Alpha Delights

Alpha Delights

Rating: ****
(Five stars is a perfect score.)

I am a raving maniac about fresh food, good presentation and customer service. Anyone who knows me will verify that when disappointed, I can go from raving maniac to raging maniac. Fortunately Alpha Delights offers much to rave about. I hardly know where to begin.

The moment you walk in and see the dessert case full of elegant cakes, tarts and tortes, you know you’ll never go back to Sara Lee. A second case is loaded with dainty cookies, mini almond tea cakes, baklava, Corinthian apple pita, numerous varieties of elegant pastries and sweet rolls. The offerings seem endless. It’s agony to choose, but it’s the kind of agony I fantasize about daily. Everything is beautifully presented and somehow you get the feeling the pastries are bubbling over with high self esteem…Trust me, they seem to enjoy being noticed. Did you ever read Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris, the woman who wrote Chocolat? Ms. Harris has the gift of making food sound magically alive. The bakers at Alpha Delights have the gift of making food look and taste magically alive. I almost can’t go on…but I will.

The counters are piled high with crinkly little parcels of cookies and crackers. The owner and her staff have mastered the appeal of abundance. One cannot help but feel secure on all levels when you see beautifully decorated cookies in elegant packages of four ready to be plucked up and handed out to co-workers, baked ham and cheese croissants heaped in a basket reminiscent of cafés in Europe, and stacked by the register are more cookies in white paper sacks, their cellophane windows giving full view of the self-assured contents. A look behind the counter reveals the kitchen and its racks piled high with more delights in the making. Even the most restrained crane their necks for glimpses. The baked goods range in price from $2.75 to $3.75 a slice for cakes and from .50 to $3.50 for various cookies and pastries. The prices are surprisingly reasonable for the quality.

One look at the wedding cakes (particularly the Grand Gretchen with ladyfingers and fruit) and even the most devoted of spouses may ponder annulment, an ad in the personals and a second chance at happiness beginning with the right cake this time around.

Move along and you’ll find yourself at a rack loaded with jars of pesto and Iliada olive oil. “Iliada olive oil?” my husband asked as I was listing all I had discovered, “What’s the big deal?” Hmm. What’s the big deal? Not wanting to break my enthusiastic ramble, I gave an especially exasperated sigh and confidently said “It’s only one of the most high quality olive oils ever! Jeez, get with the program!” Then, when he wasn’t looking, I crept to my computer to look it up and see if I knew what I was talking about. It looks like my guess was good, “Extra virgin olive oil, harvested from Koroneiki olives in Kalamata Greece. The perfect salad oil coveted by chefs everywhere and considered a premium find.” Whew, saved by the truth! The important part is that Alpha Delights not only sells Iliada olive oil, it, they use it in their wonderful salads. Wait, salads you ask? How did we move from cookies to salads? That’s the best part! This café that already had me at the taste of the first torte also serves breakfast and lunch!

The menu changes weekly and is published on their website. Lunch can include spanikopita, a Greek tradition of spinach and cheese baked with phyllo, roast pork panini served on their own focaccia, salad Nicoise (a tuna salad made with green beans, red potatoes, olives, hard boiled eggs, tuna, anchovies and tossed in a light vinaigrette instead of the usual mayonnaise.), and always on the menu is their chicken salad…which is promoted as “The Best Chicken Salad Around.” Now, I’m very picky about chicken salad and consider my own to be the “best around”, so that, my friends, is a bold statement.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use a chit from my “lunch out” budget for something I could easily make myself. Fortunately, the Alpha Delights stars must have been in alignment because I chose the chicken salad and it’s more than the best around…it’s better than mine and that’s saying something (if I do say so myself!). With perfectly cooked chicken breast, herbed mayonnaise, pine nuts and cranberries…you cannot go wrong. It should be mentioned that the cranberries are soft…not the hard red pellets that pass themselves off as cranberries at many salad bars. Even my husband, who isn’t big on fruit in salads, said it, “did the job”. You must understand this is his version of high culinary praise. The entrees are reasonably priced from $5.95 to $7.95.

Ok, now for the best part…the staff is fantastic. The other day I visited and was marveling aloud how clever an idea the single petite black and white pinwheel cookies in a cellophane envelope are. At .50 cents each, they’re the perfect token present to leave on a friend’s desk. You cannot help but think up people to give one to. As I was raving, the woman behind the counter joined in and said enthusiastically, “Aren’t they the best? I’ve only been here two and a half months and I can’t wait to see what we do for the holidays.” I love this! It’s so refreshing to hear an employee marvel with you! These days, when it seems clerks act bored and sort of casually disinterested about what they’re selling, it’s fun to see someone actually as enthusiastic and as enchanted by the offerings as you are. Everyone at Alpha Delights is pleasant and accommodating. Even their catering menu accommodates while gently reminding us that ordering early means “more choices for you.”

