Lunds & Byerlys Kitchen

The Kitchen advertised barbecue on Thursday for $ 15 a plate is a small serving of pulled pork that was cold and served on aluminum foil with small demi cups of canned beans and cheap coldslaw. Save your money and avoid this highly touted «special» It’s not worth the money. You can get a similar meal at the Muni for far less.

I’m surprised people are critical of this place. The food is excellent, the prices are very fair, the vibe is great, the staff are pleasant… you are out of the cold and rain when you are here… Come on people! The wifi works well. Yes mobile phones get zero bars here, and the coffee service is odd (shared with Caribou across the store), but all in all, I love the place. Pizza for two $ 8 – 12. Hidden secret, Happy Hour 3−6p daily… excellent craft beer pints for $ 3 and fish tacos are $ 4. I’m writing this realistic review to try to help out the open minded, and to add the business they deserve. Just don’t pile in please, I like it that I can get a nice seat here almost any time!

I really love the concept of what Lunds & Byerlys is trying to do, but it really isn’t there yet. Like many people have stated, the service is pretty eh, but my theory on the issue is this:
When the Kitchen first opened, you didn’t have a server come to your table. You either ordered/​paid on the iPad at the table or went up to the front and ordered right when you got there. They were not over staffed and you really only saw the servers when you were getting your food or getting a refill on water. It was way more «do it yourself» then it is now, and I am kinda upset that it changed.
When I went there about a week or two ago, the kitchen was «upgraded». They had a live band playing jazz music and an actual waiter came to our table a fews minutes after my friends and I sat down. So, I guess they are trying to be more upscale and an actual restaurant? Fine. But if you’re going to do that, then commit!
The Kitchen needs to have a hostess position (which they don’t). Having someone at the cash register for takeout orders doesn’t count. Also, it is extremely confusing for the customer when you have an «order for yourself» iPad menu but then the server takes the iPad to the kitchen so the chef can see what you ordered, and then proceeds to bring the iPad back to your table so you can pay on the iPad. What?! The iPad is supposed to cut out the middleman, but if you want the restaurant to have a fancier feel, then you can’t have the iPad. It’s one or the other Lunds Kitchen.
To get to the point, I think the servers realize that the iPads are basically doing their jobs and they just don’t understand how to serve properly because half of their job is already done by the time they get to the table. Plus, the Kitchen probably hasn’t taught them how to serve in the restaurant environment, so it is understandable that the servers are uncomfortable with customers and how to do their jobs effectively.
With all that being said, I also think that they are over priced for what they serve and the quality of food is unpredictable. Some of their food is amazing (the truffle french fries) and then others are eh (one of my friends ordered a pizza and the middle of the dough was uncooked while the outside was on the burnt side).

We ate breakfast here a few weeks ago and found it OK. I did not like that my coffee took over 5 minutes to come to the table as the wait person had to order it from the Caribou coffee shop located in the deli area. She did refill it. The wait person took our order at this visit.
This morning we attempted to eat breakfast here again. We seated our self and finally the wait person showed up. The place opened at 7:00am, we were there at 7:15 and the only people we saw in the place was the clean up crew cleaning the floors. They smiled and said hello.
The first iPad brought to our table did not work so the wait person had to go get another one. Since it took more than 5 minutes to get a cup of coffee last time, I decided to walk over to the Caribou counter. There was no one there, the lights were on, but it appeared no coffee was made ready for customers. All I saw was a notebook and a pen on the counter. I waited a few minutes and no one showed up. Went back to the table.
The new iPad was at the table. My husband plugged in his order. The wait person came back over and I asked how long would it take to get a cup of coffee. She said she would message Caribou and make sure it got there soon. I plugged my breakfast order in the iPad and when i ordered bacon, I was unable to order it the way I liked, extra crispy. At this point I did not want to walk around the place, find a person and hope my bacon got cooked the way I like. (last time with a wait person taking my order, it came out perfect.) I still did not have coffee.
How hard is it to have coffee ready when you are serving breakfast?
Now I was not happy and we left. Had breakfast across the street at Maggies.
We will not be back for breakfast and I question if we would be bothered to come back for another meal when there are many other restaurants to choose from in Wayzata.

