QR scan menu is a little confusing especially since there is two different restaurants menus placed on the same board and both menus look almost identical. We struggled to get the website to process our payment after several attempts it finally went through. Food was okay at best. 10 of 10 don’t recommend.
James Fouts
Food was excellent. The wife had the chicken fingers and sweet potato fries. I had the chicken salad sandwich with homemade chips. I struggled between 4 and 5 stars. It would be an easy 5 stars if it was on the prepared food alone. Unfortunately, the virtual experience and market left a little to be desired. I had to step back outside to take a snap of the QR code to order. The order was separate from the market. The charcuterie that we picked up in the market wasn’t the freshest. The pickles were soft. The carrots were limp, and the cheese and salami flavors had all come together as they had been in there for at least a day. I will stick to the menu and order ahead of time if coming back. With all that said, the chicken fingers are probably in the top 5 for chicken fingers we’ve had. I’d highly recommend a tablet out front for others to order and providing cards with numbers for pickup. With a few tweaks, this is a fantastic find in this small town.
Ann Flaherty
Gluten Free bread is horrid! Crumbles just opening the container. Trying to eat it is ridiculous. No utensils included. Had to eat this mess with my fingers.Bread has a Bitter aftertaste.This is the type of gluten free bread we had twenty years ago. There’s better options out there now.Not worth what I paid for this.
Lizzy Holloway
I really wanted to like this place. But figuring out where you have to order from (Libations), and where you can actually eat and which menu to use under an expressed time crunch by the bartender was just plain annoying. Was told to order with the bartender and she would run over to cafe 121 to pick it up. Well once I felt we had waited too long, I got up to ask where our food was…and there it was, sitting on the counter, getting soggy in the to go container. GROSSLY OVERPRICED. Very few fries in an order, no dipping sauces provided that were ordered, potato chips were raw.
Alexander
This has been our weekend brunch spot since we moved to Sanford last two years. Their breakfast selection is amazing and even better with the Mamosa flights. However, we are not a fan of their new ordering system. Instead of us being able to order inside we are now forced to use a QR code and order from our phone. Sanford isn’t known for its great cell service and speaking for the older crowd that enjoys this place it is a headache to order from our phones. It would be 5 stars if we had the option to order and pay inside.
Lucas Simoes
Great little place. It's like a sandwich place, but their sandwiches are artisan and very good. Service is mostly online which hurts the ambient. Great place for a lunch with friends
Laura E.
Food is ok. Owner clearly can't keep staff because they don't provide any table service anymore. Go somewhere else if you want actual service and more reasonable prices.
Barrett Diehl
Cute cafe with great healthy options! Take out only but they provide a nice seating area outside for you.
Ricki Vega
Cute cafe. They weren't doing indoor seating so I ordered to go and sat outside. The food and coffee were fresh. I love a good egg Benedict and was pretty excited to try it here. It wasn't my favorite but it was still flavorful. Loved the broccoli salad! Worth checking out.
Jynn B.
Amazing food and amazing customer service! I like to call plates in for lunch, but the market is by far my favorite! I go in on Fridays and stock up on chicken salad(the best in Lee County), pimento cheese, homemade chips and bread, and plenty of other things to get thru the weekend!
Good quality food. Each restaurant by Chef Hamm is a true delicacy to Sanford.Outdoor patio seating only; you order inside and they bring it out to you.However, the prices do NOT reflect that it’s a take-out only restaurant where you’re using packaged plastic cutlery to eat off plastic containers or the size of the dishes.
Burt Melzer
They currently only have outdoor seating available but do have some shaded areas. They have great menu options as well as a good selection of already prepared food for easy carry out.
