zada jane's corner cafe

i've eaten atzadajanes a few dozen times-not a regular, but at least once every two to three weeks over the past two years. i've been annoyed by the service-but the last few times i visited, i've had the pleasure of dealing with a hostess who should not only be fired-but should be dismissed from any position that involves helping/serving/talking to people.

it was a beautiful weekday morning-i brought my dog to the patio and sat down at a table that already had a menu. it was the same table i sat at the day before-there was also a couple sitting in the corner finishing up their breakfast. i waited for ten...maybe fifteen minutes as i watched a waitress and the hostess walk outside, check on the couple and walk back inside. apparently acknowledgment was going to be an issue (especially with this specific hostess) so i poked my head inside to let her know i existed-i was enjoying my morning and was in a great mood. i sat back down at my table and the hostess opens the door and in the most disrespectful tone, informed me the patio was closed. i was shocked-not that the restaurant had certain hours of operation for the outside area, but that someone could be so incredible, fat and lazy that they can't even walk over and save me the embarrassment of making a mistake.

my reply was-'but i have my dog with me.' this hostess literally rolls her eyes, with a complete audible sigh, and asked me if i wanted her to ask one of the servers if they would wait on me. instead of making a fools out of myself and chewing out someone who obviously doesn't matter to the world, i laughed-and said that i would find somewhere else. i should have said something, but to who? i've always overlooked the service because it's a cool place with great food, but the moment i realized the amount of times i've experienced a rude attitude from this specific hostess, i was ready walking away happy never to inconvenience their staff again.

love their breakfast. have had a few great breakfasts atzadajane's- but have had to walk away a few times because the wait was too long- if you can hit it outside of rush hour it's worth the wait.

this edition of excited about eating takes us to one of our favorite neighborhoods in charlotte, plaza midwood, and to.zadajane’s corner café. this beachfront themed café advertises a menu that is half vegetarian and half meat. although breakfast is their focus and served all day, their lunch menu includes sandwiches, salads, and many unique sides, and their dinner menu is full of delicious options.

congratulations tozadajane's..my girlfriend and i have been to quite a few different restaurants between us, but we both agreed that our experience this afternoon atzadajane's was the worst yet.
the service was horrible. our waitress took our drink order, then came back 2 minutes later and took our food order (bunny rancheros and egg & cheese biscuit), then we set there for 30 minutes without so much as a hello. at that point, she came by to say our food would be out in a "couple of minutes". long story short, our food came out exactly 51 minutes after we ordered. i don't know where that type of wait is acceptable, especially when your server checks on you twice during the wait, but it wasn't for us.
the food was okay overall (i would say 3/5 stars), but the presentation looked sloppy, and the portion was awful - three or four total homefries and maybe a handful of beans and chicken.
for your own sake, i would definitely avoidzadajane's! the food was mediocre, the service was not friendly, and the wait was agonizing!

i tend to avoid writing negative reviews b/c ppl can be hard to please but this was necessary. after a few hit or misses with restaurants that offered vegetarian and vegan options here in charlotte, i decided to tryzadajanes. my boyfriend won't touch a vegetable and i absolutely live for them so this seemed like it could be a happy medium.

i walked in to utter sunday brunch chaos but had fair warning (the website on the bottom of the menu page asks you to respect those ahead of you during say&sun peak hours) so it was bearable. there was no sign of a line so a waitress asked if i wanted to be added to the wait list for seating. i asked if they did takeout & she replied "sure. if you head to the bar, tabitha will take your order." of course the bar area was crazy so i waited a few minutes, then tabitha took my order. after a few patrons cleared i sat and waited. the crowd dissipated some.

after about 5 minutes, the waitress who directed me to the bar for ordering comes over and says "you ordered takeout? we need this space to seat customers." excuse me? customers.. so what am i, a brown paper bag sitting here? i just ordered a meal. i'm paying for it. and you directed me here. even another guy at the bar looked shocked & told her he was getting ready to leave so she could use his stool. she said "but" and i immediately got up and informed the woman who took my request and told her to cancel the order.

i felt management needed to know so i came back in to ask for a manager and tabitha said that she was the manager. she did say she would write the waitress up and offered my meal on the house but i declined. i'm pretty disgusted that in 2016 things like this still happen.