My only advice for those who choose to visit, is to expect it to feel a little closed in during lunch…there is ample seating room, but it can get a tad cramped and noisy. Though, this takes little away from the upbeat pleasant atmosphere. Mid morning is my favorite time to visit and when the service is best.

If you visit the website, you will read the following:

“Alpha Delights is a locally owned business that's brought together people with a passion for treating customers right and for creating exceptionally good bakery and cafe' foods.”

I could not agree more. The owners at Alpha Delights do exactly what they have a passion for and it shows.

Alpha Delights
143 N. Wisconsin St.
De Pere WI 54115
(920) 339-9144http://www.alphadelights.com/

Z Harvest Cafe

Z Harvest Café
The Good, the Bad and the Decidedly Ugly
Rating: **
(Five stars is a perfect score.)

Visit Z Harvest Café when you want to dine in a chic yet cozy space, choose from fantastically prepared soups, salads, sandwiches, pasta and entrees each more wonderful than the next, and then work yourself up into a raging frenzy of irritation and insult.

My Z Harvest experiences have been going on for years…perhaps the owners and I need to attend some sort of relationship therapy. My husband and I discovered the café shortly after it opened. Wow! We were impressed. Crisp Italian breadsticks and real butter upon being seated, a great menu with choices for everyone, a view of the bistro style kitchen, a loaded dessert case filled with cheesecakes and cookies and the tinkling sound of jazzy funk piano playing in the back ground.

My husband’s salmon burger was perfect and the side of pasta salad was worth raving about all through the meal…and I did. Really…pasta, light vinaigrette, sugar snap peas, parmesan cheese, pine nuts and red pepper flakes…so delicious! I had a hot corned beef sandwich and could not believe so simple a sandwich could taste so good…One bite and I was transported back in time to my first corned beef sandwich at Mort’s Deli in Chicago. The meat was the perfect combination of salt and tang and the bread a grainy French peasant instead of the usual rye…surprisingly perfect. I should also mention my husband is the kind of guy who cannot have any meal (including breakfast) without a soda (Have we fallen from your good graces forever?). He was especially impressed when they served him Coke in those tiny glass bottles which he always insists taste better than fountain cola. Because of the size, he still maintains to this day that ordering five was not excessive.

We were so excited to finally find moderately priced good food made with fresh ingredients that we overlooked the ten minute wait to be seated (though there were empty tables) and the fifteen minute wait for our check (some sort of staff huddle was going on in the back). We raved on and on to our friends about our discovery and made plans to go back. Hmm…how did our raving turn to ranting?

Frankly, the service sucks. The servers are pleasant and try to accommodate, but there is clearly a breakdown on the owner/management level. We arrived to find the restaurant empty and yet we waited ten minutes to be seated. One of the owners indicated the person who seats customers would be with us shortly and went back to preparing (Prepping? The place was empty?) a salad. A wait person walked past and seemed uncomfortable seeing us still standing there and looked to the owner for guidance. The owner indicated (again) that someone would seat us in a moment and he seemed annoyed as he sighed deeply and called for “Mary.”

So determined were we to make this our favorite place, we just busied ourselves looking at the small section of French garden soaps, candies and gourmet potato chips. Clearly, the wait staff was not empowered to step into the host/hostess role even if they had no one to wait on. Finally, Mary, the other owner/hostess came from the back and sat us. Again, we enjoyed our meals (I had the best tuna salad of my life and my husband had a chicken breast grilled to perfection…no complaints about the food.) so we overlooked the long wait for our check and the fact that the owners were obsessively trying to hang fabric from the ceiling almost directly above our table. We left still endeared, but perhaps a bit less enchanted.

In the meantime, some of our friends checked the place out and agreed the food was great and the service was terrible. One of our friends never did receive the second coffee she ordered. When the owner walked by and my friend asked her if she could get that second cup, the owner glared at the wait person. Did I mention she never received the coffee?

We were at a party with other friends and began to talk about Z Harvest and everyone exchanged various horror stories about…yep, you guessed it…the owners! We agreed that this is the kind of business you hate to reward with financial support, but the food is just so damn good!

