Au Bon Pain

Remind me not to go here anymore. 10 minutes in line, 30 minutes to make the sandwich (with several people behind me getting theirs first). Unacceptable.

Although they were out of avocado at 5PM on a Wednesday, I ordered the Chipotle Turkey (typically + Avocado) using my free sandwich birthday certificate. The staff was attentive and the person at the register even said happy birthday when I used my coupon, which was very sweet!
The bad:
At first bite, I liked the sandwich, but the oil/​flavor of the roasted tomatoes (soaked in some kind of vinaigrette maybe?) was too overpowering – started off nice and tangy but then felt sickeningly sour/​salty. I ended up taking most of them out. I could have done without the cheese and the turkey was somewhat dry. It’s possible that the avocado would have minimized some of these issues.
The good:
Wonderful ciabatta bread as usual. I liked the arugula. The sauce was good and I liked the subtle kick of chipotle.
Wouldn’t order this sandwich again, but would come back to this location.

This Au Bön Pain is amazing for one main reason: the manager Kellie Costello. We arrived at the Boston Children’s Museum with a group of 150 campers and counselors, and discovered upon arrival that our catering order had been made for the wrong day. Kellie SAVED us with her fast thinking, and helped to create lunches for all 150 people with no notice in a very short amount of time, keeping everyone happy and fed. We can’t thank you enough Kellie! You are simply THE BEST.

This is the best ABP that I’ve been to. The manager, Kellie, was SO helpful to our huge group. She saved us from a crisis of having no food for 150 people. Come here for amazing customer service and great food!

Hours + convenience make this a go-​to spot. You can also get good values for your $$. It’s all in your choices – very easy to spend a lot too.
I like the mocha or chai tea latte. Sometimes I’ll go for peach/​green iced tea + lemonade.
Re: sandwiches, I actually really like the egg sandwiches with meat + cheese on a bagel – with tomatoes. Just tried the egg white fritatta – it’s actually really good and the veggies are what make it taste really fresh, but I don’t know if I’d let them put it on a skinny bagel again – next time, will ask for the asiago cheese bagel in the picture.
I think morning service is the best. It can be hit or miss later in the day + I try to avoid it when it’s slammed at lunch time.
Look out for the second register by the handcrafted espresso station – if it’s particularly busy.

I’ve stopped at this ABP on a few occasions to grab iced coffee. I prefer it to the Dunkin’ next door, and it’s not as pricey as Barrington (though also not nearly as good — I acknowledge this). For the warm months, medium iced coffees are only $ 0.99, which is nice. I think they have French roast and French vanilla. Neither is great, but the French vanilla has less of a scraped-​off-​the-​bottom-​of-​a-​roaster taste.
Here’s a really awful thing about this place: kids. It’s essentially the cafeteria for the Children’s Museum. I walked in there today during prime lunch time and immediately felt agita and smelled children. It was really crowded and uncomfortable. If you don’t like loud, smelly things, don’t have kids, and don’t come here between 11:00 and 2:00.
I will acknowledge, however, that even though they seem to be a subset of the Children’s Museum, they still honor promotions (like $ 0.99 medium iced coffees) and I think they take gift cards as well, which is cool.
Pro tip: There’s a little sandwich stand inside the Hood milk carton building right outside the museum.

Should’ve gone to Panera Bread instead (and I miss the rosemary focaccia bread). :-(
I haven’t been to Au Bön Pain since Harvard Square years ago, primarily because of the expense (almost $ 11 for a sandwich, chips, and drink). My husband recently participated in an Au Bön Pain focus group held by an independent researcher and was given a $ 75 gift card (and the food he brought home was top notch); so I made my first visit back to Au Bön Pain in a couple of years, getting a tuna salad sandwich on multigrain baguette. Disappointingly, I’m pretty sure that neither the tuna salad nor the baguette were less than a day old: the baguette – which should’ve been both crispy and chewy – was a dry, puffy mess; and the tuna salad (I’ve eaten lots of tuna salad, both homemade and from various sandwich joints) couldn’t have been less than a day old. Fresh tuna salad isn’t that cold, dense, and dark (if you’ve ever made your own tuna salad and stored some overnight, you’ll know what I’m describing… it’s just different the second day).
Since I have $ 60 left on this card, I’ll try another Au Bön Pain, but definitely not at this location. Once I’ve used the gift card’s balance up, though, there’s no way I’ll pick Au Bön Pain over Panera Bread.