Kristen Ryan
My husband and I drove 2 and a half hours to come to this place because it’s really hard to find good gluten free places in New Bern and the website for this place made it look like an upscale cafe with mostly gluten free foods. When we got there, we realized pretty quickly it wasn’t Café-like at all. It was 100% takeout food. There was no indoor seating, it was seat yourself outdoors. The tables were not clean, and there were a lot of bugs. This was already a turn off for us. The menu seemed much smaller than the online menu. We went inside to order our food; we ordered 5 meals in total (2 for there and 3 to take home). The total came to over $100.00. I didn’t care about the price at that point because I was just excited to get good homemade gluten free food. As a celiac, I know that gluten free food always costs more; it’s a sad reality, but I’m used to it at this point in my life. The woman at the register told me they would start making the to go dishes when we got the food we planned to eat there. We went back outside to wait for our food. There was only one other couple there at that point and they were already eating their food. 4 other groups of people showed up after us, ordered their food, and sat down outside. Every single one of those tables got their food before us. A LONG time before us. The poor waiter tried to give us everyone else’s food, too. When we finally got our food, we were extremely disappointed. The food came out in SMALL Chinese food containers, we were given plastic ware, and we never got our drinks. The waiter never came back to our table, we had to grab him after a few walk bys to ask for our drinks. He said he was told that we didn’t order any drinks. My husband’s burger was very mediocre and was not worth $16.00. I ordered the chicken salad sandwich “California style” with gluten free bread. I have no idea what I actually got, but it wasn’t that. Whatever it was had a very thinn layer of what seemed like creamed spinach, on GF bread, with avocados, topped with poached eggs. I would have never ordered this dish. I am not even a fan of poached eggs. I kept saying to my husband “I really don’t think this is what I ordered, this doesn’t seem like it even has chicken in it at all.” The waiter never came back and when we went inside, no one was at the counter. I figured maybe I misunderstood what “California style” meant. But when I checked the website later, it clearly said “chicken salad with lettuce, tomato, avocado and bacon”. What I got was definitely not what I ordered. Fast forward, we had to wait another 20 minutes after we finished eating to get our to go orders. The waiter tried to give our food to 3 different tables despite me saying “that’s ours” 3 times loudly. He was taking the food back inside before someone else said “I think that’s their food” and pointed to us. We left shortly after that. Fast forward to when we got home and went to eat dinner…my husband’s sandwich was very small and bland. My turkey sandwich was gross. It was caked in cream cheese. The fruit side that I ordered only had 3 different types of fruits. The grapes were mushy and rotten, the cantaloupe and strawberries were straight mush (not to mention there were only 3 strawberry slices). I just went to eat my chicken salad tonight. It was missing half the ingredients and I wasn’t even given any dressing. I’ve had better salads from McDonalds. I cannot express how disappointed we were based on the food and the service. I cannot believe I spent over $100.00 and drove 2 and a half hours one way to go to this place. Do not recommend and will never go back.
Kristen J.
My husband and I drove 2 and a half hours to come to this place because it's really hard to find good gluten free places in New Bern and the website for this place made it look like an upscale cafe with mostly gluten free foods. When we got there, we realized pretty quickly it wasn't Café-like at all. It was 100% takeout food. There was no indoor seating, it was seat yourself outdoors. The tables were not clean, and there were a lot of bugs. This was already a turn off for us. The menu seemed much smaller than the online menu. We went inside to order our food; we ordered 5 meals in total (2 for there and 3 to take home). The total came to over $100.00. I didn't care about the price at that point because I was just excited to get good homemade gluten free food. As a celiac, I know that gluten free food always costs more; it's a sad reality, but I'm used to it at this point in my life. The woman at the register told me they would start making the to go dishes when we got the food we planned to eat there. We went back outside to wait for our food. There was only one other couple there at that point and they were already eating their food. 4 other groups of people showed up after us, ordered their food, and sat down outside. Every single one of those tables got their food before us. A LONG time before us. The poor waiter tried to give us everyone else's food, too. When we finally got our food, we were extremely disappointed. The food came out in SMALL Chinese food containers, we were given plastic ware, and we never got our drinks. The waiter never came back to our table, we had to grab him after a few walk bys to ask for our drinks. He said he was told that we didn't order any drinks. My husband's burger was very mediocre and was not worth $16.00. I ordered the chicken salad sandwich "California style" with gluten free bread. I have no idea what I actually got, but it wasn't that. Whatever it was had a very thinn layer of what seemed like creamed spinach, on GF bread, with avocados, topped with poached eggs. I would have never ordered this dish. I am not even a fan of poached eggs. I kept saying to my husband "I really don't think this is what I ordered, this doesn't seem like it even has chicken in it at all." The waiter never came back and when we went inside, no one was at the counter. I figured maybe I misunderstood what "California style" meant. But when I checked the website later, it clearly said "chicken salad with lettuce, tomato, avocado and bacon". What I got was definitely not what I ordered. Fast forward, we had to wait another 20 minutes after we finished eating to get our to go orders. The waiter tried to give our food to 3 different tables despite me saying "that's ours" 3 times loudly. He was taking the food back inside before someone else said "I think that's their food" and pointed to us. We left shortly after that. Fast forward to when we got home and went to eat dinner...my husband's sandwich was very small and bland. My turkey sandwich was gross. It was caked in cream cheese. The fruit side that I ordered only had 3 different types of fruits. The grapes were mushy and rotten, the cantaloupe and strawberries were straight mush (not to mention there were only 3 strawberry slices). I just went to eat my chicken salad tonight. It was missing half the ingredients and I wasn't even given any dressing. I've had better salads from McDonalds. I cannot express how disappointed we were based on the food and the service. I cannot believe I spent over $100.00 and drove 2 and a half hours one way to go to this place. Do not recommend and will never go back.
