Holts Gourmet

This place isn’t as bad as what others are saying — I’m a regular here. While it can be fairly busy at lunch, most of the time, servers are fairly prompt/​quick. It IS order-​at-​the-​counter/​quick service, so you can’t expect the same quality of food as Holt’s Café upstairs. Food is fairly consistent with the same proteins/​panini selection, while salads rotate a little. The avocado and cheese panini is DELICIOUS, though it is the only vegetarian option — they used to have grilled vegetables, but it was dropped some time in 2015. I would love for them to bring that back, especially as a vegan option.
Holts Gourmet also has a grab-​and-​go fridge with pre-​packed salads and sandwiches. The sandwich selection has changed slightly over the past few years, with a few more vegetarian options, but some old favourites, including mayo-​free avocado and tomato, seemed to have disappeared. Bring those back!!! :)

Based on the reviews below, I’m afraid to say anything positive. I didn’t see the shit show mentioned below but that comment sure made me laugh. I was happy with everything. I wouldnt race back as it wasn’t anything special.

What a shit show. I lined up at the salad/​sandwich counter to order a sandwich. Apprarently I was standing too close to the salads as I was instructed to move in front of the sandwiches to order… so I took one step to the right where the same lady immediately asked me again what I would like to order, as if she’d never seen me before! What? I went to pay while it was being toasted, however the lady at the register was too busy to serve me, and didn’t even look up for a whole of 2 minutes while I just stood there like a goof. A friendly smile occasionally from the service staff wouldn’t go astray here. I left with my sandwich to go, feeling stressed out after the whole experience!

We ended up here while walking around in the Holt Renfrew Center. There was a big lineup on the coffee/​tea kiosk and even the separate line for café was packed (hint you can order coffee/​tea in the café line and pickup there) The desserts looked tempting so we decided to order a trio of those and went for cappuccino, coffee and breakfast tea. The desserts that I got to try were the rhubarb tart (the cashier mistook it for cranberry one) and butter tart. They were both decent.
The café has a huge illy signs everywhere so I was looking for a half decent cappuccino at the very least. Their lines moved quite slow and the staff is not very friendly to say the least. The cappuccino that was served before me looked nice but somehow the one I got was in a mug and didn’t have any of the visual appeal exhibited in an earlier iteration. The espresso shot was surprisingly weak though the coffee and tea fared well and were enjoyed by the others.
A decent alternate to the chain offerings on this stretch of the mink mile.