Le Pain Quotidien, Washington DC

So…. This place has a problem. If you read the reviews you’ll see lots of complaints about friendly servers but poor service. They are absolutely correct. The servers are over worked and the service is highly inefficient. We watched people leave without ordering and we almost did the same.

The food is well presented. Disclaimer: If you want traditional all-American breakfast, this is not for you. Coffee is in a bowl, pancakes are miniature circles, everything is organic. But if you like your breakfast more hip and frou frou this is your place.

My daughters sunny side up egg smelled like bad fish, but her avocado toast under it was great. My omelette was pretty good.

Big plus: After waiting too long for my son’s pancakes they comped them without us even asking.

Friendly - just slow

Stumbled upon this cafe while walking around Washington DC.
Very nice environment, delicious food, good service.we ordered cappuccino, croissants, lentil soup, pashinofruit tart. Everything was delicious!
There are few visitors. You can leisurely enjoy food and classical music. Definitely recommend this place to visit!

A great place for breakfast.
The food was well presented and tasted good.
The staff were friendly and helpful.
Arrive early to guarantee a table.
Will definitely return.
Thank you.

I love the atmosphere and the simple, healthy fare. The service today could have seen an improvement with refilling drinks much more often. Pastries are top notch; I always enjoy the quiche and the avocado toast. The bread on the side is always very hard on the outside and soft on the inside - perfect for a bowl of soup.

Seriously understaffed. I understand it's the holiday season and it's busy, but we waited for 20 mins with no one coming to take our order, let alone acknowledge us. I even went to the front cashier to tell her if someone can attend to us and she did relay the information to the server, who simply said 'they'll have to wait, I have two more orders to attend to'. Fair enough, but at least tell us that someone will be with us shortly. We finally decided to just leave. Really disappointing, since the reviews are pretty good.

Staff is courteous and attentive. The pastries and the coffee is great. It can get busy which is understandable thanks to it's location.

Pretty nice for a quick bite of breakfast. Unlike other establishments, you can sit to eat; it's a step up, and with better food.
Service here is very nice, and the food includes healthy options.

Two stars because the atmosphere is decent, but I guess I'll just never know why these places are so jammed. Coffee was mediocre at best and the pastries are fine but overpriced.

Very delicious salmon omelette, with lentil soup I ordered quite a bit from the menu and just about everything was well prepared and delicious

The staff is very polite and friendly. The atmosphere is awesome. The location is walking distance from Capitol Hill and very close to the White House.

Must check out this place if you're visiting Washington DC area

I stopped by this place with a friend and it was perfect. Great customer service and yummy baked goods. Clean too, and there was free wi-fi.

The service is painfully slow and the manager named Iraj is just straight out bad for business, very unpleasant and unprofessional, I will not be returning to this restaurant. Our food came out very late and our sides came out after we finished our food.

Understocked. Asked for one thing. Don’t have. Asked for something else. Don’t have. Rude staff that don’t make an effort and very blunt.

We received a terrible experience. The manager Iraj needs more training on management he’s very argumentative and rude I have been dining here for a long time and after today I’m no longer a customer.

Terrible, but terrible experience!

Not a good experience at all
Me with my wife we have ordered the famous Sunny side breakfast bowl.

Which comes with bread.

The bread never arrived. It comes with onion, no onion on the dish

When I asked for the bread the waitress asked me

Do you need the bread?

Is not a matter if I need or not, it's because it comes with bread.

Are you making money saving the bread? And giving a poor service?

I understand people need to eat as we do, but this is Le pain quotidien and

We were the only people not American in the place, disrupted, not well served. Is this racism?

Not professional at all.

She looked at us like with some hate and disgust

We are tourist, first time in DC and for sure we won't do this place again, and is not a good recommendation at all.

Good music ambiance at least!

The worst service ever! I came in with my family to have breakfast. I asked for a large cappuccino, the waitress brought it in a bowl instead of a large cup. She spilled it all over me. Instead of helping cleaning up she disappeared. Showed up after 10 min with a very bad attitude. The manager was not helpful at all. My clothes and shoes where ruined and they didn’t want to pay for anything and ended up insulting us and threatened us with a knife. Our day was ruined. The worst experience ever. Do not recommend this place at all. There are much nicer places close by.

This is a very cozy place to have brunch!

I highly recommend their pastries. Their coffee was alright, nothing special.

I ordered the chicken mozzarella cheese toast, and my friend ordered the avocado toast. I wouldn’t buy the chicken toast again just because it was a little tasteless. But I’ll definitely go there again to try their egg breakfast place.

The service was great! Shout out to Hawwa for being an awesome waitress.

I wish this branch would close later than 4: 00 pm which seems to be too early.

Our waitress was absolutely wonderful. The place is super quaint and cute. I just wasn't super impressed with the food, especially for the price. I did like the mint lemonade though!

Nice atmosphere but understaffed, sandwich’s don’t reflect price when removing items. $9 for an egg and cheese after removing the avacado? It’s basically just a bun with a single egg on it. Go a bit up town for a real breakfast. Never again will we go here, getting harder and harder to find a decent breakfast in midtown DC.

Great food, nice atmosphere. Service not so much. Our server came by, threw the menu on the table and it only got worse from there. No offers to refill coffee or water. Took forever to get our check, even longer to get change and a box to go. Did I mention that the food was good?

First, I’ll say the staff there are really nice and try their best.
Its always packed and it seems they never have enough people working to be able to manage the amount of customers.
We’ve been there at least 6/7 times and each time some people sit waiting to order but leave after a while because the servers are so busy they can’t juggle everyone and clear the tables after people finish eating.
This last time the food was pretty badly prepared which was disappointing as we love LePain….