Gina Pisegna
Today was my first time at Cafe 121. The lady inside was so friendly and welcoming! Even when I accidentally ordered the wrong thing, she took it back and switched it out for what I wanted. The food was great and I will definitely be back! ☺️
QR scan menu is a little confusing especially since there is two different restaurants menus placed on the same board and both menus look almost identical. We struggled to get the website to process our payment after several attempts it finally went through. Food was okay at best. 10 of 10 don’t recommend.
Food was excellent. The wife had the chicken fingers and sweet potato fries. I had the chicken salad sandwich with homemade chips. I struggled between 4 and 5 stars. It would be an easy 5 stars if it was on the prepared food alone. Unfortunately, the virtual experience and market left a little to be desired. I had to step back outside to take a snap of the QR code to order. The order was separate from the market. The charcuterie that we picked up in the market wasn’t the freshest. The pickles were soft. The carrots were limp, and the cheese and salami flavors had all come together as they had been in there for at least a day. I will stick to the menu and order ahead of time if coming back. With all that said, the chicken fingers are probably in the top 5 for chicken fingers we’ve had. I’d highly recommend a tablet out front for others to order and providing cards with numbers for pickup. With a few tweaks, this is a fantastic find in this small town.
Gluten Free bread is horrid! Crumbles just opening the container. Trying to eat it is ridiculous. No utensils included. Had to eat this mess with my fingers.Bread has a Bitter aftertaste.This is the type of gluten free bread we had twenty years ago. There’s better options out there now.Not worth what I paid for this.
I really wanted to like this place. But figuring out where you have to order from (Libations), and where you can actually eat and which menu to use under an expressed time crunch by the bartender was just plain annoying. Was told to order with the bartender and she would run over to cafe 121 to pick it up. Well once I felt we had waited too long, I got up to ask where our food was…and there it was, sitting on the counter, getting soggy in the to go container. GROSSLY OVERPRICED. Very few fries in an order, no dipping sauces provided that were ordered, potato chips were raw.
This has been our weekend brunch spot since we moved to Sanford last two years. Their breakfast selection is amazing and even better with the Mamosa flights. However, we are not a fan of their new ordering system. Instead of us being able to order inside we are now forced to use a QR code and order from our phone. Sanford isn’t known for its great cell service and speaking for the older crowd that enjoys this place it is a headache to order from our phones. It would be 5 stars if we had the option to order and pay inside.
Great little place. It's like a sandwich place, but their sandwiches are artisan and very good. Service is mostly online which hurts the ambient. Great place for a lunch with friends
Food is ok. Owner clearly can't keep staff because they don't provide any table service anymore. Go somewhere else if you want actual service and more reasonable prices.
Cute cafe with great healthy options! Take out only but they provide a nice seating area outside for you.
Cute cafe. They weren't doing indoor seating so I ordered to go and sat outside. The food and coffee were fresh. I love a good egg Benedict and was pretty excited to try it here. It wasn't my favorite but it was still flavorful. Loved the broccoli salad! Worth checking out.
Amazing food and amazing customer service! I like to call plates in for lunch, but the market is by far my favorite! I go in on Fridays and stock up on chicken salad(the best in Lee County), pimento cheese, homemade chips and bread, and plenty of other things to get thru the weekend!
Restaurantji Recommends
Good quality food. Each restaurant by Chef Hamm is a true delicacy to Sanford.Outdoor patio seating only; you order inside and they bring it out to you.However, the prices do NOT reflect that it’s a take-out only restaurant where you’re using packaged plastic cutlery to eat off plastic containers or the size of the dishes.
They currently only have outdoor seating available but do have some shaded areas. They have great menu options as well as a good selection of already prepared food for easy carry out.