While I really like the concept of the Lunds & Byerlys Kitchen, on my 5^th visit last night, they were not operating on all cylinders. It was 7:30 on Friday night. Only about 60% of the seating was occupied, so while there was a buzz in the air, it was not busy for staff. I like ordering from an iPad. With my meal, I ordered a soft drink. Once the order was placed, it took 8 minutes for the server to deliver the empty glass so I could then self serve my soda selection. That amount of wait time is unacceptable particularly when not busy.
For my meal, I ordered a hamburger. I have enjoyed their hamburger in the past. It came in 13 minutes. Not too bad, but longer than expected for a half full restaurant. How long would it take if the restaurant was busy?
They provide a simple selection, Pink or Not Pink. The Pink option gives the cook a very wide range of doneness and be able to get it right. This burger was served well done. Perhaps it wouldn’t have taken 13 minutes if prepared right. Since I was so hungry at this moment, I ate it without complaint.
On prior visits the server/​food runner did check in on us to see how we enjoyed our meal. On this night, the floor manager did check in, but that was not until we were finished with the meal. She apologized for the incorrectly prepared burger and offered a dessert.
We weren’t the only ones experiencing less than stellar service. For example, the table next to us had to get up from their table after receiving their meals to grab tableware and napkins from another table so they could eat.
While I like the concept, if this sort of service level is becoming the norm, rather than the exception, this place will struggle.

Lunds & Byerlys Kitchen is basically a Byerlys grocery store without all the low margin dry grocery stuff that’s traditionally in the center of the store. If you took most of the periphery departments like deli, cheese, hot foods, juices and combined it with a caribou, small restaurant and small floral shop you’d have this concept store.
It’s a little hard to find as it has a small sign in keeping with Wayzata signage standards, but is on the edge of a massive condo development which when finished will provide them with a steady stream of affluent customers. It’s unclear where to park although I found two hour street parking on Superior Blvd.
Basically they have the same quality food as the full-​sized stores and there were several people parked in the café enjoying the free wi-​fi the morning that I visited.

Sat at the bar. Bartender was nice, and they have a good craft beer selection. Ordered a bunch of things to go, everything tasted great. Proscuitto balsamic pizza was especially good, and had a lot of proscuitto on it which was nice to see since sometimes places skimp on the expensive ingredients. The meet/​cheese board was also a great value, considering how much it would cost to replicate the same thing by yourself. Excited to try some of the ready-​made dinner options from the attached grocery store.

Customer service has gone away here, sadly… On so many occasions, I cant find a single person to help at the deli counter. Dont even bother voicing your concern, they will blame you for not «finding someone» I am not the only one having these issues, others that I have spoken with say the same thing.

Food was great and we actually like the order from table via iPad concept. I had the classic burger and truffle fries — burger was cooked just right with quality meat, the fries were also great and consumers by my kids very quickly. Kids portions were generous. My kids both ordered the pizza.

This place is a hidden gem. Whether you choose your own meal at the counter or order from the restaurant, you will enjoy your meal. The food is tastefully prepared and the waitstaff is friendly. Wine and beer is available too. Very nice for a casual get together.

4 women excited for a new lunch option instead sat and sat and sat until I finally went to the bar to get water and to see if lunch was even being served. The problem is as follows: the main demographic of your clientele is baby boomer and up, given the senior citizens that live in building and in the area. The concept of ordering on iPads may be intuitive to some, but was terribly clumsy and confusing to us. Given the other comments here, I don’t feel like I am the only one made to feel like a Luddite. In an attempt by the restaurant to save time and money by cutting out human interaction and service, they have squandered both. People like to be waited on, not to be forced though a laborynth of confusion that creates more problems than it solves.

Sounds like my experience at Lunds & Byerlys Kitchen was pretty similar to others – food was good but service was lacking. I won’t even say it was bad because we could barely even find a person who worked there… and we went at lunchtime. Most of our group figured out the iPad ordering system – as a heads up, you can grab them off other tables and change the table number to match where you are sitting so your whole party doesn’t have to wait around for the same machine to look at a menu and order.
Since it is a new concept, it would be nice to have SOME direction. We were left to kind of figure stuff out on our own… if we could use iPads from other tables, how to get drinks, etc. My biggest complaint with the lack of human being service staff was there was no way to modify the order or ask any questions – allergies, does it come with a side, asking for no pickles on the burger, etc. I may be high maintenance, but I hardly ever order anything exactly as presented on the menu – and I know I am not the only one.
The presentation of the food was a little sad too. It tasted good but my brined turkey sandwich with cranberry aioli came out on a plain white plate, all by itself. No side, no flair, nothing. Just a sandwich. Again it was good, but it was just kinda lame.
Not exactly sure what vibe they are trying to achieve here, but whatever it was didn’t make me WANT to go back. I will go back, but not because they are doing anything right, only because the other restaurant options have long waits or are expensive for a casual, everyday lunch.

