Home » Forums » New York City » Midtown Eating
What happened to Au Bon Pain?
Posted: 2:04 pm, March 25th, 2011 in Midtown Eating
18 Comments | RSS comments feed for this topic
ADVERTISEMENT
18 Comments
-
I hate to say this, because obviously you are very fond of the place...but who cares? Au Bon Pain is one of those chain restaurants that Midtown suits eat at because they are too lazy to find more interesting food elsewhere.
The whole point of this website is to discover and discuss more interesting alternatives to the Cafe Metro/Au Bon Pain/Chipotle/generic chain options to finding food in the wasteland that is known as Midtown.
Please don't be offended. I understand everyone has their own preferences! -
Oh hey, not to deflate your superioritry complex -- I've eaten plenty of interesting food thanks to following this site for years. But you know sometimes you just want a good sandwich or salad and Au Bon Pain used to be better than your average deli, not to be lumped in with the others you mentioned actually, hence my disappointment. No need to reply if it's too far beneath you.
-
Wow, way to get defensive. Here, I'll say it less nicely: no one on Midtown Lunch really cares what happened to Au Bon Pain. You may as well have asked "did the quality of Chipotle's meat go downhill?"
-
Haven't been in one since the 90's.
-
They removed the build your own sandwich bar? GASP! Now where will I be able to customize my $9 grilled chicken on flatbread sandwich.
-
I Love ABP - its the only place i can get a decent salad for under $8. But that's really all i go there for.
But I find it shocking that people don't realize that food prices, particularly lettuce, tomato, and all ground crops, have more than doubled in the past month - ($3 for one bell pepper or one head of lettuce).
So it's no surprise that ABP is doing this... the rising prices are probably killing them - and im sure it will start happening everywhere - restaurants/food trucks/carts/delis. Even Wendy's asks you if you want tomato on your burger now.
BTW - i love how people get unnecessarily nasty on these forums.
-
Actually, those of you who are decrying ABP, I quite enjoy their New England style clam chowder. It's hard to find that type done well in a non-sit down restaurant environment that you know won't get you sick. ABP does it quite well and it's almost always in rotation (some other soup places claim to have it but it's not there every day, which is useless to me). They have tasty desserts that go for half price (in the FiDi anyway) after 6pm I think... and I have nothing against ABP, it's pretty good, with the caveat that yes, it's a chain. So is Shake Shack. (Go ahead, SS haters, you can start in on the SS hate, but point is, chain != bad automatically. Did I use "!=" right?)
And yes, some people get really rude, some people get really defensive, Midtown Lunch forums is a great place for everyone to be mean to each other.
Example: Dave, no one on Midtown Lunch cares what you have to say, so shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you.
-
yeah their pastries are good. Not sure if my taste buds changed or their coffee changed, but I tried it recently for the first time in over 8 or 9 years and it was way better than I remembered.
-
Oh it is definitely not too far beneath me to respond to you DKS.
I agree with Dave. You are being WAY TOO DEFENSIVE.
But hey! As I said "Please don't be offended. I understand everyone has their own preferences!"
-
i also have to say, the red velvet cupcakes from ABP are pretty awesome.
-
I like chains in general for certain things. McD's, Burger King, wendy's taco bell are all in my rotation to a degree--even if i only go once every 4-6 months to any given chain restaurant. I used to do ABP 11 yrs ago daily, when I would study there. The food was alright, but, perhaps aside from good clam chowder, I found everything else on the menu to be readily available and far cheaper at other local places, so when i stopped studying, I stopped eating there...but I'm the first to try anything that is different offered by these chains---for exaple shrimp taco at Taco Bell, which I really enjoyed!
-
None of the chains are regulars in my rotation, but every-so-often, they are actually a change of pace. And ABP used to be decent. ABP was one of the few places that had goat cheese as an option on a MTO sandwich. So that, or breakfast, was the only time I went.
-
@Yvo: Funny. See if I get you a drink the next HH.
Reply »
You must log in to post.
I was already disappointed when Au Bon Pain introduced their new sandwich menu -- slashing the selection, eliminating my favorite breads and removing the build-your-own sandwich option a few weeks ago. But then today I went to the 50th St location between 6th & 7th Aves only to discover that their formerly good by-the-pound salad bar has been axed too. Now there's a much smaller salad bar with a fixed $7 price and a server standing guard to ration out your portions. This is probably old news to some of you but it came as a surprise to me, and sadly it's the final nail in the coffin for Au Bon pain as far as I'm concerned.
What happened to this company? Did they get taken over by new consultants? Slash food costs so they could buy a box of iPads for every store. Hmph.