My husband and I drove 2 and a half hours to come to this place because it’s really hard to find good gluten free places in New Bern and the website for this place made it look like an upscale cafe with mostly gluten free foods. When we got there, we realized pretty quickly it wasn’t Café-like at all. It was 100% takeout food. There was no indoor seating, it was seat yourself outdoors. The tables were not clean, and there were a lot of bugs. This was already a turn off for us. The menu seemed much smaller than the online menu. We went inside to order our food; we ordered 5 meals in total (2 for there and 3 to take home). The total came to over $100.00. I didn’t care about the price at that point because I was just excited to get good homemade gluten free food. As a celiac, I know that gluten free food always costs more; it’s a sad reality, but I’m used to it at this point in my life. The woman at the register told me they would start making the to go dishes when we got the food we planned to eat there. We went back outside to wait for our food. There was only one other couple there at that point and they were already eating their food. 4 other groups of people showed up after us, ordered their food, and sat down outside. Every single one of those tables got their food before us. A LONG time before us. The poor waiter tried to give us everyone else’s food, too. When we finally got our food, we were extremely disappointed. The food came out in SMALL Chinese food containers, we were given plastic ware, and we never got our drinks. The waiter never came back to our table, we had to grab him after a few walk bys to ask for our drinks. He said he was told that we didn’t order any drinks. My husband’s burger was very mediocre and was not worth $16.00. I ordered the chicken salad sandwich “California style” with gluten free bread. I have no idea what I actually got, but it wasn’t that. Whatever it was had a very thinn layer of what seemed like creamed spinach, on GF bread, with avocados, topped with poached eggs. I would have never ordered this dish. I am not even a fan of poached eggs. I kept saying to my husband “I really don’t think this is what I ordered, this doesn’t seem like it even has chicken in it at all.” The waiter never came back and when we went inside, no one was at the counter. I figured maybe I misunderstood what “California style” meant. But when I checked the website later, it clearly said “chicken salad with lettuce, tomato, avocado and bacon”. What I got was definitely not what I ordered. Fast forward, we had to wait another 20 minutes after we finished eating to get our to go orders. The waiter tried to give our food to 3 different tables despite me saying “that’s ours” 3 times loudly. He was taking the food back inside before someone else said “I think that’s their food” and pointed to us. We left shortly after that. Fast forward to when we got home and went to eat dinner…my husband’s sandwich was very small and bland. My turkey sandwich was gross. It was caked in cream cheese. The fruit side that I ordered only had 3 different types of fruits. The grapes were mushy and rotten, the cantaloupe and strawberries were straight mush (not to mention there were only 3 strawberry slices). I just went to eat my chicken salad tonight. It was missing half the ingredients and I wasn’t even given any dressing. I’ve had better salads from McDonalds. I cannot express how disappointed we were based on the food and the service. I cannot believe I spent over $100.00 and drove 2 and a half hours one way to go to this place. Do not recommend and will never go back.
My husband and I drove 2 and a half hours to come to this place because it's really hard to find good gluten free places in New Bern and the website for this place made it look like an upscale cafe with mostly gluten free foods. When we got there, we realized pretty quickly it wasn't Café-like at all. It was 100% takeout food. There was no indoor seating, it was seat yourself outdoors. The tables were not clean, and there were a lot of bugs. This was already a turn off for us. The menu seemed much smaller than the online menu. We went inside to order our food; we ordered 5 meals in total (2 for there and 3 to take home). The total came to over $100.00. I didn't care about the price at that point because I was just excited to get good homemade gluten free food. As a celiac, I know that gluten free food always costs more; it's a sad reality, but I'm used to it at this point in my life. The woman at the register told me they would start making the to go dishes when we got the food we planned to eat there. We went back outside to wait for our food. There was only one other couple there at that point and they were already eating their food. 4 other groups of people showed up after us, ordered their food, and sat down outside. Every single one of those tables got their food before us. A LONG time before us. The poor waiter tried to give us everyone else's food, too. When we finally got our food, we were extremely disappointed. The food came out in SMALL Chinese food containers, we were given plastic ware, and we never got our drinks. The waiter never came back to our table, we had to grab him after a few walk bys to ask for our drinks. He said he was told that we didn't order any drinks. My husband's burger was very mediocre and was not worth $16.00. I ordered the chicken salad sandwich "California style" with gluten free bread. I have no idea what I actually got, but it wasn't that. Whatever it was had a very thinn layer of what seemed like creamed spinach, on GF bread, with avocados, topped with poached eggs. I would have never ordered this dish. I am not even a fan of poached eggs. I kept saying to my husband "I really don't think this is what I ordered, this doesn't seem like it even has chicken in it at all." The waiter never came back and when we went inside, no one was at the counter. I figured maybe I misunderstood what "California style" meant. But when I checked the website later, it clearly said "chicken salad with lettuce, tomato, avocado and bacon". What I got was definitely not what I ordered. Fast forward, we had to wait another 20 minutes after we finished eating to get our to go orders. The waiter tried to give our food to 3 different tables despite me saying "that's ours" 3 times loudly. He was taking the food back inside before someone else said "I think that's their food" and pointed to us. We left shortly after that. Fast forward to when we got home and went to eat dinner...my husband's sandwich was very small and bland. My turkey sandwich was gross. It was caked in cream cheese. The fruit side that I ordered only had 3 different types of fruits. The grapes were mushy and rotten, the cantaloupe and strawberries were straight mush (not to mention there were only 3 strawberry slices). I just went to eat my chicken salad tonight. It was missing half the ingredients and I wasn't even given any dressing. I've had better salads from McDonalds. I cannot express how disappointed we were based on the food and the service. I cannot believe I spent over $100.00 and drove 2 and a half hours one way to go to this place. Do not recommend and will never go back.
Today was my first time at Cafe 121. The lady inside was so friendly and welcoming! Even when I accidentally ordered the wrong thing, she took it back and switched it out for what I wanted. The food was great and I will definitely be back! ☺️