Visited with my kids when at the Boston Children Museum, since its literally next door. Tried the Caprese — Was pretty good, Mac & cheese — pretty decent and Veg Bean Burger with Avacado — this item was a hit with my wife and kids. Nice seating outside or inside !!!

It’s your standard ABP inside Children’s Hospital. The seating is very limited but it has all of the necessities and a decent soup selection quite early so you can even get a carrot ginger soup at 9 am. Just be forewarned that they don’t regularly check the coffee and they were out of my go-​to French Vanilla yesterday. Thank goodness for the Hazelnut backup.

Large ABP attached to the Children’s Museum. Plenty of seating and fairly clean. Typical ABP food fare. Outside seating too!

Well this joint has totally monopolized the Boston Childrens Museum. Literally! They have a cone like structure outside of it and share a part of the building that houses the museum.
This place I believe is a chain restaurant, but was not like a TGIF nor like a fast food joint. It was kinda in between and was acceptable for what we needed when we stopped in. We had had breakfast and a snack after going to the New England Aquarium then hoofed it over to the Tea Party Museum. Then a short trudge away as we were both famished was this joint. So in we went, hungry and thirsty as can be.
Pro Tip: If you are going to the kids museum, do not get suckered into upsizing your drink as you cant take it in with you.
They have all kinds of grub and it reminded me a lot of a place like Corner Bakery. Soups, kids meals, sammies, etc. I ended up with the tortellini soup and a lemonade. The munchkin got the mac n cheese kids meal ($ 4.99) w/​chips and a juice box. The soup was decent. It definitely filled the hole that my gnawing hunger was digging. The munchkin wasnt as hungry as she thought as she only ate about ½ of her mac n cheese and didnt even touch her chips. I was in shock! the lemonade was both good n bad. It had a different «tang» to it but mostly tasted good.
The staff was fairly friendly and the venue was mostly clean. We sat in the kids museum lunch room, in lieu of the regular Au Bön Pain seating area as that is what the munchkin wanted. Overall we were pretty pleased with this joint when we had to eat something or have the hunger monster attack with a vengeance.

I work in the building that houses this ABP and I come here a least once a week on average to get coffee and fatty desserts. I’m really impressed by the service demonstrated by the staff here. I can’t really describe it, but they are really nice. Sweet, considerate, patient (since I’m always looking at the menu even though I always get the same thing).
This place is great. The Salmon Wasabi Bagel thing is my breakfast of choice. It’s so so good and surprisingly «mature» for a place that caters to children.
Love it.

I work down the street from this Au Bön Pan and rarely go there for anything besides breakfast. Since I don’t go there for lunch, I never really have to deal with the kids that the other reviewers mention.
The Smoked Salmon Wasabi and the Egg White, Cheddar, and Avocado are the two sandwiches I get the most. Both of them are great and full of flavor.
Since I come between 8:30AM and 9:30AM the service is always good. There is never more than one person in line in front of me and I never wait more than 3 – 5 minutes before my breakfast is ready.

I couldn’t wait to write this, I’m still actually eating my sandwich as I type. I have no idea who ABP thinks they are but this is insane! I haven’t been to ABP in probably around 2 years and boy have things changed! They have always been a little overpriced, but you expect that walking in. I ordered the Caprese sandwich (my usual standby for when I used to go here often) and was handed this tiny little thing wrapped in paper. Is this really mine? The sandwich I use to get was on a long baguette that was a decent size. This is a whole different story. It’s on a tiny little square ciabatta roll and is honestly the size of a normal half sandwich.
Ok, yea yea American’s love large portions, but really what got me was that for this itsy bitsy sandwich and a bottle of iced tea (that was $ 2.50, i checked) my total came to $ 9.73. You are telling me that a little piece of bread with mozzarella, tomato, and pesto costs $ 7.23!!! Are you kidding me?! And this is at a chain… Come on!

