Because Maple Avenue is cluttered with a seemingly random assortment of stores and restaurants, Magnolia Dessert Bar and Coffee can be easy to miss. The building may not necessarily be the most eye-catching or attractive, but the value of this restaurant, especially its originality, lies within.
After entering, the setting immediately feels very cramped. A lot of the tables are placed in very inconvenient or awkward locations and there is hardly any space to move throughout the restaurant.
But certain of the aspects of the setting make Magnolia unique. While the interior design feels very modern, it also embraces its Asian influence. Customers can purchase chips and candy from Thailand, which are placed for sale around the restaurant.
Magnolia’s menu is overwhelming, to say the least. They mainly offer a selection of breakfast items, as well as certain Thai dishes. They provide images of all their drinks and food items, but the menu reinforces the claustrophobic atmosphere of the restaurant.
All food items fit on one page, front and back, in an incredibly disorganized manner, and the pictures the restaurant presented mainly served as distractions rather than a way to make ordering easier or more convenient.
Additionally, a majority of their menu items have no description of what they are made of, most likely because of the limited space on their menu. But with more and more people becoming vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free, it seems inconsiderate for a restaurant to not include the ingredients in their food.
Other basic elements of a well composed menu that Magnolia lacks are portion size and calories. Customers cannot order a small or large meal like other restaurants. They are forced to accept whatever Magnolia decides is an appropriate size for a certain food item. They also have no context on how healthy, or unhealthy, their food truly is, which can be essential depending on the customers’ dietary needs.
Once customers order, the food does not take long to reach their table. The average time is around 15 minutes. Considering how much the cooks had to prepare, this time was not bad at all. The food itself was well worth the wait. The way it was plated, with a small personalized Magnolia chocolate, and how the food tasted, were particularly incomparable to any other restaurant.
With the authenticity of their food and their contemporary layout, Magnolia definitely has the potential to become a popular location for people of all ages. But before being able to compete with other major breakfast restaurants, Magnolia must refine their menu and consider the needs of their customers.