the charm and personal service of this small "chateau" to say nothing of the food, which i am getting to. a short chat with the affable waiter about schnitzel and an alternative suggestion made that was the waiter's favorite; kasseler rippchen (smoked pork chop for the germanic tongue impaired). how's that for a zuggenbrecher (tongue twister)!

moist pork chop with just a hint of smokiness smothered in an extremely mild horseradish sauce with slivered almonds, lighter than air spatzle to dip in that creamy sauce, and some of the best, mildest, least acidic sauerkraut with caraway that i have ever had. tremendous job chefkoch! i was not suprised when i asked if the sauerkraut was made here and found that it was like most of the offerings.

i also found out that they have events where they spit roast a whole pig on the huge pit to the side of the restaurant. i can imagine how good it would be to pork-out at this pig-in! reservations only!