The last straw was when we decided to take my mother and in-laws there to celebrate my mother’s birthday. The salads are worth comment…fresh greens with apples, nuts, pears and a sweet dressing…my mother in-law had the other salad offered and got to enjoy the darkest of plump blackberries tossed with tender spinach in January! We were served absolutely fresh “makes you feel vital” kind of food as usual. Too bad it all went south from there. My mother in-law is not the culinary adventurer I am and had questions about the entrees, “what is in the sauce?” The wait person did not know and very nicely asked the owner (female) for some help. The owner was clearly irritated at having to answer questions as “obvious” as my mother in-law’s, but managed to spit out answers in such an unpleasant and condescending manner we were certain she took some pleasure in making us feel like a bunch of rubes.

Then, as the restaurant began to fill, it was apparent our table of five was a nuisance. I mean we had the unmitigated nerve to order salads and entrees…how much time were we going to have to hang around being pests when more important people needed to be seated? The owner could not hide exasperation behind her permanent frown when we took out our own cake (sugar-free—my father in law is diabetic) and ordered coffee dessert drinks to go with. I should tell you I called ahead and asked someone (apparently the wrong someone) if we could bring in a dessert since they had no sugar free offerings and we would be ordering a substantial amount of food…(no splitting of entrées for this clan, believe me). I was told it would not be a problem. I pity the poor employee who made such an egregious error, I suspect she must have been terminated or sentenced to some sort of “How Dare You Accommodate the Customer” prison camp. Anyway, the owner served our coffee herself and suggested we have paper cups since we would probably want our coffee to go. To go? After all, the Weidner Center show had just ended and they needed the table. To go? Paper cups and coffee to go after dinner for five? How considerate of her to offer.

Needless to say we left and this time we were not at all endeared. In fact, the bloom was so far off the carnation we didn’t think we would ever return. I wrote a letter explaining how troubling this type of consistently bad service was. I also indicated that it was not just us…sadly they were becoming known as a place with great food and lousy service. I wrote we had been their biggest fans, but it was getting hard to keep watching them lose. The owner called me and told me my letter (very nicely written and I assure you … kindly constructive…I’m serious…no joke.) had upset her terribly. She said it was just a terrible thing to read.

I felt bad, but pointed out it’s better to know when a customer is disappointed. She then complained about how she and her partner never have time off and they had no one they could rely on to leave in charge if they wanted to go somewhere. I listened and was very understanding…Glad to have written the letter because clearly she needed an outlet for her troubles. I explained that as a business owner myself, I understood the problems and it was never my intention to make her feel bad, only to point out the issues. I told her my husband and I wanted to return, we wanted to be customers but felt after eleven (no exaggeration) visits we had to stop spending our money there. I tried to make her feel better by insisting that we really did love the food. Do you see the problem here? It was a fifteen minute phone call and I did my best to make her feel better about my disappointment in the service? She offered me a gift certificate and said we could pick it up at any time. My husband and I never picked up the certificate because he decided to boycott the place entirely. I went along with the boycott until the lure of a good deli sandwich made me secretly try them again. Unfortunately, I met with the same bad service. In fact, it took twenty four minutes just to get someone to take my credit card so I could pay my bill. If my husband reads this he is going to say it serves me right…I’ve managed to keep him in the dark about crossing the boycott line. So much for couple’s unity…oh the secrets and lies!

Since my last visit in April, I’ve bumped into three people (all strangers) who just in conversation mentioned the bad service there! At Farmer’s Market I overheard a woman saying she wanted to make a salad similar to one she had at Z Harvest. Her friend said, “Hey, we made a deal never to go back there!” The woman sounded ashamed as said, “Oh I know, but it’s such good food!” I can relate.

My mother returned with a friend for lunch and was determined to have an enjoyable experience. When her dessert arrived differently than described and she pointed it out to the server, she was informed that if she “had just read the whole description” she would see it was served as described. My mother did get the dessert sheet, read further and saw that it was not served as described…no apologies were offered.

In summary: Great food, great décor, but the management has issues….

Go for the food and hope you get lucky with the service. The wait staff is almost always friendly, but they seem to be at the mercy of micro manager/owners. If you do go, please try the hibiscus flower water with lime and brown sugar…truly remarkable. I guess I’ll make my own. And soak up the trendy atmosphere; the owners have a real knack for decorating and a great sense of style.


Z Harvest Cafe
2475 University Ave
Green Bay 54302 • 920-468-1685
Mon-Tue 11am-3pm, Wed-Sat 11am-9pm

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