The Flaming Eggplant Cafe

This place is definitely unique. The food is great, heavy on garlic for some items if you like that, grab the tempeh grizzle. The grain and bean bowl is cheap, and the environment is very «Evergreen». A student-​run collective café that often has somebody playing nice piano, good reading material, and a welcoming, warm environment. Much love to the Eggplant staff. The wait times are long, this isn’t Chipotle, try and enjoy the ambiance eh?

This experiment in student run enterprises is more like a sadistic piece of performance art. In the performance, customers are made to line up for interminable amounts of time. At the end of the wait a chipper but inept food handler will do one or more of the following:
1a. tell you that the food item you want is unavailable
1b. tell you that your second and third items of choice are unavailable
2. handle your food in an unsanitary way
3. charge you too much for something you could have cooked better (and more thoroughly) at home
If nothing else, this grim spectacle serves as a sort of morality play:
PACK A LUNCH!

Shitty customer service and over priced food. I waited about 10 minutes at the counter before anyone helped me. Though the staff kept making eye contact with me the whole time but wouldn’t step in to help. I got a simple chocolate croissant. Pretty bad, I don’t know how you can mess is up.
Bottom line. I’d come here to study and get a drink but I wouldn’t come here on a lunch break again

The food is good, if a bit more greasy than I expected. However, the time it takes them to get you your food is deplorable. I watched them make food for their coworkers (while they were are working) before making food for the customers. This made me a little sad. I do recommend the salmon burger. Dayumm. I do want to try breakfast sometime. And I like the atmosphere

This is the worst food service in olympia. I wish I could eat here. My assumption is that most of the ppl that work here have never worked in food service before, let a lone an actual Job before in there life. 20 mins for sausage, toasted bread, grilled onions, lettuce and sauce no matter the time of day? That is laughable. Anyways, this is the main reason I don’t eat here plainly because I don’t have that kind of time in my half hour break. And listen activists :-/​if you can’t do any better then listening to your punk rock, you are not going to make this world any better at all. How on earth could you stand up to any other food service. Only because you’re on evergreen campus. I remember when this place was a food truck in red squar. It was deliciousness then, but now… Come on managment… Do something!

Decent alternative to commodification in the food industry. A few things, though. Customer service is not the strongsuit of the Flaming Eggplant. I’ve noticed some of the cashiers tend to be nicer to white people, but that’s just my experience.
Your chili sauce is a joke. It’s more like sweet ketchup sprinkled with salt, but I have had 1 or 2 plates that are decent which have dragged my review from 1 to 3 stars.
A lot of the cooking, I’m assuming some of the chefs are experienced, actually produce quality food. I find it amazing the Flaming Eggplant — as small as it is challenge ARAMARK downstairs from their location. I criticize harshly, but I will also be the first to praise some of their deliciousness. Vegan and Vegetarian friendly options are cool.
Prices are pricey, so it’s more accessible to a certain crowd, but that’s the reality inside a Capitalist system.
Learn to use spices, though, and I’ll update the review. It’s obvious what the demographic behind the kitchen is.
No spice.