during my visit tozadajane's i ordered the nachos and they were delicious. the food was great, but i am pretty sure all of the staff was high because they were very slow, forgetful, and confused.

get the nachos and they will change your life! best i've ever had and a staple for every visit i make tozadajane's. service can be hit or miss especially on the patio if it's really busy but still my favorite breakfast/brunch spot in the city by far.

zada jane’s is a breakfast joint. they serve lunch and dinner too, but serve breakfast all day. i went there once for dinner right after i moved to charlotte, and i ordered breakfast. if you’re looking for good breakfast, at any hour of the day, you need to go tozadajane’s.zadajane’s really embodies what i think to be a true plaza midwood vibe–it’s casual, eclectic, and has a lot of character (any diner that’s in an old dry cleaning building with bright purple and yellow walls brings a ton of character to the table).

zada jane’s corner cafe (located in a former dry cleaners on central avenue in charlotte, nc) is one of those bright, funky, southern-style, breakfast-all-day places, similar to the flying biscuit or tupelo honey. similar, but not the same.zadajanes has far, far more vegetarian and vegan offerings than the charlotte tupelo honey .  in fact,zadajane’s proudly proclaims their menu to be “half vegetarian, half meaty.”  further, they have two separate grills for the meats and veggies, and since the kitchen doesn’t have a fryer you don’t have to worry about cross-contamination via cooking oil. and, whilezadajane’s claims to be, above all, a “family and community-friendly restaurant,” it’s much more “adult” than the flying biscuit . (in other words, you’re less likely to have a screaming 6-year-old sitting at the table behind you.)  a barista makes custom fair-trade coffees and teas, and there’s a small bar and healthy “happy hour.” as for the food …zadajane’s menu is, indeed, half v

way better for breakfast than dinner. let me start by saying i love this place for breakfast. as others have stated, the atmosphere is funky and eclectic, and the servers are laid-back but attentive. if we're talking breakfast, zj's is definitely 4-5 stars. but i'm talking dinner today. sigh.

we visitedzadajane's for dinner last night, and it was much calmer than it usually is for breakfast. we were greeted and seated immediately, and upon reviewing the menu, i was a little disappointed. it's primarily $7-$10 sandwiches/wraps, and entrees that cost wayyyy more than you'd expect. to me, zj's has a cool diner atmosphere, yet their entrees were $15-$28 for dishes like spinach ravioli and chicken. yowza. i was also keenly aware of the 90 sanitation rating when choosing my dinner.

we settled on the fried squash and zucchini cakes for an appetizer, and they were absolutely delicious, as was the tangy tzatziki that came with them. i got carmen's spinach salad for dinner, which was solid, and my fella got the druthers chicken sandwich, which he said was okay but a little bland.

all in all, you couldn't keep me away for breakfast, but dinner? eh.

service is slipping ... avoid sunday brunch. while the food is still very good, service is definately slipping. four of us went for sunday brunch today and while we were told it would be about a 30 minute wait, ended up being almost an hour.we observer a lot of patrons enjoying what my son from atlanta called it, a nice leasurely breakfast with good coversation. or so it seemed till we got seated.

after we got seated and began to observe the ebb and flow of the traffic, we observed something else. we observed a lot of inattentiveness on the part of the staff which had the net effect of prolonging the dining experience. the hostess seated us and it was close to 5 minutes before our server showed up. she did take our beveridge order which was promptly served but it was another 10 minutes till she came by to check again. we placed our order and while it did take longer to it should have, we recieived our meal in a not totally unreasonable time considering the volume of restaurant traffic.

at the end of the meal, when they were beginning to remove the finished plates, it was another 10 minutes before our check arrived. the problem was that this was not an isolated event because we witnessed it at both tables on either side of us as well.

no wonder there was an hour wait. the tables were not being turned fast enough and when this occurs, long waits result not to mention loss of revenue and unhappy patrons. i don't know what the problem is but i would guess it's not enough wait staff to service a sunday brunch volume of traffic.

another observation about a lack of staff. restaurant is normally very clean but today the floor was very slippery because of spilt food on the floor which had been cleaned up. traffic has stepped on it in several spots leaving very greasy spots. these were not in inconspicous places but in the main traffic aisle in the main dinning area. again for what would appear to be a lack of staff situation.

unfortunately events like this reflect badly on both the management and the restaurant as a whole.

it will be awhile before i recommendzadajane's for sunday brunch to our of town quests. i come back in a couple of months to see if the situation has improved back to what it used to be or has further declined.