Okay, so it’s Au Bön Pain food, which isn’t anything particularly special. Pastries, sandwiches, salads, a few hot foods. But it’s pretty good and healthy food compared to the kind of fare you would generally experience in a hospital (it always amazes me how the menus of most hospital cafeterias are dominated by deep fried goodies). And this Au Bön Pain location will make your salads to order (my favorite is the chicken cobb with avocado), which makes it superior to the location at Brigham and Women’s Hospital nearby or Northeastern University. Tip: I signed up for the mailing list and occasionally get $ 1 off coupons in my email (and end up eating Au Bön Pain many times before the coupon expires).

As an employee of BCH, I frequent this location for morning coffee, to satisfy a sweet tooth craving, pick up soup for my boss, etc. It’s consistently good– well stocked, pleasant customer service, good food. But I’m prompted to give a 5 star review today thanks to the amazing efforts of the staff and, in particular, the managers. I had to go in for TWO last minute catering requests today and they took care of me both times without a problem in a matter of minutes. Other places would have made excuses, lecture me about deadlines, give an eye roll or something, but not here. They went above and beyond for me and I am very thankful for that.

Well. Being in children’s hospital. I guess. It wouldn’t be too much to ask. To have A couple of gluten free goodies. I don’t. Cook. And I make awesome gluten free brownies! And wouldnt it be nice. To have one sandwich. Option With a gluten free wrap ?? When u ask them there about options. They look at u like u have 3 heads Soooo please get in the 21^st century. For every one kid. That is gluten sensitive. there are 20 More who Are. And don’t know. It. C’mon abp. Btw. They do offer. A couple of soups without wheat. So a step in the right direction
But nothing satisfies. When your stressed is to have something sweet !

I’d give the soups here 4 stars! They are amazing and they always have at least 3 or 4 vegetarian soups to choose from. I’ve tried and loved the barley and creamy lentil, the carrot ginger, the curried rice and lentil, the Thai coconut curry. They have the widest selection of, best tasting, and most creative vegetarian soups I’ve had at a sandwich place and are definitely better than Panera’s.
Conversely, I’ve not had a great experience with their sandwiches. The southwest tuna wrap is ok but the tuna sandwich is horrible — bland, cheeseless, overpriced.
In summary — come here for the soups. Go to Panera for everything else –pastries, bagels, sandwiches.

Is everyone here complaining about kids here joking?!? The CHILDREN’S MUSEUM is connected right to this Au Bön Pain spot… meaning you can walk through the restaurant and be in the CHILDREN’S MUSEUM. Do you all not know who goes to a CHILDREN’S MUSEUM!
Ok, so after that little rant, the food here is ok. I ordered the Teriyaki Steak salad, and is does appear to be pretty good for the calorie conscious. The steak was cooked to medium-​well, my one complaint is that I think they could do with using more dressing on the salad, it didn’t cover all of the salad with the dressing they put on.
I will agree that they need more space though, with them being connected to the Children’s Museum they get a lot of customers, your best bet is to really get your food to go

The Pros of this ABP:
–I know this sounds crazy but the soups at ABP are some of my favorite soups ever! This location never has my ultimate favorite (curried lentil. YUM) but it always has at least a few vegetarian soups. Love the black bean, tomato/​basil bisque and the moroccan lentil. The old fashioned tomato is so creamy it’s almost too much but is totally perfect for the winter (if only ABP sold a grilled cheese to go with!)
–Hospital employee check-​out line (yes!)
–Tiny CVS next door in case you need to run a quick errand
The cons of this ABP:
–Of course, extremely expensive. Hello, $ 7 cup of soup.
–It has a weird layout so getting a sandwich from the sandwich maker seems like a nightmare. Stick to the soups/​prepackaged stuff, or try the BWH ABP instead which is a tiny bit larger (contrary to the other review, this ABP is in Children’s NOT the Brigham). Also, obvs, stroller/​sick kid central. But it’s pretty much that way almost everywhere in Longwood.
–The iced coffee here is literally THE WORST iced coffee I’ve ever tasted. And I’ve had iced coffee from a gas station truck stop in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi.
Basically…you’re in the medical area. Your options are limited to here, Boloco, Sami’s, the hospital caf’s, and if you’re willing to venture further away, places in Brigham Circle or Fenway. When it’s 20 degrees out, a short walk to ABP doesn’t seem quite so bad. It’s not the best but I’ll take it.