Lund’s Kitchen is a smart concept that was designed for Wayzata. The food is an epicurean’s delight, the experience low on service but high on spirit and the location sublime. I strongly recommend Lund’s Kitchen provided you’re open to a low– to no-​service experience.
Orders are placed at the table via iPad and you pay with a credit card at the time of order.

This grocery store is a good place if you’re looking for something unique and high-​quality. I found a nice selection of cheese and crackers for an evening snack. The store opened about eight months ago and is new, clean, high ceilings, and a sizable café area.
It’s located about a block away from Lake Minnetonka and downtown Wayzata’s small shops and upscale restaurants.

Odd to write a restaurant review and not talk much about the food. Suffice to say that we had sandwiches and some fries and that everything was decent.
Instead, I’d like to focus on our experience. I met someone here that I hadn’t seen in a number of months and we were eager to catch up. We sat down and saw the iPad that you use for reviewing the menu, selecting items and paying.
Execution is everything and the iPad app they have is mediocre. It was relatively slow to start with and the way you navigate through the menu is to pop open a section (e.g. Pizza) and then scroll around to see if you want something. If you don’t, you tap to close that section and then select another one (say, From the Grill). There are several other sections you can choose from, so exploring the menu is clunky, time consuming and a pain in the *ss if you kind of liked something you saw earlier, but can’t remember what section it’s in. On top of that, there’s only one iPad per table, so you can each take 5 minutes navigating through the poor interface, while not talking. We finally just picked a couple sandwiches, some fries and a Coke.
However, when you complete your order, you are asked to swipe your credit card to pay and send the order to the kitchen. Unfortunately, our iPad was having technical issues and would not accept payment. We flagged down one of the staff who cheerfully grabbed an iPad from another table and advised that she would «transfer» transfer our order to the new iPad. I was probably overly optimistic when I hoped that there was some function that would enable her to «send» the order to the other iPad, but luck was not in our corner. Instead, she had to transfer it by manually re-​entering each item in our order. Since she didn’t know exactly what we’d ordered or whether we’d made substitutions, she had to ask us a couple question about each item. We finally wrapped up the order and payment was successfully transmitted.
So, I chose this restaurant in the hopes of having a nice place to connect and catch up w/​a friend. Twenty minutes after arriving, we have barely spoken to each other as we tried to navigate the clumsy menu and balky technology.
As for some context, I’m not a Luddite or technophobe – I deal w/​website and app development all the time for my work. It’s not that I couldn’t figure out the technology, its just that the ordering experience was so poor it impacted my overall opinion of the place. I understand why restaurants might be looking to technology to reduce staffing needs and costs, but it should not come at the expense of customer experience.

Someone greeted us at the front door as we entered from the underground parking garage, so we knew right what it was all about. We happened to be there for the first day of happy hour – $ 5 wine, $ 8 beer flight/​with a pint of your favorite, and food specials. The beer flight was a great idea and worth the $ 8. The food was fine, although I do agree with the previous review that it is a bit bland – but most Minnesota born like it that way, so maybe they are gong for the biggest bang. We sat at the bar so we got full service – if you are at a table you order at your ipad and grab it at the counter when it’s ready – if they are not busy it looks like they help you out and bring it to you – not quite sure. Worth a trip, but don’t go too far out of your way.

I think they need to work on the concept a bit. Walking in for the first time, it’s a little intimidating for the uninitiated because it’s an enormous space and there isn’t any indication about what you should do. But basically once you figure out that you just plop down anywhere there is open seating and order from the iPad, things go fairly smoothly.
The space is nice but it does look a lot like the deli section of Byerly’s at Ridgedale (with a bar). Someone had a good design idea to have the tables all be wildly irregular log slabs… that is until you try to sit down and find yourself way too close or miles away from your dining companion. As someone else noted, cell reception is near zero and we were totally unable to connect to the wifi. The iPad menu is a little fidgity, making it difficult to scroll down the list without inadvertently ending up somewhere you don’t want to be which quickly gets frustrating.
As far as food, it’s pretty much what you can get in the deli at Byerly’s or Lund’s with some extras like seared scallops, etc. Solid quality for someone on the go but I would hardly recommend it as a destination for an evening out. D’Amico across the street seems like more of a destination in comparison. It’s a decent option for someone in the neighborhood who might otherwise just grab a roasted chicken at Byerly’s but might also enjoy consuming it in an environment more lively and interesting than their own kitchen table.
So after looking over the options on the iPad menu, we just decided to have a cheese plate and a glass of wine and grab dinner somewhere else. We were pleased to see that they have a number of good cheese and charcuterie options which might bring us back if we want a break sometime from running errands. The wine and beer options struck us as better than average.
I think they’re onto something here for the way we live in the 21^st century but they haven’t quite nailed it. I applaud the grab and go concept in tandem with the option to order from the table and adult beverage options but I would suggest a little more distinction between the deli area and the dining area. And maybe they should rethink the table menu… I don’t go out to dinner to eat grocery store sushi.