-----09 sep, 2012-----

charlotte's answer to haight ashbury. my wife and i had been wanting to tryzadajane's for a while now but we rarely make it into the area of charlotte during the normal times when we would be dining. today we had to pick up some furniture so it became the perfect opportunity.

if i had known it was as good as it was, i would have found an excuse to try it earlier.

when you step into the door, it's a bit of a step back into the '60's. not psychedelic but definate elements of the counter culture movement i grew up with. ok, so i'm telling my age. some of the wait staff were even wearing granny dresses.

it's a popular spot and even though we were at the end of the breakfast crowd and just before the lunch crowd, we had to wait for a couple of minutes. no problem because while they don't rush you, they do turn the tables fairly quickly. vacant tables do not stay vacant long. as soom as someone leaves, a swarm of locust decent and the table is promptly cleared and cleaned. one point i would like to make about this. i've been in a number of restaurants which promptly clear the tables but in most cases, cleaning the tables is almost an after thought. you end up sitting at a table that is half clean and the menu and your hands stick to the table. not atzadajanes's. they do a great job, not only clearing the table, but when you sit down, you're sitting down to a clean table.

i ordered black coffee and my wife ordered unsweetened tea. unfortunately the only thing they had close to unsweetened tea was passion flower tea which was good but not exactly what my wife wanted. so much for a good earl grey. the coffee on the otherhand was excellent. a good rich dark roast with a good robust flavor.

i order the amaretto french toast with the local gratefull growers sausage as a side. since we were right on the cusp between breakfast and lunch, i wife asked if she could order off of the lunch menu and they said they would try to accomodate her depending on what she ordered. she asked about the turkey burger and was told it would not be a problem.

both orders came out perfect. the french toast was perfect and unlike most orders of french toast i get, it was not heavy and the bread still maintained a bit of an airy character to it that was refreshing. the sausage was great. a bit on the spicy side but i like some spice to my sausage. the turkey burger was excellent. turkey burgers since they are low fat are difficult to prepare without being dry. this one had the proper degree of cooking and the right balance on garnishments to not come off with that dry texture.

on the whole, a great dinning experience and will definately have to go again. next time it will the object of the journey and won't have to find an excuse of being in the area to justify going thiere.

today's choice off the breakfast menu is the amaretto french toast fromzadajanes cafe in charlotte, nc. the place was decent but not great. the service was excellent but there were a few things that missed the mark, particularly for a place that was once listed as the best breakfast in charlotte.

zada janes is a very popular resturant in the plaza midwood neighborhood . originally an old dry cleaning building,zadajanes has quickly become of of plaza midwoods hottest restaurants.

not your normal brunch! lovezadajane's (mmm good). had brunch there with a friend at the beginning of the new year. great mimosas, omelets , and delicious berry pancake. the place is small but worth the wait. i will be back on a regular.

huge disappointment - top 25 worst breakfasts of my life. i was excited to tryzadajanes - had heard people say the food was good but the services was slow. i figured i could live with the slow service, and we were in the mood for a great breakfast.

got there at 11:45. seated at 12:45. the service was great until we got our order and then we ceased to exist. refill of coffee? forget it. want some more water? hope you can find the tap. need another napkin? boy, are you ever screwed.

i got the bunny rancheros - it seemed that the 'cook' (i use that term loosely) had upended an entire can of black beans onto the plate, mixed in some chopped burnt bacon, covered it in overdone potatoes and then covered it in 2 eggs over extremely easy. wow, i was so underwhelmed. the menu description made it sound like a merging of flavors - all i tasted was bland. i ended up asking for a side of salsa and dumping hot sauce over it (while pushing that mountain of beans to the side).

my co-diners - they messed up eggs over easy, placed the biscuits into juice on the plate so they were wet, the food was lukewarm. wow, i could go on and on with how under-impressed i was with this place.

i have to believe we hit zj's on a bad day, but if not, well, the place used to be a dry cleaner. maybe it can be that again when zj's goes under.

i might try lunch - again, i've read good reviews - but i'll never touch breakfast here again.