Ordering by iPad is better in theory than in reality. Their app is customized and offers you pictures of the food, but it takes a long time to load. The games we tried to play while we waited didn’t work. Food took a long time to get to us (ordered two burgers and it took about 25 mins). But the burgers were delicious! Gouda cheese, sweet onion jam. YUM. Service was okay, we didn’t have a specific server, so of course, no one was there to check on our order until we flagged someone down. There’s an attached covered parking lot. this isn’t a full grocery store, but instead, everything is grab-​and-​go.

Upscale, but the price doesn’t match the quality of food.
The positives: convenient location, an indoor parking garage that has access to the store, a wide variety of pre-​made items, a Caribou Coffee and a decent amount of seating.
The negatives: The quality of the prepared food isn’t any better than existing Lunds/​Byerlys which is a shame for the price they charge. It’s aimed at people who like bland and uninteresting cuisine. The sushi is… aimed at people who don’t care for sushi and continues to use avocado that’s entirely too firm for a roll. Overall Whole Foods offers better quality.
The AT&T mobile phone coverage is non-​existent. The wifi doesn’t work: «LundsGuest» appears but does not connect at all. Half the cash registers were out of commission on my visit.
The concept is really sound (and has been proven in major cities), I really want this to work but the food quality for price just isn’t going to keep me coming back. It feels comfortable and safe for the massive senior living facility that surrounds it – and I suppose that makes good business sense for this particular generation of seniors. My generation will probably of be more picky.
update: ¹²⁄₂₀₁₄
I’ve been coming here on and off for months: parking is convenient. The food is still disappointing for the money. The self-​serve hot bar they added is absurdly priced for the offerings. The user interface on the iPad menus has been updated but is also broken – trying to order an item it wouldn’t let me continue due to a design error on that particular menu.
Remains a 3-​star experience.

Lunds & Byerly’s Kitchen is a unique and upscale food destination that is frool (foodie + drool) worthy.
One side of «the kitchen» is the dining area with offerings including burgers, stone-​oven pizzas, seasonal entrées, meat and seafood flights, kid (and gluten-​free!) friendly meals. There is a beautiful wine and beer bar featuring a hearty selection of craft beers on tap and wines. Browsing and ordering off the menus are powered via iPad located at each table (like the upgrades to the airport restaurants).
I’m writing my review for the two nights I stopped for food. First night: stopped by for a late night bite after a TWolves game on a Friday night. It was about 10:30 p.m. and there were about 6 other people in the bar. We got the small Minnesotan Cheese Flight (Camembert, Blue, + Chevre) paired with candied pecans and honey (if you like cheese, get this). We also got the Portobello + Pesto on a Bun. Both delicious. Service was not good but the food more than made up for it. They let us know they were totally slammed that night. I wasn’t expecting perfection since they had only been open for two days.
I was able to peek at the other side of «the kitchen» while we were waiting for our food and it is spectacular. It is focused more on the «take-​out» side with made-​to-​order sandwiches, sushi, a hot food bar, salad bar, and charcuterie (all the awesomeness on the perimeter of their grocery stores on steroids). They also have a well filtered market where you can get all the essentials you need to pull a meal together at home. My favorite part is the spice section. It’s like having a little piece of Penzey’s on the west side. They were about to close, so I didn’t get the full experience and knew I needed to come back ASAP. So I made a date with the fam to come back for dinner the next day.
Second night: we arrived about 6 p.m. for dinner. It was busy, but we didn’t have to wait for a table. We ordered the balsamic prosciutto pizza (topped with chevre, fig jam, caramelized shallots, and arugula), small cured meats flight, seared sea scallops (served on a bed of corn succotash). All selections were really good. Pizza was a bit heavy on the cheese which made the crust a little soggy for my taste, but all the flavors and seasonings were perfect and ingredients were well prepared. There were quite a few kinks to the service, the staff seemed really overwhelmed and had the hardest time get my glass for water. When paying for my order via iPad, there wasn’t an option to tip. We ended up leaving cash on the table but not sure if everyone would do so. If the service was smoother, I would easily give this place 5 stars.
This place will definitely liven up the food scene in Wayzata. They definitely got my attention, I may stay a little closer to home because of this little gem.